TOWNER'S WEATHER PAGE

Richmond, VA Thundersnow

2012-02-11T18:58:00.001-05:00

Richmond, VA had some thundersnow caught on video today, here is the link...thunder starts at :26

Tonight....Update

2012-02-11T14:25:00.003-05:00

Cold air is on the march from Western PA towards the east coast. With this distrubance, snow has been accompanying it. I had mentioned last night about a Nurlon Trough potentially moving through as well. Both look to be heading to the east. In fact, the volatility of the squall lines is already impressive. Below is a video from Purcellville, VA. An intense squall came through and actually had some thunder with it. In any case, this is a very real potential to happen here. These squalls will last 20-30 minutes and will be accompanied by very heavy snows. More to come as this moves to the east....just wanted to let everyone know we may have another round move through this evening.

Purcellville, VA Thundersnow

Very good article on what a Nurlon trough is and the intenisty they can bring:

Nurlon Trough Info

Friday Night Update

2012-02-10T22:02:00.000-05:00

Rain showers have overspread a number of locations in the area. Temperatures are still in the mid 30's throughout the area. While there will be a transition to snow overnight, any accumulation will more than likely be confined to grassy areas and car tops. It will be tough to accumulate on pavement following a day in the upper 40's. This could be overcome by high precipitation rates, which I am not seeing with this event. I am still pretty confident of a snowfall from 1-3" region wide.

In any case, the landscape should be white when you wake up in the morning. Another interesting feature with this event will be tomorrow night. Cold air will blast into the area tomorrow afternoon and evening. With it, there is a chance we will have a Nurlon trough pass through the region. The troughs usually produce and rather heavy period of precipitation. The neat thing is, they are only produced over a small area. Forecasting where these troughs set up are extremely tough and usually has to be nowcasted (as it happens). These are caused by clashing air masses which will be present tomorrow. In addition, the cold air, will drop temperatures well below freezing and cause any standing water or slush to freeze.

More to come as needed

Rather impressive!

2012-02-10T18:25:00.000-05:00

Came across this today... Truly amazing! I have no idea what they are
saying, but impressive snowfall in Romania

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAyToxJOSAM&sns=em

Tonight/Tomorrow Update

2012-02-10T16:06:00.001-05:00

*** National Weather Service has issued Winter Weather Advisories for Southern Counties***** I assume they will be issued shortly for the remaining counties in NJ.

Still some questions remain for the area, but as I see it going down now, we will have rain and snow mixed to start late tonight. This will transition to all snow by daybreak. It will likely remain all snow until 8-9am.

Amounts will range from 1-3", with 1 being areas further south and 3" being further north. North of NYC thru CT will do fairly well, 2-4".

Big question now is, can we overcome the high temperatures in the area today ranging from the mid 40's to the Upper 40's? Accumulations will primarily be over the grassy areas, unless we can get a good thump to overcome pave t temps.

Tomorrow night will become downright cold, so any standing water will freeze.

More to come!

Latest NAM run

2012-02-10T09:41:00.001-05:00

Mid morning NAM (930am) run much cooler for the are! Gonna get interesting! More updates around 1pm!

Weekend Update Early Friday Model Runs

2012-02-10T09:06:00.001-05:00

early morning model runs havent really cleared anything up yet. The NAM and GFS are still pretty different for this part of the game. The GFS has been saying the same thing for a couple runs in a row, a start of rain to snow and possibly 1-3" while the NAM still showing a strung out mess bringing in nothing more than some rain and backend end snow showers.

GFS:

NAM:

Hopefully we can get some of this cleared up with the remaining model runs mid morning and afternoon. More to come!

Nighttime GFS Model

2012-02-09T23:04:00.000-05:00

Looking much better than the NAM model. Has one low, and albeit we
start as some rain, it transitions to snow and creates a moderate
event for the area (for this year).

More to come!

Nighttime NAM Model

2012-02-09T21:37:00.004-05:00

NAM model held serve in the evening from its noontime run. However, tonight, it actually looked better with the amount of precipitation, but the issue with the run was temperature profiles do not support snow. In other words, it was too warm, and is a rain event. Areas in NW NJ and the ABE-Pocono region in PA still look pretty good as far as snow goes.

Next up is the GFS run at 1130 and the EURO model at 1am. More to come.

May be some issues with this run though, notice all the low pressures? Eventually, we should see a consolidated low pressure. Having those many lows MAY have contributed to some of the temp issues.....we shall see on future runs on the NAM:

Weekend Potential

2012-02-09T10:22:00.000-05:00

watching a system for this weekend. The midday NAM model run shows a developing low pressure off the coast of Jersey and moving up into New England. This is the lone model showing this, and it may be a blip, may be a start where other models come around to it.

