As promised, we have to go through a few more bouts of cold, icy weather before spring finally starts to settle into the country. This week will be an epic battle between cold and warm air, culminating in an ugly winter storm on Wednesday night and Thursday. It's like the weather has the flu: a sudden hot flash today and tomorrow, followed by miserable chills on Thursday and Friday.
Boston, the newly-minted capital of Canada and inspiration for Disney's Frozen, is in the path of an approaching storm system this afternoon that threatens to drop up to two feet of snow on the city and surrounding areas by sunrise on Tuesday. To the south, New York City could see an icy mess as a result of freezing rain.
The National Weather Service just issued a blizzard warning for the entire coast of the Northeast from southeastern New Jersey through Maine in anticipation of whiteout conditions as this week's "crippling and potentially historic blizzard" ramps up. Anyone who ventures out during the height of the storm will face life-threatening conditions.
All signs point to a significant blizzard in the Northeast on Monday night and Tuesday, with major cities like New York and Boston probably measuring snow in feet by the time the storm clears out. If the forecast pans out, this will be one of the most significant winter storms we've seen in quite a few years.
For the last few days, weather models have hinted that there will be yet another major snow and ice storm early next week impacting areas from Missouri to the Mid-Atlantic.
The winter storm's central pressure continues to rapidly drop this evening, now near 980-981 millibars. Pressure is 982 millibars in Millersburg, WV and Johnstown, PA is currently 983 millibars. The radar overlay shows the storms lining up perfectly along the cold front, which is also clearly visible in the isobar kinks extending down the eastern side of the Appalachians. This is a storm right out of a meteorology textbook.
In a perfect world, you could go to your local television news website and get the latest snowfall forecast issued by their team of dedicated meteorologists. But that's a perfect world, and this one is a search engine optimized hell where interns bash one another over the head to come up with the most clickbaity title possible.
For the last few days, weather models have consistently signaled that there will be a nor'easter later this week sometime between Wednesday and Friday. While the potential storm is too far out to say for certain how much snow/ice will fall and where, it's looking increasingly likely that some areas from the Ohio Valley through New England will see another winter storm this week. If it plays out like last night's GFS model suggests (pictured above), the low will straddle the coast and provide the whole spectrum of wintry weather from rain to ice to snow.
