Snow watch!

The mornings here in North West Jersey have been quite chilly as of lately. The 40's have been common and in coming days I wouldn't be surprised to see some 30's in the higher elevations of Sussex. As for North East Jersey, 50's have been common but that doesn't excite me. Urban heating and the ocean keep those areas much warmer. Now, everyone likes snow, right? GOOD! Let's talk about this magical four letter word. First I want to show you the la nina that is developing out in the pacific. This is a good indicator of cold weather and average precipitation to come.





Now we can move on to better things, one step at a time. North Atlantic Oscillation or (NAO) is a key factor in northeast snowstorms. In fact its the main ingredient as Paul Kocin would say who literally wrote the book on northeast snowstorms. Here is a link about NAO, its short and easy to understand. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/NAO/ . As you read in there a negative NAO is what we look for when praying for coastal development, we are currently in a 30 year positive phase but in the last couple months we have struggled to get positive, maybe this is why we had a cool summer? This NAO is a very easy concept. Right now it is neutral to positive.



Now that we know the basics of the northeast snowstorms let's go to the models! The GFS is the only model right now that I have access to that is showing any signs of possible snow for here in NW Jersey, but things will most certainly change. This same model had a montana blizzard on it last week and showed cold air coming into the northeast, one of those two came true. Check it out, it doesn't actually show snow except for farther north. What if that cold push keeps coming down and that little clipper system brings precip? Hmmmmm? Lake effect too? Interesting.



That's all I have to show for now, tomorrow I will be posting a fall foilage blog to update you on the very latest. For those of you waiting for snow boarding season you might see this mountain snow covered sooner than you think!