This is going to be the first of two updates this afternoon and this will cover event #1 that is on the near horizon. Considering we are only about 4 days away from this first system there is still a fair amount of disagreement with what is going to happen with this system.
Being that we are four days away you will NOT find us making any definitive statements . We are not going to say that this system will cause snow to fall..we are not going to say this system will cause rain to fall. Why? Because we like to deal with more certainty in forecasting then uncertainty and at 96 hours out there are still to many uncertainties , especially when models are not in agreement. If we are going to be wrong in a forecast it is because something did not go according to as planned not because we made absolute statements at 96 hrs out. Can it snow this time of the year? Yes it can. 3 days ago just proved that to be true. Does that mean it will snow again? No.
With that out of the way lets look at the latest guidance that 12 Z and 18 Z offered up to us today..
The GFS at 12 Z says the system is going to stay to the south of the area and not really provide the region with any precipitation. However, the latest GFS run would actually give parts of the region a snow to rain to snow type scenario or in some locations such as ABE it could give a minor all wet snow event..
12 Z GGEM brings the system from the south and moves it towards the NE and its temp profile is one that would suggest that a wintery mix of snow/ice is possible across parts of the region.
The UKMET appears to take a low towards and into Ohio and then redevelops this low off the southern New Jersey coast at around 108 hrs out and moves it NE from there. This is pretty consistent with its prior run for this system..
The European Computer model on other other hand tends to start this system pretty far off to the south at 96 hrs and then moves it towards the NE and redevelops another low more south of the rest of the guidance..
While 850s on the ECM are supportive of frozen temperatures ..the boundary layer is generally to warm for any frozen precipitation..(there could be some exceptions to this however).
At the present time we are not talking about a system that will have an abundant amount of QPF. The QPF with this system looks to be light to moderate at most with about .50 or less thru out the region. If this were to end up being an all snow event for some locations (higher elevations) at the present time it would only be about in the 2-4 inch range.
It does appear as though some locations could be dealing with wintery weather ..but the where..and how much and exact details are too far out.
There is a possibility that a bigger storm could follow this particular system. The next post will cover that time frame and its possibilities weather wise.
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