You've probably heard by now that Easter will be "as cold" or "colder than" Christmas in the Northeast from various media outlets quoting meteorologists. I'll look into this claim below, researching for New York City and State College, home of AccuWeather HQ. As this event is still a week out, there's plenty of time for the to change their minds, so I'm still labeling this one "Hype". But right now it looks impressive across all the models. Take the Southeast for example.

The GFS has so many chances of snow flurries for the Southeast (that's right, every state in the Southeast except Florida) that I can't even paste them into this blog. Instead, check out this GFS loop of winter precip for the Southeast. Here's a clue on how far south the snow will get, according to that model:

Of course, I show this with the disclaimer that this is the Weird Overnight Run [JessePedia], and that the GFS almost always exaggerates the coverage and southerly expansion of snow. Still, even the forecast is impressive. And the only other model predicting winter precipitation type next weekend agrees -- to a point, saying that yes, snow showers and flurries will occur in the North Carolina mountains. This seems fairly likely at this point.

And the Northeast? The models see a storm moving through New England Wednesday night:

Which gives a mix of winter precipitation to New England, but keeps the major cities in rain (possible exception: Boston on the border). After that, the GFS keeps snow flurries falling in (at least some part of) the state of Pennsylvania for nearly 7 days! The DGEX generally agrees but keeps snow showers or flurries in the favored lake-effect and Appalachian areas.

BUT WILL IT REALLY BE COLDER THAN CHRISTMAS?

All models show temperatures much below normal in the Northeast. For simplicity's sake, I'll use the GFS model here. Here's a snapshot of HIGH temperatures in the Northeast on Easter:

That's some nasty cold for April. Temps are below freezing over the interior Northeast, with the major cities in the 30s. Thirties stick down the spine of the Appalachians into North Carolina. And remember, we're talking daytime highs here folks! The lows Sunday morning are brutal:

Lows are below freezing in the entire region... in the teens from the mountains of North Carolina up the Appalachians and into New England and single digits in interior New England. (There's also a hint of single digit lows in Pennsylvania the next night).

Let's take a look at some "meteograms." This is a special model product available from our Pro site. What it does is takes the model output for a specific point and graphs it out over time. For State College, PA (home of AccuWeather HQ, where I am writing this blog today), here are the GFS's predictions for temperatures:

STATE COLLEGE, PA

What this graph says is that we won't be above freezing between April 5th and April 9th, and we'll dip into the teens more than once. Yikes! We were only 29/41 on Christmas (you may remember it snowed briefly) so this would definitely win the battle of "coldest holiday."

For New York City, a typically milder location, the range from low to high is 25-40, but keep in mind that their normal temperatures that time of year would range from 41-58, so we're talking one of those situations where it's so cold that your HIGH temperature is below your normal LOW! On Christmas, it was 39/45 in NYC so this definitely qualifies as much colder, according to the GFS.

NEW YORK CITY, NY

Who's to say whether these predictions will turn out... sometimes the models underestimate the power of the sun this time of year. But one thing's clear, you'd better break out those winter coats again before the end of the week, if you live in the Northeast or Appalachians.

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