Status Quo For Now
It's more of the same as spokes of moisture circulate around a sprawling storm system centered way way out over the ocean east of New Foundland. With the North Atlantic Oscillation in a negative phase, blocking from Europe westward to eastern Canada is a big player. Under this phase, major nor'easters can clobber the region or be forced out below New England impacting the Mid-Atlantic States. Over the next couple of days, recent weather conditions will be repeated. The flurries and sprinkles of today will dry up this evening. I am not anticipating any problems on most roadways later tonight and for the morning commute. Temperatures will fall slightly to an average of 32 degrees across the area. Once this latest spoke of moisture passes, there could be just enough drying to cause breaking clouds late tonight leading to some spotty splashes and slices of sunshine tomorrow morning. The breeze will freshen to 10-20 mph from the northwest. The afternoon will be dominated by clouds as the next impulse rotates southwestward from the Canadian Maritimes. Its attendant trough of low pressure will pivot southward across the area late tomorrow into early Tuesday with sprinkles later tomorrow afternoon changing to snow showers tomorrow evening. The flurries will end Tuesday morning as that perturbation exits. A parcel of drying should produce more widespread pockets of sunshine on Tuesday before more clouds roll in from the east-northeast in the afternoon. With greater brightness, it should spike up to 44-48 on Tuesday.
Looking ahead, high pressure pushing southward into the region on Wednesday will interact with low pressure blossoming on the Mid-Atlantic coastline. This developing storm could unload 12-18" of snow over the higher elevations of western VA, eastern WV and western MD. Although there could be some wet snow mixed with the rain at times in the metro areas, the accumulating snow should occur west of Washington and Baltimore and south of Philadelphia. The system will swirl out over the ocean and intensify on an east-northeastward track. The most reliable model guidance is projecting a path which would keep New England unscathed except for increasing wind due to the tightening pressure gradient between the high pressure to the north and the storm to the south. Some fresh data from other models suggests that the storm will creep farther north so its envelope of steadier and heavier snow and rain would expand and penetrate into at least southern New England. I am not willing to buy into this solution yet unless there is more forthcoming evidence that a weakness in the blocking structure will support a shift in the storm path. For now, I will just predict some ocean-effect snow and rain showers later Wednesday and Thursday with a strengthening northeasterly wind to 25-45 mph over southern New England especially on the South Coast and Cape Cod. This would enhance the seas to over 12 feet and cause more beach erosion. Fortunately, the scheduled height of the high tides is in the range of 9.8 feet Thursday morning and 8.8 feet Thursday evening. As a result, there should only be some pockets of minor coastal flooding. Subsequent forecast cycles will become more defining in the next 24-48 hours.
Melissa Mack delivers her latest WBZ AccuWeather Forecast in the morning and Todd Gutner follow later in the day.
Make it a great week!
