Active Winter Weather Pattern Developing Across the Northeastern U.S.

I'm sure that many of you across the Northeast and the Appalachians thought that winter had forgotten you for sure. Well... fear not, as there are one or more rounds of wintry weather coming over the next week to 10 days - and possibly beyond...


The first event continues to take shape for Wednesday afternoon and into mainly the first half of Thursday.  This system is still in its developmental stage, but right now it appears that a band of snow will extend from eastern Tennessee across West Virginia, southeast Pennsylvania and on into New England by 7am EST on Thursday morning:

The $64,000 question is how much impact this system will have on the "big cities" of the DC-NYC-Boston corridor.  At this point in time, it is looking like those particular locations will likely escape heavier snow (i.e., 2-3 inches or more), which is expected to fall to the Northwest of that corridor, based on how the system is currently tracking.  Still, a dusting to 2 inches of slushy wet snow could take place in those cities on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, making for interesting travel conditions during Thursday's morning rush...

The next thing to watch for will be the potential for a Lake effect snow "outbreak" across northeast Ohio, northwest Pennsylvania and western New York states on Thursday night through Friday night.  It still remains to be seen just how significant this event will be, but there's no doubt that it will be the first measurable lake effect snow event of this season.  The latest NAM forecast model predictions for snowfall centered on Cleveland, Buffalo and Watertown are shown on the next 3 images, respectively (scale in inches of snow at the bottom of each image):

Again, I wouldn't pay too much attention to the specific amounts of snow that are being forecast above, but rather use the model projection as a guide as to the general areas that favor heavier the snowfall at this time.

If the above events are not enough, there will be at least one more opportunity for winter weather across the Northeast late next week, potentially across a widespread area.  The latest GFS computer model forecast image valid 7pm EST on Thursday, December 15th is shown below:

A lot can change in more than a week's time, especially when dealing with a potential winter weather system, but this and the other major computer models are telling us that we need to keep an eye on the region for the end of next week.  Right now it appears that the time of arrival of the cold air associated with this system will be the main determining factor on the winter weather portion of the system.

Stay tuned for details on what looks to be a much more active weather pattern across the Northeast over the coming week to 10 days...

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