February frenzy of storms nears its end, but last one may pack a punch
More storms packing snow, ice and rain are lining up into next week with the last one in the train poised to cause major disruptions.
AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter speaks on upcoming storms this week.
The end of the February frenzy is in sight, but not before a couple more potent winter storms swing through this weekend and the middle of next week. The caboose in the storm train could be one of the strongest and most disruptive of the bunch before drier Arctic air reasserts itself, AccuWeather meteorologists warn.
Following a midweek storm with heavy snow for the Upper Midwest, northern New England and adjacent areas of Canada that will wrap up on Thursday, a new storm will already be in the making for part of the same zone for the weekend.
Indications are that the weekend storm will track a bit farther to the south and east than the Wednesday-Thursday storm, AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said.
That means that accumulating snow may extend farther to the south and east over parts of the Midwestern and Northeastern states when compared to the Wednesday-Thursday storm. For example, cities such as Indianapolis, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, are likely to receive accumulating snow for at least part of the storm. The storm from Wednesday to Thursday brought rain and some ice.
Enough snow will fall on Chicago and Detroit to cause substantial travel problems for the two key Midwest airline hubs for the second storm in a row.
Since the weekend storm will have a bit less Arctic air to work with compared to prior storms in the East, mostly rain is likely to fall over much of the immediate Ohio Valley during most of the storm. However, there will still be a period of snow and ice on the front end in part of the mid-Atlantic and southern New England and as colder air invades during the latter part of the storm this weekend, rain may end as a period of accumulating snow from Kansas City, Missouri, to St. Louis, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.
Rain is in the offing for Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, but a combination of rain, snow and perhaps ice is more likely for New York City and Boston this weekend.
The seemingly endless parade of storms will end next week. Often, the caboose in a train of storms is the biggest, as it tends to mark a change in the weather pattern.
There is the potential for a shift in the track of the storm for the middle of next week, depending on the orientation of the jet stream.
"There's probably going to be a major storm next week, thanks to a strong injection of Arctic air over the northern Plains," Rayno said, "The question is does that storm try to track up along the Atlantic coast or head more to the east, across the Southern states and then out to sea."
A storm that tracks more to the north rather than east would allow warm air to bring mostly rain from the Ohio Valley to the Appalachians and the Atlantic coast. However, a storm track a bit more to the east could mean heavy snow from the Ohio Valley to the central and southern Appalachians and perhaps areas close to the Atlantic coast in New England and the upper mid-Atlantic. A straight east track could bring snow and ice to the interior South.
Should the storm develop to its full potential and try to track northward along the Atlantic coast, some inland areas could end up with wind-driven heavy snow while wind-driven rain and flooding at times of high tide occur along the Atlantic coast in the Northeast.
There is also the possibility that the storm this weekend could be the bigger of the two in terms of precipitation, and the storm next week will be more subdued. Even a more moderate storm can result in significant travel disruptions.
The weekend (next to last) storm in the train will bring more severe weather to the Southern states.
Enough rain may fall to trigger localized urban flooding. In portions of the interior Southeast, which will have been blasted by multiple rounds of heavy rain from this week to the next, flooding problems could be more widespread and serious as a result. The last two storms (this weekend and the middle of next week) may also bring some of the most substantial amounts of severe thunderstorms since last fall.
Some of the most potent severe thunderstorms from Saturday to Saturday night will produce tornadoes and some of the twisters could be strong and on the ground for more than a few minutes and travel for miles.
As AccuWeather meteorologists iron out the details of the tail end of the storm train pattern, one thing is for sure next week.
"After the storm next week, it's mostly cold but has a drier pattern for most in the eastern half of the country, with the exception of the downwind of Lake Ontario/Huron with the lake-effect," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson said.
Extensive ice cover should limit lake-effect snow directly from Lake Erie in western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio, unless a band of snow is able to develop over Lake Huron and travel all the way across Lake Erie.
"Despite the cold air and its overwhelming chill at night and first thing in the morning, it should be a sunnier pattern for many beginning later next week," Anderson said, "When the sun is out this time of the year, it should feel a bit less harsh in the midday and afternoon when winds are light or when driving around in the car."
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