Sunday, December 30, 2012

Here Comes The Cold

With the most recent snow event past most areas picked up around 3"-5" and less than that as you head south and east. Snow depths across the area have a high liquid content and this plays an important role in forecasting the temperatures over the next week or so. First off let's take a look at the current snow depths:
The highlands region has around 1"-2" of liquid water trapped in the snow cover while areas with the fresh snow have less than 0.5". The snow in those locations will melt over the next few days and will affect the temperatures. With minimal to no melting in the northern areas the daytime temperatures will be a good 10-15 degrees cooler than the areas without bare ground when the arctic blasts begin to move in this week. This cold be some of the coldest air to invade the northeast in years but New Jersey is on the southern edge of these air masses and should be spared the worst.

Let's take a look at a model for our first shot coming Wednesday:

The heart of the polar vortex will sitting just to the north of New England and this will deflect any chance of significant northeast snowstorms all of next week. Places in the north country of NY and VT will see the temperatures drop to 20-25 degrees below ZERO. New Jersey on the other hand will have it easy with single digits for the areas with snow cover (teens other wise). This type of pattern is good for resorts that need to make snow, but not for powder hounds. The shots of cold air will come in waves through the week keeping us under blue skies and chilly temps.

For now it's typical January weather and for those of you who like ice fishing you'll be on the ice by next weekend!

Lake Musconetcong on the border of Morris/Sussex counties is completely frozen. All it needs is a few cold nights and it will be ready.

By January 8th the pattern will break to one more that gives us an actual shot at seeing our next precipitation event, whether that be rain or snow. For the next few days just try and stay warm!

Friday, December 28, 2012

Dec 28th Update

It's finally starting to look like winter around here and with a good amount of snow on the ground we will only be adding to it over the next few weeks without any substantial melt. First off let's take a look at Saturdays snow event. 

Here is a map from the RPM for the total accumulated snowfall amounts:




















This system will bring lighter precipitation than the last event and this limits the amount of evaporational cooling which is going to be needed for any good accumulations over the shore and south Jersey. Most of the state will remain as snow but with surface temperatures above freezing south of I-78 it's going to have a difficult time to accumulate. Just for reference let's look at some soundings for a location north and south. 

Sounding for K12N:
This is an atmospheric profile for Andover Airport in Sussex county. The red line is the freezing mark and the two blue lines are temperature and dew point. This location will have no problem with accumulation and it will be a plowable snow event of 2"-4".

Sounding for KBLM:

This sounding is for Belmar and notice how the blue lines cross the red line near the surface. This is snow falling but only accumulating to the grassy surfaces with minor accumulations.

Basically this is a north Jersey snow event here and widespread accumulations of 2"-4" with the highest elevations getting the most simply because of higher liquid-snow ratios. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The storm is approaching our area from the southwest and will bring accumulations to the region. The further north and west you go the more you will get. It will start as snow for everyone but quickly change to rain for central Jersey as the warmer air wins the battle. Areas north of interstate 80 will get several hours of accumulating snowfall then changing over to sleet for several hours which will create a protective layer over the recent snows. By the time it changes to rain the system will nearly be out of the area leaving most of the frozen precip still on the ground. This map is off the RPM model and I think it has a good handle on the system.


















After this system we have another heading up the coast by the weekend which will be an all snow event. Looks like we could get a few inches before the month comes to a close.