First accumulating snow of the season coming to New York and Philly

AccuWeather

After a fast-moving storm hits the Midwest with snow from Dec. 11-12, a new system will race into the Northeast this coming weekend, likely bringing the first measurable snow of the season to the I-95 corridor.

Transcript

00:00It is time for the forecast feed. We have a lot to talk about, and we are expecting to see our

00:04first accumulating snow of the season in Philadelphia, probably in New York, and most

00:10likely in Boston. Now, for an official snow to be considered accumulating, we need a tenth of an

00:15inch at the airport. We're forecasting one to three inches in some of these areas. We're going

00:20to look at the forecast here in just a second. So, first off, before we get to the storm system

00:25that's going to produce that, we want to take a look at what's coming in beforehand. There

00:30is a disturbance that's going to be rolling through the Midwest, the Northern Plains, and

00:34into parts of the Ohio Valley. This system is going to paint a stripe of one to three inches

00:40of snow in Minneapolis and Chicago, and three to six inches for some in areas like central

00:46Illinois and down in the west central parts of Indiana. That system is going to be one

00:52that races through. It's a fast mover, and quickly, it's going to be followed by another

00:57system that will really dump some heavy snow to the area, at least in some narrow zones

01:04in parts of Montana. We'll pick that one up with some heavy snow in the Northern Rockies.

01:09And in some parts of the plains, a moderate snowfall, and perhaps one to three inches for the big

01:14cities of the Northeast as well. We'll get there in a minute. But behind that first system,

01:19there's another front that's going to bring some really cold air. Even before the really

01:23cold air arrives Thursday morning, it's cold out there in the upper Midwest with temperatures

01:27below zero, five below Minneapolis in the GFS model at 6 a.m., the European a little milder

01:33at 7 above. You can get your official forecast on AccuWeather.com and the AccuWeather app.

01:39But look at what happens here following that. A new Arctic front is going to send some tremendously

01:45cold air southward. And as we step into the weekend, look at Sunday morning, huge area

01:51with temperatures below zero, some in areas near St. Cloud or Bemidji, 10 to 20 below zero,

01:5918 below zero Minneapolis, 19 below zero here in the European model for areas around Fargo

02:05and Grand Forks, just exceptional chill out there. And then moving forward, that is going to dislodge

02:11from the Northern Plains. And it's going to be really cold Monday morning into Indiana,

02:15near zero in Indianapolis. And then some pretty cold air, but it's going to begin to moderate.

02:21And a big warming trend will follow by Thursday, temps above freezing all the way up into Boston.

02:27So that'll be a nice change. Now, we want to take a look at how this plays out with disturbances.

02:33One of these is associated with this dip in the jet stream. It's kind of a subtle dip,

02:38but you can see those bright colors that spin in the atmosphere, vorticity, as that's moving in

02:42your direction. If you're in Northern Iowa, you're going to have some extra lift in the atmosphere.

02:46It's a pretty flat wave, but it scoots through quickly. It's a fast mover across the Northern

02:52Plains. There's the NAM, Thursday in the European. Here it comes. It gets a little bit more obvious

02:59here down into Iowa, Thursday night, Friday morning. And this system is going to bring us a burst of snow.

03:06That's the one to three and three to six inch that I highlighted earlier. In fact, we can go back

03:11just to kind of summarize. That's this storm here. But we talked about the temperatures and the

03:17really cold air rolls into the upper Midwest here at the very end of the week, leading edge of this

03:21Friday, then Saturday, and then by Sunday, it's moving through and off the Northeast seaboard. It's

03:26going to get cold out there. What goes on behind that system? The next one, Bernie often talks about,

03:33with an Arctic blast. There are often two opportunities for snow, one on the leading

03:37edge of it, and then another as we begin to warm up with some warm advection as temperatures moderate.

03:43Well, there will be an opportunity for snow with this one. And you can see, as we look at the NAM,

03:49behind that first wave that we watched, you can see this next one gets a little bit more dynamic here

03:56this weekend, digging deeper into the Midwest, the Ohio Valley. Here's the European. It is going to dig

04:03deeper into the Ohio Valley, and it becomes a sharp enough trough that on Sunday, it really digs. And

04:11you can see these bright colors, strong lifts in the atmosphere just east there, right along the I-95

04:16and east. That's going to open the door for some accumulating snow. So we can watch as this system

04:22produces initially some snow into Montana. Initially, it's kind of born out of a disturbance

04:29tied to that atmospheric river event that comes over the pike. New Jetstream energy digs down,

04:34actually crosses areas like Manitoba, and that energizes the storm in the plains. After dumping

04:41some pretty good snow into Montana, high ground elevation seeing one to two feet of snow. That system

04:46then races this weekend on Saturday across the Midwest, the second storm in two and a half days

04:52there in two days. And then on Saturday, the leading edge of this noses into the interior northeast.

04:58So as we take you again, that's that sharper dip. So we take you into a forecast of precipitation.

05:04There's disturbance one that brought us that first snow map there. We showed you the one to three,

05:08three to six, three different opinions, pretty good agreement there. GFS, snow skipping across the plains,

05:14Midwest, NAMM, similar story, European, similar story. One area that we'll be watching between

05:20Lexington, Kentucky, and maybe areas like Dayton, Ohio. In between Cincinnati, you can see some

05:25accumulating snow. You will see some accumulating snow with that. But behind that, this system is

05:30going to bring us in the European, again, just enough of a dip in the jet stream that will be a

05:36little more amplified this weekend, Saturday to Sunday. It's not going to be a long lasting system.

05:42It's too progressive. It's racing offshore. But before it totally departs, we're looking at a

05:47round of snow here. And you can see accumulating snow there for just a few hours, Saturday night

05:53to early Sunday for the big cities of the northeast, probably for the first time of the year.

05:58For the first disturbance there in the plains, we'll paint another stripe with the second one

06:02right over the same area. Look at this here, this area, one after the next. So the two storms

06:08together could bring us something like a three to six inch total between those two storms,

06:14which could be kind of a compelling storyline here. But then behind that,

06:20we get into that weekend system. So here it is, that new disturbance. The second one

06:25produces just enough lift in the atmosphere. One model brings us 3.6 inches near Philadelphia.

06:32Another one, this is the GFS, about two inches. And the Canadian, not quite as much there.

06:39Well, it's a quick little north of Philadelphia, two to three inches. So we'll end with a quick look

06:44at our official AccuWeather snow forecast here for this storm system,

06:48with one to three inches coming to Philly, New York and Boston.

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