Snow, wintry mix and rain to follow Arctic air in Northeast
While strong high pressure will bring good travel conditions for most of the weekend, wintry precipitation will spread form west to east from Sunday to Monday and can create slippery to dangerous conditions.
Heavy snow blew in from the Great Lakes on Dec. 12, leaving towns buried in feet of fresh snow.
Strong Arctic high pressure will help set the stage for a period of snow and ice for a large part of the interior Northeast as a storm affects the region from late this weekend to early this week, AccuWeather meteorologists advise.
Some property owners may have to break out the shovels and ice scrapers for the first time this season and motorists heading home from weekend ventures or heading out early on Monday may encounter some difficulties with travel. Flight delays due to deicing operations are possible, especially at smaller regional airports.
Check your home barometers
A strong dome of high pressure will slide from the Great Lakes to off the New England coast this weekend.
People who have a barometer, which measures atmospheric pressure, may want to watch them throughout the weekend as they will climb unusually high. "Some record high barometric pressure readings may occur," AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said.
This wall barometer shows atmospheric pressure in inches and millibars. (Photo credit: Alex Sosnowski)
"The pressure on some barometers may reach 31.00 inches of mercury (1,050 millibars) or higher from late Saturday to Sunday in New England and upstate New York," AccuWeather Meteorologist and Social Media Producer Jesse Ferrell added.
Wedge of cold air to cause trouble
Typically high pressure areas create dry and sunny conditions, which will be no exception for most of this weekend. Late this weekend, the lingering effects of the high pressure area and an approaching storm from the Midwest will begin to work in tandem.
The departing high pressure area will create a wedge of cold air from the spine of the Appalachians to the Piedmont areas just to the east on Sunday and Sunday night as moisture arrives from the Midwest storm. This cold wedge setup is referred to by meteorologists as "cold air damming."
The depth and staying power of the cold air will determine the amount of frozen precipitation (snow and sleet) versus liquid precipitation (freezing rain and plain rain) in the zone from eastern West Virginia and western Virginia to central and eastern New York state.
"Should a thick layer of cold air remain, then it could snow for hours and pile up to several inches over the central Appalachians," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Adam Douty said. "If the cold layer remains thin, then some sleet and freezing rain will be the primary form of precipitation."
At this time, up to a few inches of snow and perhaps a bit of ice followed by drizzle are forecast in parts of the central Appalachians from Sunday afternoon to Sunday night.
Any ice or coating of snow can be troublesome for motorists and pedestrians, especially at night when visibility is low.
The primary form of precipitation is likely to be rain along Interstate 95 in the mid-Atlantic and southern New England.
In areas from parts of north-central Maryland to southeastern Pennsylvania, northwestern New Jersey, the lower Hudson Valley of upstate New York and the western parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts, just enough of a blend of cold air and moisture may allow a small amount of wintry mixed precipitation to occur from Sunday evening to Monday morning.
For example, just enough can occur to make some roads slippery, including perhaps part of the Route 287 corridor west of New York City.
"Lingering dry air from the departing high pressure zone may have such an influence that it greatly limits the amount of ice and snow, even in the colder areas at the onset of the storm in New England," Pastelok said. "The dry air may buy the atmosphere time to warm up by Monday when much of the precipitation occurs in the form of rain and drizzle, rather than ice and snow."
Watching a storm later next week
"There are indications that a storm will make a northward run along an advancing cold front during the Wednesday to Thursday time period," Pastelok said.
There could be some ice and snow on the front end of a rainstorm in the northern tier of the Northeast and perhaps a period of snow at the tail end as colder air comes in over the Appalachians to eastern parts of the Tennessee Valley, Ohio Valley and Great Lakes, Pastelok explained.
"Right now it looks like a similar track and precipitation setup to the storm from this past week with mostly rain likely along I-95 westward to the Appalachians," Pastelok said.
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