Clear skies, dry air, snow on the ground in some locations, and light winds will lead to an ideal cooling night. It is already barely in the teens for some sections of the rural suburbs in the north and south that has snow covering the ground. No doubt some single digit lows will be likely and that much of the Garden State will have minimums in no higher than the teens by daybreak.
Wednesday will end up being a pretty beautiful day with a lot of sunshine. Temperatures will remain on the cold side with highs of around 38-40 degrees. I am concerned that maximum temperatures will be too high as the models may not key in on the amount of snow on the ground. It is difficult because our Central Counties a good amount of snow while our northern and southern counties have a good amount.
On Thursday, our next storm system begins to approach the region. Clouds will increase and precipitation will begin on Thursday Night and last into Friday. An area of low pressure will be already fairly robust as it passes over West Virginia. The low pressure center will then pivot across Maryland and Delaware. After impacting these two states, it will virtually slam into New Jersey. This means a very heavy axis of precipitation will likely slide into New Jersey. Both the 00z GFS and the 00z NAM agree that there will be a lot of liquid available. With the exception of Northwestern New Jersey, most areas will likely be rain for the brunt of this event. This means that we could see two to four inches of rain at a minimum should the models be correct. In Northwestern New Jersey, the “540 Line” on the GFS still does not push north of Warren, Morris, and Sussex Counties. This means we could have some freezing rain, sleet, and wet snow in these areas. I still have to monitor these model runs for a quicker change to wet snow as the heavier precipitation is over the region (suggested by earlier midday runs). But, the models still seem to indicate that once the system begins to pull away and bomb out around Massachusetts; colder air will come pouring in causing precipitation to transition to wet snow and sleet and that there will be enough available liquid for potential measurable frozen precipitation.
With the snow on the ground in North Jersey and South Jersey, with a gap from Route 78 to Route 195, we have to be very vigilant for potential flooding. Two to four inches of rain combining with melting snow can certainly cause creek and stream flooding. Higher snowfall occurred across the northern Delaware River Basin (Northeast Pennsylvania/New York) and should rain fall up there, if some of the warmer solutions were realized, we could have some downstream flooding for sure (not that rain in the Delaware River region proper wouldn’t do the trick). In Central New Jersey, while the snow could be non-existent due to glancing blows from both previous/recent storms, this is the region where the snow from January melted the last and only just depleted itself on Friday. So, all areas have streams and creeks running at or above the normal. If you live along a creek or a stream, I would certainly urge you to pay attention to the latest forecasts.
We have some potential for strong winds, even if we don’t get into a warm sector for the fairly robust low pressure area. If we have a saturated ground, we may have some problems with downed trees. It is interesting that this storm comes very close to the time frame of the March 2010 storm which featured very heavy rain and high winds, coming off of snow on the ground. The factors and storm track is different here…but still.
If the European was to be bought into, we would have a massive warm surge across much of New Jersey with high shear values, followed by a strong cold front interaction. A strong jet also would be overhead. These factors would be indicative of severe weather. For now, I am not buying into such a strong warm surge involving much of New Jersey, which would cause sufficient instability and shear to be concerned about tornadoes. Certainly, some of our South Jersey counties could end up in the “warm sector”, but for now I will push this aside.
Temperatures are a mess right now with models suggesting anything being possible for Friday, depending on which storm track actually plays out. I got models showing 39 for Mount Holly and 62 for Mount Holly.
Another significant rain storm is not out of the question for Monday. This storm would come on the heels of two to four inches of rain and this would not be a good situation. It is too far out to say that back to back heavy rain is likely. Of course, a weak system could pass through in-between the back to back large storms on Sunday. A very active weather pattern is taking place as the result of our region being in a battle zone between very mild air and very cold air. A lot are probably confused with all of this, and I will break it down more on Wednesday.
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