V-Storm: Icy, Rainy Fly in Ointment

NOTE: The AccuWeather.com servers are under heavy load this morning. If you have trouble accessing my blog or the images on it, please be patient as we work to accomodate for the millions of folks in the Northeast accessing our information. I will periodically post a copy of my latest blog entry to the WeatherMatrix Forums.

The fly in the ointment this morning for Northeast snow lovers is that the area of mixed precipitation keeps moving northwestward. Initially the Forecast Models [JessePedia] saw nearly everywhere on land getting signficant snow, but then yesterday they started talking about rain on the immediate coast and sleet as far inland as Central PA.

Here's the latest NMM Model, hot off the presses. This graphic just hit our servers.

This shows a depressing amount of rain and sleet, both of which will quickly reduce snow totals, all the way into Central PA. The 6Z GFS agrees, and in fact pushes the non-snow even farther westward.

Now, this is not to say that it will be all sleet in any one location. What you are looking at above is what is falling at a specific time, and even then, the map can't show a mix of precipitation -- it has to pick freezing rain, sleet, snow or rain for illustrative purposes. This is a great reason why you need to closely monitor Your AccuPOP this week.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

This has caused our forecasters to lower the snowfall amounts on the south and east sides of the storm. Some bloggers, including Meteo Madness Man (PREMIUM | PRO) and AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] (PRO), still have some hope, saying that the models are underestimating the vehemence of the cold air, or that history (climatology) will prevail over the models. Elliot Abrams (PREMIUM | PRO) explains in his blog this morning what the Models look like vertically above a point on Earth.

Here's what our forecasters are saying right now as far as who will get ice, snow and rain (remember, some places will see all three). Now, I'm not going to update these graphics all day; if you're on Pro you can get them from the AccuModel page under "Expanded Pick"; if not, you can get a reasonable facsimile of these maps, with some delay, through our our Weather Headlines (PREMIUM | PRO) and Breaking Weather News Page (PREMIUM | PRO), or you can try a 30-day free trial to Pro today.