00:00In the forecast feed, we have a lot to talk about, a lot to focus on regarding high-impact snow in the eastern Carolinas.
00:08Virginia's in on this too, southeast Virginia especially.
00:12And then a huge deal of questions about how this storm this weekend will impact the northeast.
00:18There are a lot of questions about the specifics of razor's edge here to this storm on the northwest side.
00:24But a small difference in track, 100-mile difference east to west, could mean the difference between a blizzard or flurries with a blustery breeze.
00:33Let's take a look at what's going on here.
00:35We're going to look into some computer models off the bat, and then we'll look at the official AccuWeather forecast.
00:41We have some graphics to show you for this stage in the game.
00:43And I know that 100 miles or 150 miles sounds like a lot.
00:47It sounds like a lot.
00:48If you think about your location and a place 150 miles to your west, it would take a long time to drive there.
00:53It might take two-plus hours, depending on where you are.
00:55But that is not much when it comes to trying to nail down the placement of a low-pressure system four or five days into the future.
01:04And I say that just to give you a little context here.
01:06I'm going to go forward in time to the big weekend storm.
01:09And here we are.
01:11Just for perspective, we're going to go back.
01:12This is 1 o'clock Sunday, and we can plot this thing here.
01:15Here it is, a huge storm system.
01:17Maybe it's a little overplotted with the scale of that big low, but I'm going to clear it off there.
01:22There it is in the GFS model, and turning attention to the European.
01:30Let's go back just to try to kind of – maybe there's a timing difference here, but placement is what I'm more interested in.
01:37We're going to see where the storm will track as opposed to when the storm will track.
01:41We know it's going to be this weekend.
01:42So here we are with, again, relatively similar tracks, the GFS and then the European.
01:52Although the European, you'll notice, it is farther east, at least Sunday morning and in through Sunday afternoon.
02:00Big picture looks similar, but the differences do matter.
02:03And I want to go back in time to track where this disturbance is and where it is now.
02:09Here it is Friday afternoon.
02:11The northern branch of the jet stream has this elongated trough, and there's also some southern branch energy here in various areas that it will work with.
02:19But if we go back farther, we're going to go back to the present time.
02:23Here we're still dealing with some ambiguous zone here up near the west side of the Hudson Bay.
02:29On Wednesday evening, where that primary northern branch feature is, it gets a little murky because a chunk of this is probably going to rotate around the north side of this lobe of low pressure.
02:40A chunk of this is going to be inspired by some energy coming in from Alaska.
02:44So right now, the DNA, kind of the embryo of this storm in the northern branch of the jet stream, it's fragmented.
02:51But you can make an argument that part of it is near Anchorage, Alaska, and part of it actually is probably lost somewhere up in the frozen tundra of northern Canada right now.
03:01And then also we've got, just to keep this conversation going, we're going to go back in time and try to trace the southern branch contributor here.
03:08And here we are through New Mexico, and some of that is actually way, way, way out this way, hundreds of miles, arguably a thousand plus miles west of Seattle.
03:19And that's going to be scooting in and becoming a southern branch feature as well.
03:23So through that context, suddenly 100 or 150 miles of placement off the east coast doesn't seem like that big of a distance.
03:32We're trying to split hairs with something that is thousands of miles away in two or three pieces.
03:37It's almost like you're trying to put a leaf in a stream and predict exactly how close it's going to get to a rock that's 80 feet down the stream.
03:45This is difficult stuff.
03:47Now, the models are better than ever before, but also I think our viewers' expectations and the recipients of the weather information are more, maybe a little bit, expecting more than ever before.
03:57Because we've gotten better with forecasting in general, even though it may not feel like that at all times, we're better than ever before in human history at this.
04:04And the models are better than ever before in human history.
04:07So, again, that's where we're coming from with some of this.
04:10And we're trying to do this more specifically than we used to years and years ago.
04:15The past, 40 years ago, we'd say snow near the east coast.
04:18Now we really want to know five days in advance how much snow near the east coast.
04:21And will it be offshore?
04:23We know it's going to be a storm near the coast, but is it far enough west to impact us in a big way?
04:28So let's take a look at the models here.
04:30And this is a model trend.
04:32So this is – I'm going to go back in time.
04:34What I really want to focus on is the trend.
04:37Here is the GFS model, the latest GFS, the placement of this low-pressure system, just east of Cape Hatteras.
04:44I'm going to go back one model run earlier, earlier today.
04:49Not much of a change.
04:50If anything, it came a little farther west.
04:51Let's go back two model runs ago, a more definitive closed contour, a little farther east.
04:57If anything, it's coming a little farther west.
04:59And then you go back about a day ago, 18-hour model runs ago.
05:05And it's, again, a little bit – I'm going to go farther out.
05:08It just behaves a little bit differently.
05:10It goes a little farther out.
05:11So if there is a trend with the GFS, it seems to be coming a little farther west, but not by much.
05:19It's a small trend.
05:20Comparing that to the European, though, the European is farther east.
05:24So there may be a subtle westward shift with the GFS, but that's kind of the minutia.
05:28Big picture, the European is farther east than all those GFS runs.
05:32Here we get into the specifics here, and I want to look at a few – basically just the forecast of snow.
05:38What's this look like?
05:38Look at the snow there in the Carolinas.
05:40This is going to be an amazing storm there.
05:42We're confident in accumulating snow in the eastern Carolinas.
05:45That's a big deal.
05:45But here we have the GFS, widespread snow for most of eastern Virginia, south Jersey, a hard hit in Atlantic City.
05:53Not in Philadelphia, though.
05:54Just a little bit of snow in Philly.
05:56And then, man, Boston's on the razor edge, but we get to hit very hard in Cape Cod.
06:01That's the GFS.
06:01Here's the GFS AI.
06:03Similar messaging.
06:04A pretty hard hit for south Jersey along the beach.
06:07Trenton, Philly, not that much.
06:09Here's the European.
06:10Remember, this is farther east.
06:11It largely bypasses south Jersey.
06:14I don't think Cape Macy's a flake with this run of the European.
06:17European AI brings flurries to the Jersey shore.
06:21So – and then here's the Canadian.
06:23The Canadian's a big storm.
06:24Look at that.
06:25Basically a blizzard in southeast New England.
06:27And then the UK met way, way out to sea.
06:31So what do we do with all this?
06:32I think the thing to emphasize here is that we do have the risk of some accumulating snow for the east coast.
06:39And if we look a little more specifically, here we have the chance of three or more inches of snow.
06:45Reasonable chance for the Jersey shore.
06:46Stay with us here on the forecast feed.
06:48We've got more coming your way.
06:49We'll see how many things marche through the river.
07:06We're here.
07:07We'll see you next Sunday.
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