Major snowstorm to barrel through eastern US midweek

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Jon Porter breaks down the major winter storm that's expected to dump heavy snow from the Midwest to the eastern U.S. during the middle of this week.

Transcript

00:00On Friday, we issued this map, you and I drew this, and we, you know, a lot of sources don't

00:06like going this far out, but we wanted to give everybody some idea of the possibilities.

00:14One scenario would take this system right up the coast, the other scenario was offshore,

00:19and it looks as though the offshore is going to be the correct solution.

00:24It does. There's more evidence that suggests this is going to pass,

00:26come right up the North Carolina coast and then move more east than it will north. So in other

00:31words, unlikely to turn right up the coast. That means unlikely to have a blockbuster storm

00:36in New York City, Boston, down to Philadelphia. A heavier snow will be located in the south,

00:42but a small move back to the north and west of that storm can make all the difference, Bernie.

00:47It's all being guided by this upper level area of low pressure across the Great Lakes,

00:52and that interaction is really going to drive the specific storm track and, of course,

00:56all the impacts and where the snow occurs. The concern is, John, preceding this storm,

01:01we have a lot of cold, dry air before this storm arrives.

01:06Look at that. Temperature's 20 degree high in Pittsburgh, 13 in Chicago, 3 in Omaha.

01:13Cold, dry air plentiful on the north side of it. So the question is just how much moisture

01:18is going to surge northward and interact with that cold air to produce that snow.

01:23You had mentioned the upper air pattern. Let's show it to you. This is Wednesday

01:28evening here. There's the upper low across the upper Midwest. There's the storm off the

01:33Carolina coast. And you can see, John, because of the tilt of that trough, it's what we call

01:38a positive trough, the steering flow is out of the west-southwest, not from the south to north.

01:43Yeah, that's one of the factors that we're watching. But again, it all is going to come

01:46down to the specific location and orientation of this upper level area of low pressure over

01:51the Great Lakes. If that was a little bit further to the west, that would draw the storm

01:56further to the west and have a tendency to bring it closer to the coast. So miles are going to

02:01matter in this one in terms of the track of the storm. Now, here's what we're thinking,

02:05John. There's the snapshot. The debatable area is from Long Island down toward Washington, D.C.

02:13This is the area that there can still be some movement here in those snow totals

02:17because a little bit of an adjustment to the north will increase the amounts of snow

02:21in this area. But what we are confident in here is a significant snowstorm across parts of

02:27Virginia to right up in the D.C. area and then some snow and ice also across the Carolinas with

02:32such cold air in place. Big impacts with this system. The question is just how far does that

02:37come up the coast? What I find interesting on future radar here, again, this is one solution.

02:42Watch how the snow avoids Washington, D.C. through the afternoon and then watch the push

02:47northward, John, Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday night.

02:50Yeah, look at that expansion on the northwest side of the storm. That's what

02:53will bring the snow into D.C. And that's why we still think there can be accumulations

02:58of a couple of inches from New York to Boston, especially the further southeast you go. So

03:03that's going to favor Long Island, southeast Connecticut, Rhode Island and Cape Cod in the

03:07islands, for example. John, we just had a map discussion. We decided we're going to let this

03:12snow map as is for now. Yeah, that's right. We're going to continue to hold our forecast

03:20accumulations here one to three inches across much of southeastern New England, three to six

03:24on the Cape, two to four in New York City and down toward Philadelphia. And then look at the

03:29heavier snow totals from Baltimore to Washington, especially down toward Richmond. Yeah, watch

03:35yourself from Raleigh toward Charlotte, some ice going over there, some snow. All right. AccuWeather

03:40Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter. John, thanks for joining us here this morning.

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