1/29/2011 Extended Forecast: Mid-Week Storm

The second clipper this afternoon is giving us some light snow, especially in Central New Jersey. The clipper will move offshore later tonight. The heavier bursts of snow may drop a coating of snow. Otherwise, the snow will dampen the ground and likely cause some black ice to form. Another round of some low clouds cannot be ruled out.

Morning clouds on Sunday will give way to mostly sunny skies. The mostly clear conditions will continue into Sunday Night. With light winds and relatively clear skies, Sunday Night could be a night where lows drop into the single digits. The snow-cover is fairly significant, so some of our coldest suburbs could try to drop down to zero degrees. An arctic reinforcement will be settling in for Monday, so upper twenties will likely be our maximum daytime high temperatures.

A warm front will begin to lift through our area on Tuesday, ahead of a very strong storm system that will cut up to our west. With the Arctic Air still in place, we should see snow develop. The snow may change to a wintry mix on Tuesday Night or on Wednesday Morning as warmer air erodes the colder air aloft. Then the low itself will give us very heavy precipitation on Wednesday. With high pressure to our north and snow on the ground, this may allow cold air damming to occur where basically cold air gets trapped at the surface. This will be especially true in Northwest and Central New Jersey. This means there is the possibility of freezing rain on Wednesday. With the heavy precipitation expected, we could see some significant ice accumulations. One must wonder if this will rival the ice storm of 1993. Obviously, this will be an evolving situation. Southeastern New Jersey would be mainly plain rain, should there be only a primary low sliding to our west. Atlantic City could flirt with 50 degrees while the inland is stuck in the thirties. There could be sleet in all areas at some point during the transitions. Keep in mind too if there is some heavy precipitation before temperatures rise above freezing, you could see some ice accretion gather quickly so you may get your ice storm technically before plain rain moves in.

Earlier model runs indicated the potential for a coastal storm to develop. This idea would mean the cold air would really get trapped and actually mean more snow than ice. The idea for now of a double-barrel low pressure system has been taken out of the equation, but not off the table. Every storm this season seems to have gone to the colder solution as the event draws near and then it actually does in fact play out that way. But maybe in this case, colder would be freezing rain instead of plain rain. After looking over the models today, I would be inclined to think rain for everyone except the high terrains once the heavier precipitation arrives. However, there are two good reasons, as mentioned above, to think ice may be an issue. If this storm produces a coastal low, it would likely be another double-digit snowfall.

If the area of plain rain makes good progress into the interior, the next concern would be flooding. I easily see a very significant rain event here for the areas that see all rain. With the significant snow just about everywhere and the snowfall since December, we do not have a dry ground. The ground is frozen as well and that will also add to the flooding potential. In this case, I would much rather want to have snow or ice if I lived along the major waterways, such as the Raritan and Delaware.

For all areas: colder air will move in as the system wraps up and it could change everything back to some sleet or wet snow before ending. This does not look anywhere near the event of this past week where we had strong energy behind the system.

The forecast for this storm has a great amount of uncertainty and any change could make a huge difference. Stay tuned!