Good Saturday morning everyone!
Today is going to be a very spring like day with temps as high as 60 degrees! Yes, 60! Make sure that you spend some time outside today and take advantage of the best day of 2014 so far! Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end...and the warmth will later tonight. Some passing snow showers are going to find their way into the region and knock the temps back into the low 30s for tomorrow! Yikes! I can't remember the last time I forecasted highs in the 60s and snow in the same day! The cold then continues for Monday with sunny skies. Tuesday, clouds will be increasing and then...well the overnight model runs have trended at least 20 miles northwest. This is great news for snow-lovers, as the mean now has at least 2+ feet of snow over cape cod. That seems like we miss the worst, but...these models had the extreme snowfall just out to sea yesterday. The trend has been to bring it further west, and any further west trend could bring a classic spring blizzard to Southern New England (yes, if it came, it would be time to use the 'b' word). As far as accumulations go...I will refrain from making a forecast yet, but I'll show the options on the three paths that remain possible and the likelihood of each
1. The storm passes very near or directly over the 40N 70W benchmark, causing one of the largest March nor'easters in history and dumping 2-4 feet of snow. This scenario would rival what we saw last year, and be a rather similar setup to the Great Blizzard of 1888- someone in SNE could get 45"+. I would put the odds of this at a solid 50%
2. The storm is a bit further out to sea, as the models are currently forecasting and the region misses the worst of the snow to the east. In this situation, Cape Cod picks up the blizzard conditions, but Connecticut is still dealt a glancing blow, but with a storm of this intensity, we are still looking at a significant snowfall of around 4-8" with up to 10" possible in New London county. This one has a 35% chance of occurring
3. The storm tracks so far out to sea that it completely misses all of New England, dealing very little precip to the region. This would result in little to no accumulations. Unfortunately for snow haters, this is the least likely scenario to occur, and there is only about a 15% chance of it occurring with this one as the location of the polar vortex just to the east of New England forces the storm to track north instead of east.
As you can see, the odds at this point favor a strong snowstorm for Wednesday. I'll be sure to keep you posted, especially of scenario #1 decides to pan out. If it does, be ready. I hesitated to even put the figures out there, as I don't want to hype the storm, but the magnitude of this possibility is worth taking a bit of heat if it misses. We should know lots more by tomorrow, and I'll put out my preliminary forecast tomorrow evening. Until then, enjoy the sun and warmth today- you'll need when for when you're shoveling Thursday!
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