After what has been a balmy December for much of the Lower 48 we may be seeing this mild spell end after a chilly November for many.

Parts of New England saw icing problems early Monday but as another wave of heavy precip rides into cold air already in place, we are beginning to see snow break out over the Adirondack’s of New York and eventually east through Vermont and New Hampshire, but the real deal will be over western parts of Maine where as much as a foot to 16″ of snow is possible when all is said and done.

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Now, all that being said, the real event for the nation will be back to the West where a much stronger piece of energy is riding into the PNW. That system is going to deepen what is currently a weak trough. The first stage of this ‘big event’ will come as heavy snow for the mountains of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado after pasting the Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho mountains.

Enough cold air is being driven into this system that the heavy snows, which could well tally 1-3 FEET, won’t end in the mountains but will continue east. A BLIZZARD WATCH has been issued for eastern Colorado and west, northwest Kansas as this storm system will intensify once it gets out onto the Plains.

Exact track will mean everything. Current track forecasts will keep this event mainly as rain for Chicago but a slightly further south track would mean more snow. In saying that even if this is ‘mostly’ a rain event, once the low gets east and it’s deepened to 985mb, winds will howl out of the NW and could still bring a dramatic end to the snow drought. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see blizzard conditions Wednesday over the Central Plains and by Thursday through Iowa extending east towards the west suburbs of Chicago with crashing temperatures and a quick 6 inch hit on the Windy City.

 

As you can see from the charts I have included above which are the latest off the ECMWF, they show a deepening system but the track is somewhat further south, so, that could mean MORE OF A SNOW EVENT further south over the Central Plains and over Chicago. Part of the reason why a further south track system is more plausible is due to the large blocking high to the north. It was JB who alluded to this fact that a more southerly track system is more likely than what recent modelling has suggested. This could also bring a substantial snowstorm to the Interior Northeast which indeed I alluded by last week.

This is the first of two events with the second taking a similar track as colder and colder air gets involved in this pattern.

Wild times are ahead and major snowpack building is now underway in the run up to Christmas. If you live in the Big Cities of the Northeast, (depending upon track), this may bring initial rains but could end as snow, the second system coming on it’s backside could bring MOSTLY SNOW to the Major Cities.

 

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