The Big Snow of January 2019

The weather map shows high pressure areas over northern New England and over the South Central states. A departing storm is off the East Coast and the weak storm associated with the next cold front is over the upper Great Lakes. The next few days look dry throughout the Northeast. We are also watching the two storms. The first one may come through the Northeast Thursday night or Friday with snow north of its track and rain showers to the south. I say it that way acknowledging the fact that the track looks very uncertain at the moment. A second storm (referenced in the highly speculative headline) coming later in the weekend could be a major snow producer but again, the location is track dependent. Last night's GFS model (as shown below the surface map) suggested there could be heavy snow from Virginia to New England. The European model takes the storm farther west, meaning places like the I-95 corridor would get mostly rain instead of snow. Obviously we don't know the full extent of the storm today, but we will be tracking it all week. There seems to be good model agreement on a shot of cold air coming into the Midwest and then the Northeast late this weekend and early next week.