Verbatim, we would make out with a couple inches of snow, while areas in New England could have 6+ inches. Again, this is one model. If it develops later, we would not get much, but if it can develop earlier, say around the coast of Delaware, we could be in for the biggest storm of the year (not saying too much by that).

More to come. Next up will be the midday GFS run (~1130am) and then the Euro (~1pm) and then the evening runs starting late afternoon!

More to come!

Today

2012-02-08T12:49:00.000-05:00

Winter Weather Advisories are posted for parts of Central and Southern NJ. Basically a nuisance event with areas poised to receive a coating - 2". Snow will begin this afternoon and continue into the late evening. Snow has already started in Central PA in State College, York and Lancaster.

More to come!

Upcoming

2012-02-07T22:07:00.000-05:00

The groundhog has spoken. 6 more weeks of winter. Personally, I am
still waiting for it to start :)

In any case, it appears he was on to something. Have a light snow
chance tomorrow into tomorrow night. Nothing major, probably a coating
up north to up to 1" down south.

The real show starts this weekend into next week as models are showing
some of the coldest air of the season heading our way. With this,
there
will even be some chances at some storms.

Saturday Night

2012-02-03T15:57:00.003-05:00

There is a chance for some light snows Saturday Night, mainly for Central Jersey South. Trenton will be on the northern edge. Areas from Baltimore to Wilimington to AC will be the "sweet" spot, although nothing spectacular, but anything goes in this pattern.

Snow Squall And Beyond

2012-01-29T21:44:00.000-05:00

A brief, but potent snow squall will move through the area over the
next 1-2 hours. With this squall, heavy snow has been reported and
decent wind gusts. It should last for 20-30 mins.

After that, our attention will be directed to this upcoming weekend
for a possible coastal storm development. More to come on this.

Snow in Baltimore, MD

2012-01-21T00:27:00.000-05:00

Baltimore, MD Highway Cam

Observations Friday Night

2012-01-20T22:21:00.001-05:00

Appears snow has started down just south of DC.....good sign as they are snow down there. Also, start of the night model runs have the area a little colder than earlier....which means we may get a longer period of frozen precipitation. With that, it is still going to depend on how fast that warm air invades the upper atmosphere to determine how much and when we make the switch in precipitation types. Still like my amounts and regions I posted earlier.

More to come...

Tonight / Tomorrow

2012-01-20T12:18:00.001-05:00

***Winter Weather Advisories have been issued for Southern and Central NJ and Winter Storm Watches have been issued for the Poconos and NW NJ***

Our system that will be moving in tonight and spreading snow over the region is on track. Snow should begin in the early morning hours on Saturday. Snow will accumulate rather rapidly since 1. It is nigh time and 2. Highs today will be in the 30's. I would expect most areas to have the ground covered by the time you wake up.

This storm will be driven by the infiltration of warm air into the atmosphere. This process is known as Warm Air Advection. These types of storms are very tough to get an all snow event here. Why you may ask? The simple answer is, the entire column that precipitation falls through at the onset will be cold enough to support snow. As warm air moves in, part of the column will potentially go above freezing. This will cause the precipitation to either change to sleet, freezing rain or rain. If the warming occurs in the highest levels, the precipitation will melt and then refreeze as it falls closer to the ground (the result would be sleet). If the warming occurs closer to the ground, but the surface is still below freezing, this would result in freezing rain. And obviously, if the entire column and ground are above freezing, the result is rain.

So, the entire storm is going to hinge on how fast the warm air advects into the region. The sooner, more mixed precipitation, the longer, the more snow. There is no question warm air will invade, the question will be how fast. Typically, with these systems, it will advect earlier, so I am thinking things will switch over sooner rather than later. The question will then be, for how long do we have mixed precipitation.

What I am thinking now is:

1. Areas between Philly and Trenton will receive 1-3" of snow. The snow in this area will transiion to sleet and freezing rain, and may have significant icing before possibly changing over to all rain..

2. Areas from North of Trenton to NYC will receive 2-4" of snow and then transition over to a mixed precipitation event for the remainder. Significant ice accumulations possible.

3. Areas from the Poconos to just north of NYC to north of 95 in CT will be all snow, and accumulations will be on average from 4-8"

Regardless of what falls, Saturday night may be downright treacherous. Temperatures are expected to tumble below freezing, so any liquid will freeze.

More updates as needed!

Friday / Saturday update

2012-01-20T00:36:00.000-05:00

Still looks on track. Snow starts Friday night into Saturday. Amounts
and a full analysis tomorrow morning!

