00:00Well, we have plenty of snow on the ground across most of the Midwest and the interior
00:08Northeast. With our forecast feed, we want to look ahead to more opportunities for snow.
00:14Who will get into some additional snowfall late this week? Who could see your first snowflakes
00:19of the season, parts of the Mid-Atlantic, this Friday? And who also could see some more
00:24accumulating snow next week? A lot of cold air in view. A quick look at the snow cover,
00:28about 41% of the nation has snow cover. That's the second most for December 3rd among the
00:34past 15, 16 years or so in the current database of apples-to-apples snowfall and snow depth,
00:42snow depth comparison for snow cover this time of the year. And look at the big picture pattern
00:46here. We got a big dip in the jet stream. There is going to be another zone of cold that dislodges
00:53from the Arctic. And it's going to be following this Arctic front that barrels through the region.
00:59We're going to see a new round of lake effect, lake enhanced snow, and even some snow squalls
01:03that break out into Thursday. So there will be some hazards on the roads. But overall, big picture,
01:09when you get a pattern like this, and you have storm systems like the one in Colorado that'll
01:14be rounding the base of the trough and ultimately heading out to sea. We'll also have occasional
01:18northern branch disturbances that scoot through from a different trajectory. The pattern is right
01:23for more snow and more cold. And let's take a look at what's going on out there upstairs. So
01:29the storm system that's moving through the desert southwest and Colorado, that's going to be scooting
01:34east. You'll notice it's a more dynamic, more pronounced dip in the jet stream now and even through
01:40tonight than it will be as it kind of becomes kind of a real low amplitude trough. These bright colors
01:48indicate vorticity, which is a measure of spin. If the bright colors are coming toward you from the
01:52west, you'll likely see cloud production, rain and snow production, depending on the thermal
01:58characteristics of what's going on. But it's a flat wave. It's a very flat wave as this kind of
02:02streaks east. And another disturbance will follow. But it's kind of a low amplitude short wave,
02:10big picture, long wave pattern. We got a ridge in the west, big trough in the east. But the short wave
02:16itself, that is initially a pretty dynamic system, producing meaningful significant snow in Colorado.
02:22Here's the NAM. It similarly streaks east, has a little bit of a slightly more potent dip. But
02:29overall, it's still a low amplitude trough as it races east. So the explosive potential of this storm
02:37is not going to be present. It's not going to be a big one for us in the mid-Atlantic. There will be
02:41some decent moisture that this interacts with across the south. Here is yet another opinion. The European
02:46model, flat wave. Here's another one that follows. Here's another disturbance up near Lake Superior.
02:51But the message is pretty consistent here. We're going to be dealing with a relatively flat,
02:56fast-moving wave of low pressure. But it doesn't take much to produce snow when you've got cold air in
03:03place and just a hint of moisture. So here we are with the GFS model. And look at this. This one
03:09produces a signal of some snow. Now, I don't think it's really going to be snow into areas quite as far
03:14south. But part of this area, you'll see snow and some ice on Thursday night and Friday as this
03:20relatively flat wave scoots through. Heaviest precipitation on the wet, warm side near I-10.
03:25But to the north, here is the European model. And this has a pretty realistic-looking depiction of
03:31things. A little bit of snow out there and some ice in that pink zone as that scoots through.
03:36And you can see into Friday during the day, perhaps we could see a coating to an inch
03:40in Washington, D.C. Maybe a little more than that southwest of the city. Maybe near
03:44places like Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, maybe Warrington, for example. And look at this. Friday
03:50during the day, again, South Jersey, Delaware, maybe a little bit of a snow-ice mix. There's pretty
03:56good agreement that we could see something like that. Here's a third indication, a third opinion.
04:00The Canadian model, again, I'm maybe a little skeptical that we see flakes of Virginia Beach,
04:06perhaps on the front end. We could see a few snowflakes before a changeover to a little
04:09bit of rain at Virginia Beach. But west and north of there, Richmond, Virginia, you can see a little
04:14bit of snow. And into Delaware as well. Fourth opinion, here's the NAMM. So we look at the GFS,
04:18the European. Again, Friday morning, GFS, European, the Canadian. And here is the NAMM,
04:26which doesn't produce a whole lot of precipitation on the north side. But anything up this way would
04:31be in the form of some frozen precip. I wanted to point out, you can see the dips in the isobars,
04:37the kinks that push south. And again, that's a sign that we're looking at cold air damming. Cold
04:43air is dense. It hugs the ground. And the orientation of the mountains here, when you have an area of
04:49high pressure to the north, it just clams up the cold that gets stuck east of the spine of the
04:55mountains. That's why we see a lot more of these occasional snow and ice events in east central
04:59North Carolina compared to in Crossville or Cookville, Tennessee. The same latitude east of
05:06the mountains versus west of the mountains. That cold gets stuck on the east side. And that's why
05:11we see a lot of those events. Now, taking you into a model depiction of how much snow might fall,
05:17again, we should keep our expectations in check. But this time of the year, before December 10th,
05:21this is early in the season. So if you're looking for snow in Virginia or northern North Carolina,
05:28this is a little bit early. And you can see a couple of pixels there. Just a hint. We don't
05:31want to take the models too literally, but somebody out there could see three to six inches in the
05:35highest elevations. A one to three inch event there in the GFS for the interior of Virginia.
05:39The NAMS kind of timid. Again, we didn't see a whole lot of precipitation on the north side. But even
05:43this produces nine tenths of an inch of snow in areas like Richmond. And the European,
05:47again, was able to crank out an inch plus in Richmond. And two to three inches from
05:53Charlottesville down into areas like Blacksburg and Roanoke. So what is our team actually thinking
05:59here forecast-wise? Here's our forecast map. A general coding to an inch or two in the blue
06:03areas. That includes Delaware, South Jersey. Probably no precip north of the PA Turnpike.
06:09Maybe not even in Philadelphia. But we do think that that'll be happening in places like Smyrna,
06:13Delaware, Dover, Baltimore, D.C., Warrington, Harrisonburg, Charlottesville. A lot of these
06:20areas down into Roanoke, Blacksburg. I think that's the highest confidence area down there
06:23to the south. And overall behind that, we stay cold this weekend, dip in the jet stream,
06:29and there's more Arctic air that'll be around into mid-December.
06:33So to wrap this up here, yes, we're dealing with cold in the Midwest. Not much organized snow there,
06:37but snow and ice coming to the Mid-Atlantic on Friday. And then early next week,
06:41and even late next week, more opportunities in parts of the Midwest and the Northeast.
06:47So as we take a look ahead, just a quick, quick little snapshot. You get an idea.
06:50The chance for some snow out there coming to more areas across the Great Lakes.
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