We're just about to get our biggest Northeast storm since the 2023/2024 ski season! Northwest flow has been predominant so far this season and for practically the entire season before. This is somewhat of a La Nina-ish pattern, though that's far from determinative. Northwest flow is great for clippers and lake effect, but only NY and VT tend to do well in that pattern while everyone else gets skunked for snow except for great temps for snowmaking and snow preservation. If you want big coastal storms, you need troughs to dig south and pick up moisture and energy, and we finally have just that.
I'm going to start this off with a 6-hour precipitation intensity loop from today's 12z GFS covering Friday through Monday.
This isn't a typical sort of big storm for the Northeast. The surface low is pretty weak and not the primary driver of the action here. This is the result of a large trough digging down the Front Range of the Rockies that then hits moisture and energy from a California low and the Sub-Tropical Jet Stream and then the high pressure builds behind the storm and forces flow of that moisture up and over the cold air on the East Coast resulting in first an anafront type of setup in the South before the warm air moderates as it is driven further north and over the cold air creating instability and widespread snow.
Given that the Northeast impacts will be felt mainly on Sunday and even into Monday, we're a bit early for pinpointing. I do however feel that models are coming into agreement and shifts from here are likely to be small and incremental for the most part.
I'm going to focus the subscriber coverage for now on the Model Differences, then I will cover the Snowfall Forecast, and lastly the Travel Impacts as this hits at a sensitive time. I don't have any wind hold concerns with this system; it's not that type of storm.
Make sure you are tracking this storm through the Powculator on our website under the weather section. This is the type of storm that should be handled quite well and it updates every 3 hours.