A few passing snow showers tonight.

Late Week Update 1/19 Midday

2012-01-19T11:08:00.001-05:00

Late last night I said how the models have shown a colder guidance for the upcoming weekend storm. That has continued, and looking at the Hi Res NAM model, temperatures over the area dont get above 33 degrees for the event. This would lead me to believe that for the bulk of the precipitation this Friday Night to Saturday Night I believe, as of now, will stay frozen. This would be for central western NJ. The shore areas look to start out around 33 degrees, but will spike up to between 40-45 degrees during the height. This area would be from say Seaside Heights (fist pump) to AC down to Cape May. Areas from Hunterdon County NJ through most of CT north, will be a primarily snow event. The GFS model agrees. It looks like a primarily frozen precipitation event from The Philly-Trenton line on north. The EURO model from last night also looks almost spot on to the NAM model.

Looks like our first winter weather event is on tap for the area Friday Night into Saturday! Woo Hoo!

Late Week Quick Update

2012-01-19T00:26:00.001-05:00

Thursday Night still looking like a short light snow/snow shower event.

The big news, most of the night model runs have come in colder than previous runs. What does this mean? Models are showing the majority of the region starts as snow. A transition to mixed precipitation and rain would start in S NJ and work its way North. The way it is modeled, the line will probably make it up to about Trenton, meaning places north of there will likely stay majority snow or frozen precipitation.

I would like to continue to see this in future model runs, and hoping its still there when I wake up tomorrow.

More updates in the morning

Late Week Update

2012-01-18T11:57:00.003-05:00

Still showing a potential period of light snow Thursday Night into Friday. Now, dont get overly excited about this....more than likely this is going to be a very short period of light snow, maybe even just a snow shower. There will likely be little, if any accumulation with this. After this moves out, we will be focusing our attention on the Friday Night to Saturday Night period.

Models are showing low pressure moving in. The rain/snow line will be dangerously close to our area. The good news is (for snow lovers) yesterdays model runs really moved the rain snow line pretty far north, leaving us with a cold rain (story of the season). Today however, it appears it is keeping it over the area for a longer period of time and not moving it as far north. So, our threat is still there and I will continue to monitor the models over the next couple of days. As of now, looks like a brief period of mixed precip to rain. Areas further north (NW NJ, Poconos, North of I84) will be primarily snow, with a possible change to mix precipitation.

More to come. I do have a feeling that we are going to be able to make this one work this weekend!

Late Week

2012-01-17T08:43:00.001-05:00

Looking at two potentials for snow this week. We have a clipper moving in Thursday / Thursday Night. As of now, this is showing very minor precipitation falling in the area, but nonetheless I will follow it. Once this moves through, we will focus our attention to Friday Night into Saturday.

This storm looks a little more potent, but the storm will have borderline cold temperatures with it across NJ. As of now, models showing the rain snow line would be north central NJ. As the storm moves closer, the rain snow line will move further north and eventually make it to the NW of NYC and north of the coastal regions of CT (up to about Hartford). Areas to the north would be snow, while others to the south may have to hold out hope that enough cold air wraps in to change the rain to snow.

Enough precipitation is going to fall that if it is cold enough, this would be a plowable event. The future model runs will be important to see how this sets up.

More to come

Up and down roller coaster continues

2012-01-16T15:42:00.000-05:00

Storm comes in, rains, cold front drops temps just in time to rise up
and allow the next storm to be rain. Wash, rinse, dry repeat.

This is the story of the winter. Another rain maker moves in tonight.
This time, cooler weather will be around just to the north of the area
which will allow for a period of snow and mixed precipitation. This
period will be short lived until you get up to further parts of NW NJ
And the Pocono region of PA.

For other areas, more than likely will be a very very brief period of
sleet prior to switching to all rain.

Really, there does not appear to be any change from this horrid
pattern we are in for the snow lovers.

Cold Front

2012-01-13T08:47:00.000-05:00

Is moving though as we speak. Expect very gusty winds all day and for
the next couple of hours expect some snow showers. This front will
usher in much cooler air and return the feel of winter.

This week

2012-01-11T10:00:00.001-05:00

looking at two storms this week. The first will impact us tonight into tomorrow. This storm will be a total rain maker, and a good amount. Amounts will range on the order of around 1" for most areas. Temperatures tomorrow will be mild again relative to normal.

Friday will be the next threat. A cold front will move through which will bring a round of showers, possibly switching to snow or snow showers after. This frontal boundary will usher in cooler air again....the question will be, how long does it last!