Colder storms upcoming in December may bring snow to more of the Northeast
A series of storms will present some opportunities for snow and could result in travel problems in some areas that have not yet had any snow this season.
AccuWeather’s Joe Lundberg looks ahead to the first week of December. Rounds of snowfall are forecast to blanket the Upper Midwest and Northeast regions of the United States.
While the lake effect will run wild producing feet of snow in some locations from Michigan to New York into the start of December, a variety of colder storms may spread some flakes and perhaps even some accumulating snow to other places in the Midwest and East for the first time this season in the coming days, AccuWeather meteorologists say.
A persistent southward dip in the jet stream will not only direct waves of cold air from central Canada through the Midwest and into the eastern United States into the first half of December, but it will also help guide some storms toward those regions.
Most of these storms will struggle to grab moisture. However, there will be some exceptions where snow could accumulate outside of the mountains and immediately downwind of the Great Lakes.
Major travel problems will continue into early week downwind of the Great Lakes due to bands of heavy lake-effect snow that can close roads and strand motorists.
Clipper storm to affect Midwest, Northeast
There is a potentially larger and somewhat stronger storm from Canada that AccuWeather meteorologists will be monitoring this week.
This clipper-style storm will travel from Canada to near Lake Superior from Monday to Tuesday. The storm will then pivot eastward across the Great Lakes and near the St. Lawrence Valley from Tuesday to Wednesday.
While this track will put much of the Ohio Valley, mid-Atlantic and southern New England on the warm side of the storm, the air may still be chilly enough to allow pockets of snow all the way from the Midwest to the Atlantic coast. The amount and precise locations of that snow will depend on the track and intensity of the moisture-starved storm.
A bit of snow or flurries will be in the offing for Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit from later Tuesday to Wednesday. Cold rain showers or perhaps wet snow mixed with rain can occur near the Ohio River.
The same storm will then bring the chance of a little snow, snow showers or mixed rain and snow showers to the zone from New York City to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., from Wednesday to Thursday. During this time, there will likely be long periods where there is no rain or snow falling due to the extent of dry pockets within the storm.
"It is pretty rare for much snow to accumulate with a storm track of this nature from southern New England to the mid-Atlantic in the coastal Northeast, but areas farther to the north [and west] stand a better chance at picking up some accumulating snow," AccuWeather Senior Long-Range Meteorologist Joe Lundberg said.
Watching for a coastal storm during 2nd week of December
Looking farther ahead, AccuWeather meteorologists are monitoring the chance of a bigger snowstorm closer to the middle of December.
"There continues to be an indication that a storm will track from the southern Plains or lower Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic coast in the span from Dec. 9-11," Lundberg said.
There are many possibilities with a storm this far out in terms of track, intensity and the amount of snow it could bring, but such a track typically allows the storm to grab much more moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, which can potentially then unload heavier precipitation.
Options for the storm as it nears the coast range from it evolving into a potent nor'easter with significant travel disruptions to a weaker storm that simply races out to sea with minimal travel problems.
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