Monday Afternoon and Tuesday Morning

Monday, March 2, 10AM

Snow will develop across central MD this afternoon, especially along and south of I-70 where an inch or so of accumulation is possible, mainly on grassy areas. Temperatures mainly above freezing and high sun angle should keep roads from icing during the day. The snow should end this evening, but as a warm front approaches from the southwest overnight, another batch of snow and freezing rain will develop around midnight and continue into the early morning. As a result, tomorrow’s AM commute could be icy before temperature rise above freezing around 9-10AM.

Sunday Evening Update

Sunday, February 22, 5PM

Things evolved during the day as expected as just about all areas now have gone over to snow. Temperatures will fall to below freezing over the next couple of hours and road conditions will begin to deteriorate. For the remainder of the evening, snow, sometimes heavy, and increasing northerly winds as the coastal really begins deepening. Snow will continue into the early morning, and though I think it might be difficult for much of the area to get the 4 – 8″ I had said earlier, 3 – 5″ seems reasonable. It’s still several hours away from developing, but wherever the norlun trough sets up, that area could get mauled and easily end up with 10″. Right now I think somewhere around the Route 15 corridor has the best shot, but it should rotate through later tonight and possibly have an impact on the 95 corridor. I’ll keep an eye on the radar, and if it’s as good as models are advertising, I’ll update later.

Be safe if you’re on the roads this evening through the morning tomorrow.

Today and Tonight

Sunday, February 22, 9AM

Light rain has commenced across the area with snow already mixing in along the MD/PA border. Regardless of whether your area changes to snow later this morning or afternoon, temperatures should remain above freezing in the metro areas, so travel today shouldn’t be a problem. The exception is northern MD and areas with elevation where temps will be slightly lower.

My expectations for this storm have been somewhat muted for our area as I felt that things would end up east of us, but the recent model runs, particularly the short-range models, have me pretty excited for tonight into early Monday morning. If central MD is going to get any decent accumulations, it won’t happen until late this afternoon and into the overnight hours when colder air is pulled into the system and we lose the sun. Along the 95 corridor, I think snow becomes an issue around 4PM north of Baltimore to 6PM down by DC. Total snow accumulations from around 3″ down towards DC, and increasing to up to 8″ just northeast of Baltimore are possible, with that 8″ amount spreading west along the northern tier. There’s also going to be a narrow band somewhere, oriented on a line from northwest to southeast, that is going to get dumped on and has the potential for up to 12″. That will be a now-casting issue as it’s impossible to know where it happens. If anyone is interested in what causes this phenomenon in these types of systems, google norlun trough. So, for central MD, let’s just with a general 4 – 8″ by Monday morning.

I don’t have a lot of confidence in the accumulations that I stated, but I’ll be watching this all day and will probably annoy you with updates as the coastal storm develops. On that topic, if anyone wants to check in occasionally on the coastal development, this is a nice radar site for it. Click on the link, uncheck the Weather Stations box, check the Radar box, and then zoom out to get a nice view of our area and the coastal areas from NC to NY. Hit the play button and increase the speed to 5x. More later.

Midday model runs update

Saturday, February 21, 2 PM

A very quick update on the midday model runs. They still show snow TV during the day tomorrow with colder air arriving around sunset. Still looking like a 3 to 6 inch event for most of the area overnight Sunday, with higher amounts possible to the east and northeast. This is still preliminary and could go worse or better, so I will update more thoroughly tonight.

Saturday Morning Update

Saturday, February 21, 9AM

I don’t envy anyone that has to make a forecast for this event across the area as it has so many moving parts that it will be difficult to pin down snow totals for a specific area. There’s still a full day of model runs before anything begins, but I can’t recall a storm in the past 20 years that was within 24 hours and had this much uncertainty. The difficulty is that there are several pieces of energy that are phasing into a coastal storm and the timing and location of that phase will ultimately determine the outcome for central MD. If you want to be assured of a snowstorm, the best local’ish place to be is probably Delaware as they are further east and north enough to catch the full brunt of all the model’s placement of the developing coastal storm. Most areas on the eastern shore will start as rain on Sunday, but by Sunday evening, the rain changes to heavy snow with extremely high winds. Blizzard Warnings are up for the coastal areas of Delaware, extending north to New York, and will likely be expanded into New England later today. If you’re on the coast, Sunday night is going to be the real deal for a winter storm. Heavy snow, high winds, and huge drifts.

