STORM WARNING- Trending to Trouble?

Hey everyone-

This is an update on the progression of the forecast on Winter Storm Jonas and the impacts it will have on Connecticut.

The models have gone through quite the day today. The long range models this morning showed very little, if any, snow in our area, while the short range models (all of them) said we can expect over two feet of the white stuff. Lovely right? That puts me in a brutal situation where I have to straddle the fence, saying the dreaded 1-30" is possible...ugh. With that stated, I am becoming a bit more concerned tonight.

The 12z NAM, generally viewed as an excellent short-range model but very questionable beyond 24 hours, deposited 12-15" of snow on our region. Everyone was shocked...but saw that the GFS, CMC, and Euro were further south, so generally ignored it. As the day wore on, however, it became clear that the NAM was not an outlier- the SREF, RPM, and other high resolution models began to decide that the monster blizzard would find its' way entirely into Connecticut, yielding a direct hit and several feet of snow.

By 18z, about 3 hours ago, everyone was anxious to see what would happen. Many of us thought the NAM would correct itself lower, thinking that it couldn't show the full hit for more than one cycle. We were right- it did change- by doubling that and dropping 2-3 feet of snow. The GFS then took a VERY noticable northward jog that, although it doesn't quite nail CT completely...still yields a 5-10" shoreline result- totals generally looking like my snowfall map from this morning.

That said, the 12" totals on the GFS migrated from central New Jersey to northern Long Island. ANY further north shift at 0z...and suddenly everyone begins to panic, blizzard warnings are issued, and the 3-6" forecast that everyone seems to be calling for is literally quadrupled at once, which is insanely rare but not impossible this late in the game.

The bottom line- a historic blizzard is still on the table...but don't expect it quite yet. That said, if you wake up in the morning on this blog, and the headline is "SEVERE STORM WARNING- Saturday Shocker- historic blizzard heading for CT"...don't be shocked either.

See you in the morning.