Virginia to New Jersey: Blizzard warning

Friday morning, Jan. 22, 2016

This map shows the GFS Ensemble Mean forecast for midday Saturday. Not the very sharp transition from very little snow to heavy snow over a short distance. This run extended the snow a little farther north than its predecessor, but it has been pretty consistent for the last few days. One model that has been much different is the NAM. It would have heavy snow (maybe 10 inches) all the way to Boston and well over a foot in the middle of Pennsylvania. Since most other models have shown much less, we have not gone with the idea in our deterministic forecasts but have been mentioning it in other products. We shall soon see!

This is a surface pressure analysis for the Southeast. You can see the low pressure center in Alabama and a very large area where the storm is already governing the flow.

From the mountains of North Carolina to the I-95 corridor from Washington, D.C., to New York City and beyond, you will see furiously falling and flowing flakes filling the fields, whisking past the windows, gliding to the ground and beautifying the bushes. The wind will whip the snow into roadside rows and churn rooftop snow into a creamy concoction with meandering smoky membranes of snow granules that dance to the edges and cascade down the sides.

The storm that whips the snow into car-capturing, truck-trapping, bus-blocking, SUV-stalling drifts will be transformed into a powerful ocean storm. As it gains strength tomorrow, it will churn the ocean into a boiling cauldron of battering, beach-blasting breakers that can damage, decimate and destroy dunes, while cloudbursts of rain soak cities along the Virginia coast to the accompaniment of spring-style thunderstorms. Gusting gales will scream over the seas and roar through the woods.

From the mountains North Carolina to parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, there will be deep blanket of heavy snow. Near the snow-rain line, giant marshmallow snow globs will aggregate into a pasty plaster that can topple trees as if they were toothpicks and snap electric and telephone wires as if they were telephone and electric wires. Innocent snowflakes will turn to painfully stinging missiles, darts and tacks of sleet, propelled by gusting gales that scream over the seas and roar through the woods. On the roads, slush mixes with salt and road grime to form a slithery, sloppy slurry that defies the windshield wipers.

From a crystalline ticker tape parade of snowflakes from Washington, D.C., to New York City to the missiles of sleet and spongy slush near the snow rain line to gutter gushing rain on the Virginia coast... quite a storm.