First Snowstorm of the 2012 Winter Season..

All afternoon we have been analyzing the models and guidance as they have been coming in. Just less then 24 hours ago we had the models essentially all saying that this was going to stay far enough off the coast that it would not really effect anything other then the ocean. Alot of the people around the internet bought that scenario but we never bought into that scenario. There was only two models that we were watching for signs or hints that would tell us or help us to come out with a forecast . Those two models were the European Computer Model .. this is the only model last night that did actually not take the system out to sea. The other model we were watching was the NOGAPS. We watched the NOGAPS to see where it was positioned with the low and we mentioned on our Facebook page how the rest of the guidance was holding hands with the NOGAPS. This told us that the guidance was to far to the east which left the ECM being the only model that was west of the NOGAPS. So at that point and time we were banking on two things to happen.
1. The ECM to end up being the more accurate model since it was west of the nogaps ..
2. The rest of the guidance to start trending back towards the west 

This is exactly what started happening at 12 Z model runs today...then the trend continued with the 18 Z Model runs...

We are briefly going to look at the models that came out today..Starting with the 18 Z GFS...

You can see that the 18 Z GFS has definitely come west and in comparison to last night it has come quite the distant west and almost brings 1.00 liquid equivalent into the Allentown Bethlehem Easton region...

Again the above now is the 18 Z NAM which ..at 12 Z runs it had come west but the 18 Z is even more west then what the 12 Z was. Again bringing some decent QPF into east central PA into NJ and NYC...

Now in addition to this we have the 18 Z RGEM..

As you can see the NAM and the GFS are not the only models that have shifted west and bring more QPF into the region but we have the RGEM doing the same. All this guidance essentially agrees that the KPHL to Southern New Jersey and N DE are going to be the jackpot area.

Going back to the 12 Z model suite we will look at the ECM and the GGEM..

The above is just a one hour frame ..you can go thru the rest of the images at the following link (click here) ..This brings heavy snow into Eastern PA ..

The above is the 12 Z ECM images and as you can see this has indeed also come back more west compared to 00z last nights model runs. 

Some things to keep in mind ...
1. The air mass that is out ahead of this system is not a warm air mass. This means that the ground is not all that warm..So we think if the snow comes down heavy enough it will stick on the pavements and the streets that are not pre treated..

2. With guidance clearly suggesting more QPF then what the NWS is projecting we can not be in agreement with them.

3. This is going to be similar to last October where we are expecting a heavy wet snow that will paste to trees.

4. This means that we could have more trees down and power outages.. So something you may want to prepare for if worse comes to worse.

5. We will have winds that will be 15-30 mph and gusts inland as high as 45-55 and along the coast we could be gusting as high as 60 mph. This in combination with the snow could mean power outages across the same region as Sandy just got done tearing up...

7. Lollipops are going to depend on where the deformation band sets up. It is in this region that we could see locations from 6-8 inches. At this time we think it could be from extreme SE PA to Southern NJ and northern De.
However..if the storm shifts west more at 00z this could end up moving that axis of heaviest further to the west...

So with all the above said...blending the models and there QPF together we have come up with the following map:

On the southern part of the T-3 inch snowfall we think it could start off as rain and be a wintry mix.. Also along the eastern NJ coast line...