First accumulating snow coming for several major I-95 cities

AccuWeather

In today's Forecast Feed, Bernie Rayno breaks down when the snow could fall in several major cities along the East Coast.

Transcript

00:00And since the pattern changed that started on Thanksgiving Day from the Midwest to the

00:12Northeast, and we've had rounds of cold, the area that has escaped snow has been Boston,

00:17New York City, Philadelphia. Of course, we've had snow in Washington, D.C. and Richmond,

00:21but the I-95 from Philly to Boston, nothing. But I think your time's coming. Is this going

00:27to be a big snowstorm? No. Although, you know, we're still going to have to keep an eye on this,

00:33but certainly I think snow is coming this week into those areas, and there's going to be some

00:37slippery travel. All right, let's take a look at the satellite picture here this morning. Look

00:41what's going on here. Just a huge dip in the jet stream now. You can see it in here. This is what's

00:47bringing your first shot of cold. By the way, I just want to let you know, the storm that is going

00:54to be forming along our next Arctic boundary. I want to show you where that energy is right now.

00:59It's right here. Not quite on the North American continent, but this is the piece of energy

01:03that rounds the band, forms a storm along the Arctic boundary, and then produces the accumulating snow

01:10across the Northeast, Midwest and Northeast, as we get toward the weekend here. The other thing I want

01:17to show you, let's go up in here. This is interesting. So you see all this? You see all this,

01:21what looks like clouds. It's not clouds. You know what this is? This is an infrared satellite

01:27picture, so it's sensing what? It's sensing temperature, and because of that, what it's

01:33showing you, this is the cold air. I mean, this is exceptionally cold air across the Yukon Territory

01:39and the Northwest Territories here this morning, and that's the cold that's coming. I want to show

01:47it to you here on the modeling here. This is the cold. This is right now. Look at this. You're

01:54looking at temperatures, and yesterday I saw 50 below zero. Look at this. This is the Yukon

01:59Territory. This is the Northwest Territory. This is the cold that's coming, and as I play this in

02:04emotion, this is this evening, right? And let me go forward. This is this evening. Watch that cold

02:11there come in. This is Friday evening. Then it comes in Saturday morning, Saturday evening. Look

02:16at all of that pink across the upper Midwest. Now, that's where the worst of the cold is going

02:22to be, and then it makes its way into the Northeast Saturday night and Sunday, and then it does start

02:28to leave. You can see it start to leave as we head into early next week, but this, as I mentioned,

02:33is easily the coldest air mass of this pattern that's coming this weekend. Now, as we've been

02:41highlighting for you, the snow associated with it. I don't think this is a huge storm, although

02:46I'm still going to, you still got to watch this. The trough setup isn't exactly ideal for a big

02:51snowstorm, but I do think there is going to be at least an inch or two of snow from Philly to Boston

02:57with this as we get in the Saturday night and in the Sunday. Let me show you the setup. Not a whole

03:02lot has changed, and again, the modeling is pretty, pretty in line and consistent, so let me show you

03:11what's going on. So here comes the cold air. This is the upper low that brings the cold air. This is

03:17the piece of energy that's in the Gulf of Alaska right now. That's going to round the bend. All right,

03:22now, as it does so, watch it start rounding the bend, and here it comes as we get in the Saturday

03:28evening. So here's your trough. Here's the energy. Now, the key to all of this, for a bigger storm,

03:35what you need this to look like is that the trough would set up like so. As it approached the northeast,

03:42it would be set up like this. A little bit of a neutral or negative tilt. When I say negative tilt,

03:48that means the trough that's tilted northeast, northwest to southeast. What that tilted trough,

03:55that negative tilted trough would do is it would form the storm, and then instead of the storm going

04:00out, it would come up, and you'd get bigger snowfall totals. But right now, the orientation of that

04:06trough doesn't look right for a big snow, and I'll show you why. Let's go to Sunday morning right here.

04:11Now, note the trough. There's a lot of energy in here. Your snow will fall east of the trough in this

04:17zone, but the key is because the trough is not neutral or negatively tilted, it's what we call

04:23positively tilted. It's tilted from the northeast to southwest. The storm isn't forced up the coast.

04:30It's formed out to sea. So it forms, and then it goes out to sea, and that means the heaviest snow

04:37goes out to sea, all right, as we move forward here. So let me show, let me put this on full screen

04:45so you can hear it or see it. Let me show you the surface map associated with this. So here comes

04:52the storm. See, here it comes. This is Saturday morning, Sunday, Saturday night. You see the storm?

04:59Where does it go? It's not coming up the coast. It's going out to sea. See? That's the European

05:04GFS. Same story. Now, there's still some snow with this in the Midwest. Let's go back. Here it goes.

05:10Another round of snow. Des Moines, maybe a little bit in Chicago. Looks like it's a little off to

05:15your south. Watch the snow, then streak. This is Saturday afternoon, evening. Indianapolis,

05:21and as, whoops, no, there. Indianapolis toward Pittsburgh. Then you start talking about Washington,

05:31D.C. Saturday night, and then the snow. Philadelphia, Saturday night, Sunday morning,

05:37New York City, Sunday, Boston, most of the day Sunday. Now, a lot of the snow may just stay off

05:43to the south and east, but again, I think there's enough cold air and enough moisture

05:49for an accumulating snow. One other thing I want to show you, one other tool I like to use

05:54is what I call the upward motion field. So where do we have the strongest upward motion? Here comes the

05:59storm. You see where you have the darker colors? You see where we have the strongest motion? Down here in

06:04the Delmarva Peninsula and offshore. Back in here, we have light blues, light upward motion. That's

06:10why we think there's going to be lighter snows here. I want to leave you with this. This is the

06:15snowfall map. We'll talk about it here quickly. This is the snowfall map. Let me put this on full

06:21so you can see it. So a general one to three inches here. This is Saturday, Saturday, mostly Saturday

06:29across the Midwest and Saturday, Sunday in here. A couple of areas. I think we may have to extend

06:34this down into the Delmarva Peninsula. And I'll tell you what, this area across southern New Jersey,

06:40Delaware, Maryland, I wouldn't be surprised if we were more than three inches here.

06:46Philadelphia even has to watch this, but from New York City to Boston, a few inches of snow

06:51snowfall and slippery travel.

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