00:00In the forecast feed, we have a lot to talk about, and we need to keep our eyes still
00:10on this Sunday night storm system, as there's potential for this to clip parts of the heavily
00:16populated I-95, the megalopolis, with potential for snow. It could go out to sea, it could hug
00:24the coast and bring significant snow, and it might just be that a hundred mile deviation here in
00:29something five days from now, which is really in the minutiae, the details, that could mean
00:35anything from eight or nine inches of snow in part of New Jersey versus flurries and an
00:40out-to-sea scenario. We need to keep a close eye on that. Big picture, this weekend, as
00:45we set the table for this whole conversation, we're dealing with a big trough setting back
00:50into the east, following the cold front that'll be swinging through the region in the short
00:56term through Thursday morning. And behind the front in the short term that moves out
01:01to sea, we're dealing with a big blast of cold that sets in, and I really don't think
01:05we're going to be as warm as many of us are on Wednesday evening, again, until February.
01:11We have a persistently cold pattern for the second half of the month, and here we are on
01:15the 14th of January. So, again, it's going to get cold. Now, there is going to be some back
01:19and forth for I-95, but the interior stays consistently cold. This weekend, we have to
01:25keep our eye out for not this trough. Long-wave trough is going to be in place. Big picture,
01:30we're going to have, if you blur your eyes, we're going to have a trough across the east.
01:34But the next system that sets in Saturday into Sunday, this more specific short-wave trough
01:40that digs down into parts of the Gulf Coast, this thing here, that's going to be a disturbance
01:47that rides along the base of the long-wave trough. And those bright colors down there
01:53in Georgia, that is an area of strong vorticity, strong spin in the atmosphere. Right now,
01:59we're looking about 20,000 feet up into the sky. It's about four or five miles up there.
02:04And this is an area of strong spin in the atmosphere. If you are east of there, so if you're
02:10east of the area of vorticity, you're going to be in a position where there's extra lift
02:14in the atmosphere. More cloud, rain, snow production, and so forth. And the details
02:19of how this is oriented, this is Sunday at midday. There is technically 7 a.m. Eastern
02:25time, so mid-morning. The GFS, here is the European. Pretty similar, slightly different
02:32little kink to it. Here is the Canadian model. It's a little broader, not quite as definitive
02:39and sharp, but it's a deep trough. And in the UK Met, another model run from the Brits,
02:47the UK Met office, a little farther west. But again, remember I said a 100-mile difference
02:54in something four or five days into the future could be the difference between flurries in
02:58New Jersey or 9 inches of snow. And again, these details matter. And it's very difficult
03:04to really pinpoint precisely which way it's going to work out this early in the game.
03:08Sunday afternoon and evening, you can see the GFS model. This is the most compelling
03:12of the four I'm going to show you in what it does at the ground. It kinks into a negative
03:19tilt down into the right before it even reaches the Del Marro Peninsula in just enough time to
03:25produce some significant snow for the northeast seaboard. I'm going to show you what this looks
03:29like here with the GFS. So here's the GFS setting it into... Now, I do think the snow forecast is
03:37overblown. Models don't do really well. We're not going to see a repeat of last January's record
03:42smashing Florida snow when we more than doubled the state record. This is not going to happen there.
03:46There could be some snow, though, into central Georgia. But I don't want you to take that blue blob
03:50too literally. But what it does show us in an area where it's a little more attainable
03:54climatologically is this area of snow from I-95 to the east coast there in the mid-Atlantic states
04:01and in New Jersey. And it really ramps up in Connecticut. Look at that. New York City to
04:05Connecticut to Massachusetts. This would be a very exciting scenario. Now, I'm going to show you
04:10other models that don't produce the same outcome. But for what it's worth, this is what the GFS is
04:15doing. And again, if you're in Philly or Baltimore, your eyes drawn to that blue just for reference.
04:21That same model only produces 2.7 inches in Philly, 3.3 inches in Baltimore. You might say,
04:27what's the deal? I saw some really deep blue. Again, your eye was drawn to what's going on to
04:31your east, where it would produce a foot of snow in South Jersey. But there'd be a tight gradient
04:36just to show it to you again. Once again, I know there's a lot of blue there, but that's a two to
04:40four inch snow event at face value in Philadelphia and Baltimore if it came out that way. Now,
04:45it cranks big time snow, 18 inches in Boston. This is not our forecast. I'm showing you behind
04:52the curtain here. This is one model. That's by far the most exciting scenario. Let's go back to that
04:597 a.m. time frame here with the GFS. That's the GFS on Sunday. Here's the, this is the European model.
05:08And I don't, I know we have limited time, so I'm going to just kind of go European. It goes east,
05:14but not as sharply as the GFS. The Canadian model takes it east, pretty reasonable looking scenario.
05:20It's kind of a mix between two of these other ends of the spectrum. And the UK met doing something
05:24somewhat similar, but not as dramatically as the GFS. So again, the GFS, remember it cranked out all
05:29that snow there in South Jersey and into Connecticut. Here's the European model, which has a very good
05:35track record historically. A little bit of a mix, a little bit of a mix over the mid-Atlantic coast
05:40and, and there's, I drifted to the GFS. The European, it's an out-to-see scenario. It doesn't
05:46even produce much more than a flurry in Nantucket. Here is the Canadian. Kind of a mix between the two.
05:53Sometimes you get these two ends of the spectrum, something in between might be a pretty good
05:56forecast. So the Canadian, light snow, coating to an ancient Philly, maybe one to three for
06:01southern New England, maybe three plus Boston, if it works out. And the UK met, this one does
06:06not color code precip type. It would bring, it's a little bit of snow with a disturbance on Saturday
06:11to impact the I-95. But the UK met's largely an out-to-see scenario after a little bit of snow,
06:17maybe near Norfolk, Virginia. So again, comparing the options, here's the GFS, total snowfall from the
06:24Euro, coating to an inch in Philly from a previous event. And then the GFS or the Canadian, this is the
06:29Canadian. It's an out-to-see scenario. So this is how we're going to play it. I'm going to end with a
06:34few of our graphics. A lot of questions. We're most confident that there will probably be some snow
06:39near I-95 in North Carolina, maybe even in South Carolina and near Norfolk, Virginia. The big
06:45question, does this go out to sea or not? It may go out to sea and miss the Northeast. We need to keep
06:51a close eye because this could bring I-95 snow Sunday night and Monday.
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