Forgive me for bumping this thread, folks, but I have been hearing of possible snow on Sunday, and as of now I have to be out of town over the weekend and will be flying back on Sunday, but also have an elderly parent whom I have to get to the doctor's early on Monday.
I trust the weather folks on this board more than I do pretty much anywhere else. How likely is this snow they're muttering about on the Weather Channel?
It’s too early to get into specific details, but there is a reason it’s being mentioned
All of the ingredients will be there for a coastal storm, and potentially a strong one at that.
The first is a large piece of energy off the coast of California, which will move onshore late Thursday or early Friday. From there, how that piece of energy progresses eastward (speed, direction) And how well it stays together will dictate whether it’s one big storm or two smaller, albeit potentially smaller storms and whether they will simply slide out to sea or have a chance of coming up the coast
The next key pieces are several pieces of energy which will rotate through Canada over the next several days. The first several will act to reinforce a trough over the Northeastern US, the stronger of which would result in the storm being forced south. If this trough is weaker or moves out of the way faster, it would result in a better chance of the storm coming up the coast
After that, there’s a couple of pieces of energy which may try to phase with the piece which will move over California. If these can phase in completely and cleanly, it would do a few important things. They would slow the system’s progression, strengthen it, and provide a better source of cold air. If it’s a miss, however, it’s more likely to slide out to sea.
One of the biggest problems is that the source region of these features isn’t exactly filled with good observations. Aircraft and satellite provide a good bit of data, but Weather balloons are better. Unfortunately, there aren’t many of those over northern Canada and the Pacific where these features are coming from lol. Once they move over the US we will be able to sample them better which may help.
The point is, there’s definitely a reason to watch this weekend, as all the pieces are there. It’s just way too early to determine the track and impact from any potential system