For central Maryland, we have several issues to overcome to get accumulating snow. Marginal temperatures through the day on Sunday are likely a problem. I am confident that it’s going to snow tomorrow, but with temperatures in the mid 30’s and a late winter sun angle, it’s going to be difficult to get accumulations on anything other than grassy surfaces. The only thing that could make tomorrow impactful is heavy snow rates, and for that to happen, we need the phase to happen early and the low to form and hover close to the coast. The gfs has that, but the euro does not. My initial guess, which could be really wrong, is that tomorrow will be a pretty day of falling snow but with minimal impact. By tomorrow evening, the coastal storm really starts cranking and it will pull cold air down so that temperatures around sunset will fall below freezing. That’s when things could get interesting but again will be determined by the placement of the coastal storm. Too far east and it’s just light snow, but if it’s closer to the coast, we could have several hours of moderate snow that would accumulate quickly. I do think tomorrow night has the potential to be impactful for the area. The NWS has issued, and recently expanded, Winter Storm Watches for at least 5″ of snow for the entire area. This is only a watch and it means the potential is there, but it is not a forecast. Just my thoughts, but the areas most likely to exceed the warning criteria from the coastal storm are along the fall line just west of I-95 and then points east. I think these areas could end in the 4 – 6″ range with more possible close to the Bay, especially to the north. Later today the watches will either be upgraded to a warning or just an advisory, so keep an eye on the NWS site to get an idea of what they expect. If your county goes pink, they think you’re going to see 5″ or more of snow. If it goes purplish, that’s an advisory for less than that.

The final complicating piece to all of this is a trailing upper lever low that will cross the area Sunday night. Models have been pointing to a relatively narrow band of nearly stationary heavy snow developing somewhere west of I-95 that could dump a lot of snow in a very short time. That location is very difficult for anyone to pin down and will probably be a nowcasting situation. So, to reiterate the difficulty in making a forecast, it’s entirely possible that areas near the Bay end up with 8″ of snow from the coastal storm, and somewhere west of 95 ends up with 8″ of snow from the upper level low, and some areas in-between end up screaming at the sky. I’m going wait to see what the midday model runs say and then update.

Friday Update

Friday, February 20th, Noon’ish

Models are coming to some agreement that snow will develop Sunday and continue into Sunday night. Still too early for details but a first guess is that although the snow may be moderate to heavy at times during the day Sunday, the temperatures will be above freezing so roads should be fair for travel other than some slush and reduced visibility. Accumulations during the day should be mainly on grassy surfaces. Sunday night, however, could be a different story as temperatures drop to below freezing after sunset. It will depend on how much precipitation continues to fall during the night if Monday morning’s commute will be impacted.

More this evening.

Sunday and Sunday Night Update

Thursday, February 19th, 7PM

Just a quick update that a system will be impacting the area Sunday afternoon and into the overnight hours. There are ridiculous differences in the models for an event that is less than three days out, but the evening model runs gave some indication that they may be sorting themselves out. Hopefully by tomorrow there is some consensus. Right now there are two camps with the last few runs of the gfs showing a major to historical winter storm, while the euro is a minor daytime to possibly impactful nighttime event. For the past three runs, the gfs has been showing an all snow mauling in the one to two foot range (yes, I’m serious), and the euro is a mixed during the day Sunday becoming snow Sunday night in the 2 – 5″ range. I didn’t post about the gfs earlier because I thought it would eventually cave, but I have to admit that this evening’s euro was the first of the two models to flinch as it made a shift to a storm closer to the coast. It’s still nothing like the gfs, but I did not expect to see the evening gfs hold firm and the euro shift to an improvement for snow across the area. At this point, I still think they will meet somewhere closer to the euro, but I am reluctantly getting a little hopeful for one last winter hurrah. Anyway, I’ll update what the overnight runs say tomorrow morning and hopefully they all look like the ridiculous gfs shown below. But don’t get your hopes up. They won’t.

Melting and Then Maybe More Snow

Tuesday, February 17, 9AM

After an impressive three week stretch of snow cover, we should recover this week and melt away much of the remnants. Temperatures this week will be at, or even slightly above normal, which should give the winter-weary a taste of early spring, but it may be short-lived. Models are converging on the possibility of a coastal storm around Sunday that may pull enough cold air in to bring the threat of snow across much of the area. Much too early for details, but I’ll update as needed during the work week.

Light Snow and More Cold

Tuesday, February 3, 5:30PM

Today was the first day in over 10 days that the entire region got above freezing, which is a remarkable run of cold. The trend of below normal temperatures with little precipitation will continue into next week. Tonight, a weak cold front will cross the area bringing the possibility of some light snow and slightly colder temperatures for the next couple of days. Any snow tonight should be light with the most being a heavy dusting.

Late Friday, a stronger arctic cold front approaches the area bringing a chance of snow squalls late Friday into Saturday morning and much colder weather for the weekend. No major storms on the horizon with the next chance as far out as Valentine’s Day weekend.

If anything changes, I’ll send out an update.

Still Too Far Southeast

Wednesday, January 28, 2:30PM

Some light snow may develop this afternoon across central MD as a reinforcing shot of arctic air makes its way over the area. Accumulations would be minor, but with the very cold temperatures, some slick spots may occur.

Regarding our weekend threat, models still have a storm too far to the south and east to impact Central Maryland. The only area as of now in play is the eastern shore, where they may get some light accumulation. I’ll keep an eye on it and update periodically.