Special Weather Statement!

Issued 1/05/09 at 2:20 AM
The following statement applies to the counties of Berks, Bucks, Lehigh, Carbon, Monroe, Northampton counties in Pennsylvania. The following statement applies to Morris, Passaic, Sussex, and Warren Counties in New Jersey.

Effective 1/06/09 7 PM to 1/07/09 12 noon eastern standard time
R.W.S Special Weather Statement

Potential Winter Storm to effect the area.

Low pressure developing over the southwest USA early this morning will head eastward and tap into moisture from the Gulf Of Mexico. This area of low pressure will move Northeast from the Gulf of Mexico thru the Mississippi Valley as it heads towards the Ohio Valley.
With a Greenland Block in place and a strong -NAO ..this primary will hit a brick wall of confluence and be forced to hand off its energy to a secondary area of low pressure. The development of this secondary low pressure is still not agreed upon by models. However, the area for development should be the Delmarva to just south of LI. WAA will spread out ahead of the primary low and will run over the top of lower level cold air. CAD will be firmly entrenched across the areas N & W of I-95.
The potential exists for a couple inches of snow followed by a long duration of ice. The potential exists in the above regions for .25 + ice. The potential exists for a dangerous ice storm.

Please stay tuned for future statements about this potentially dangerous storm from R.W.S.

January 7th Winter Storm Potential Update

January 7th Winter Storm Update! 00z GFS and 00z ECM are posted up above. Taking a look at the 00z GFS tonight it appears to have two high pressures to the north of the system which continue to show a strong CAD signature. Despite the GFS still keeping the primary on the strong side..despite the GFS developing the secondary too far north...it still continues to signal a Wintry Weather solution for those that are primarily N & W of I-95. Operational GFS develops the secondary to the north of Mass..while the GFS ensembles deepen it south of Mass.
Looking at tonights ECM..it has fine tuned some from the 12 Z run which showed the Primary heading into Wisconsin. I realized that was wrong this morning so tonights ECM is no surprise that it jumped back South and East. The ECM is also colder then it was at 12 Z and is also signifying a wintery storm in the same regions.
00z NAM which i do not have posted has the same general concept as the rest of guidance with one exception..the 00z NAM develops the secondary off of the Delmarva and moves it NE from there.
So as you can see from reading above we are still not in model harmony for this event and likely will not be until under 24 hours. 00z tomorrow night. Thats the analysis.
I am going to follow this post with two more posts tonight. The next post coming will be my thoughts generally on what I see happening at this point and time. The second will be the teleconnectors. Look for them in about 20 minutes!

Updated Teleconnectors as of January 3rd

NAO currently still at negative 3. This is a very strong Negative NAO. PNA still forecasted to become positive and stay positive while the EPO is forecasted to go to neutral. These signals continue to suggest that the medium to long range will be cold in the east and northeast with a trough along the east and a ridge out west!

January 7th Winter Storm Potential

This is a heads up to all those that read this blog about the potential for a winter storm for tuesday night into wednesday. The ingredients are pretty much set in place to set the stage for what could become a significant ice storm across the State of PA into NW NJ....
As you can clearly see the ECM as it is getting in its short range has come even more South and East of its previous run and colder then its previous run. Also the GFS after its horrendous 18 Z fluke run has also come back to the same idea of showing CAD across the region.
Now it has been expressed that there is no way that there could be CAD in this situation.
Let me clearly explain what is happening ... Currently in place we have what is known as Greenland blocking. We also currently have a very negative NAO. A rising PNA. All these together spell confluence over the Northeast and the Great Lakes provided by the high pressures to the North. These highs should only trend stronger with time.
Essentially what should happen is the primary will head out of the Mississippi Valley up the western side of the Appalachians. This primary will hit the confluence and will be forced to hand off to a secondary area of low pressure. Where that secondary area of low pressure tracks will be key. Also where the secondary area forms.
As it stands currently the area is looking at a significant ice storm potentially. Stay tuned for further information!

Teleconnector Update as of January 1st

EPO is positive but trending to neutral at the end of the period
PNA is negative trending to positive.
NAO is quite negative but trends to neutral at the end of the period...
All and All these connections which control and are the driving force of our weather are showing a ridge along the west coast and a trough along the east coast. This should keep the east coast under colder conditions and possibly stormy as well. Just as the NAO looks to go to Neutral, the EPO looks to go down to neutral as well. Have to see where they both trend over the next few days cause if the NAO were to go positive..we could continue the cold with a -EPO taking its place....

January Outlook Created 9 Months ago!

This is my January forecast created back in March of 2008. I am not going to tweak it or adjust anything as I believe it should hold up quite well...

Departures for KABE
January 1st Negative 9

Daily Departures at KABE

December 1st Positive 2
December 2nd Negative 4
December 3rd Negative 6
December 4th Positive 3
December 5th Negative 9 (Edited to meet the NWS)
December 6th Negative 11 (Edited too meet NWS)
December 7th Negative 10
December 8th Negative 14
December 9th Seasonal (No Departure edited to meet NWS final #)
December 10th Positive 15
December 11th Positive 3 (edited to meet NWS)
December 12th Positive 2 (edited to meet NWS)
December 13th Negative 6 (edited to meet NWS)
December 14th Negative 1
December 15th Positive 18 (RECORD HIGH 61 BROKE 1918 record of 60)
December 16th Positive 8 (High of 51 came at midnight yesterday)
December 17th Positive 3
December 18th Positive 3
December 19th Negative 2
December 20th Negative 6
December 21st Negative 3
December 22nd Negative 15
December 23rd Negative 11
December 24th Positive 9
December 25th Positive 7
December 26th Seasonal -No Departure
December 27th Positive 7
December 28th Positive 21 (record high of 63)
December 29th Positive 7
December 30th Positive 6
December 31st Negative 3
Overall for the month the departure was 0.5 which would fall under the Seasonal range.

Above is the departures for the month and also the image that I made 9 months in advance. For the most part the Northeast ended up seasonal to slightly below with some areas that fell into the above Category...All and all I think for 9 months in advance this was a pretty good call...Let me know what you think readers by letting a comment :)