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Severe Weather and Snow. Maybe Snow Sunday. Big Storms On the Way!

Feb 3, 2012; 11:09 AM ET

Disco

1. The storm in the Plains is meeting the CAT 4 criteria with Denver nearing a foot of snow and a foot of snow falling across northern Kansas into Nebraska. This really is a two-part storm with the snow today from Colorado into Nebraska and a second area of snow developing in northwestern Kansas later this afternoon that goes into western Iowa tonight and Saturday morning. There will be some amounts that go over a foot in parts of Kansas and Nebraska.

On the other side of the storm, severe storms will develop across Texas with hail and damaging winds the main impacts. If tornadoes occur, they will hit west-central Texas west of Dallas this afternoon and evening.

2. Sunday is an interesting day. My first impression was the storm is going to get squeezed out under the vortex with rain just nipping the cold air for a little snow to mix in. The 12z runs of the NAM and GFS are now suggesting that a little more snow falls Sunday right along the Pennsylvania/Maryland state line with some snow getting into DC and BWI. To me, this is another marginal case of snow and will really depend on the phasing and just how much precipitation can get thrown back into the cold air. I think the upside of the snow would be 6 inches in the south-central mountains of Pennsylvania and the mountains of West Virginia and Maryland. The downside is nothing but rain.

3. The longer range looks stormy with normal cold to me. I like the fact that the GFS is now showing at least three storms with next weekend being the start of the fun. With the high over Ontario, some storm is going to come up out of the Gulf of Mexico and try to phase along the East coast. Cold air will be plentiful for what could be a large area of snow in the East. The NAO is trying to go negative and if we can get the blocking, that will just ice the cake in regards to the end run of winter and snowstorms for the snow lovers. I will say, when you see the cold and snow in Europe and Japan, it's usually just a matter of time before the eastern U.S. gets crushed. Come on, Big Daddy(s)! I just think it's a wild 4-6 weeks of weather as we close out winter.

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The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com

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Henry Margusity
AccuWeather.com severe weather expert, Henry Margusity, offers the Meteorological Madness blog including detailed analysis of severe weather across the US.

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