The biggest challenge with this weekend’s storm is determining precipitation type – especially near the coast and south of New York City.
About a third of the continental United States is expected to be hit with “bone-chillingly cold” winds this weekend. Adam Harding is live in West Orange, NJ with Essex County officials discussing the matter.
Winter storms are notoriously difficult to forecast – especially in and around New York City. It’s no surprise, then, that heading into this weekend meteorologists are pulling their hair out trying to zero in on how much snow we’ll get in the tri-state area. The biggest challenge with this weekend’s storm is determining precipitation type – especially near the coast and south of New York City. The storm will start as all snow over the entire region. Snow will begin Sunday morning and continue to blanket the area into the afternoon.For a time in the middle of the storm event, however, the snow may change over to sleet and/or freezing rain at the coast and to the south of New York City. That would put the brakes on snow accumulation and could significantly decrease overall snow totals in these areas. Sleet pellets don’t pile up like fluffy snow does. And freezing rain certainly does not! The possible changeover to sleet and freezing rain in some areas results from warm air aloft in the atmosphere. As the storm system moves offshore, this warm air will nudge into our region from the south and hover above the bitterly cold air at the surface. The warm air at cloud level promotes rain development in the clouds instead of snow. That rain, then, falls into the sub-freezing air at the surface and either freezes into ice pellets on its way down or freezes on contact with the ground . In either case, accumulations are put on pause. As of Thursday morning, the European long-range forecast model predicts the intrusion of sleet and freezing rain into South Jersey, the New York City area and Long Island by Sunday evening. This would mean potential treacherous travel for parts of the tri-state, especially if freezing rain prevails. The American counterpart is leaning toward colder temperatures aloft in the tri-state region and, as a result, all snow for the duration of the event. This would mean higher snow totals for the city, Long Island and the Jersey Shore. As we get closer to the storm event, we should have a clearer picture about the distribution of precipitation types on Sunday near the coast, which will improve our snow forecast confidence.Inland areas will get all snow from this storm and, therefore, will get some of the highest snow totals. It’s in these areas where the forecast is more certain. At this point, we’re looking at upwards of 12 inches possible. Even then, as new forecast data comes in, that forecast is likely to change slightly.
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