Possible historic Nor'Easter snow storm from DC to New York City this weekend
The recent 18z NAM run is forecasting a historic Nor'Easter snow storm from the Mid-Atlantic to southern New England this weekend, with 1-2 feet or even more possible for DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and possibly even as far northeast as NYC. Incredibly, the NAM is pumping out over 3 inches of water equivalent precipitation over northern VA into southeast PA, a majority of which will be snow except along the immediate coastline where enough warm air can entrain from the Gulf Stream. These incredible precipitation totals can be attributed to the NAM predicting the coastal storm to "bomb out", or drop 12 mb in 12 hours, with the minimum central pressure dipping to around 975 mb by Saturday night!
The resulting intense pressure gradient on the backside of the storm will cause blizzard conditions with gusts to near 50 mph if the NAM verifies, and a crippling snow storm will hammer all of the major cities of the Northeast beginning with DC on Friday night into early Sunday, and during Saturday night through Sunday night in southern New England. HOWEVER, the 18z GFS is not nearly as aggressive in the intensification of this low, and is predicting more of a 6-10 inch type snowfall for DC to maybe as far northeast as Philadelphia, but largely missing NYC and Boston. The 12 NAM was more conservative in the strengthening of this storm, with the 12z European being the lone aggressive run, which means the NAM is trending toward this morning's European model, which is not a good sign for the Northeast! Flooding and severe weather will be possible over the extreme Southeast, especially with an explosively intensifying Nor'Easter. This is classic for an El Nino winter, with a stronger than normal Sub-Tropical Jet Stream shipping subtle disturbances along the Gulf Coast Region before exploding when they hit the temperature gradient along the western edge of the Gulf Stream. I'd really like to document one of these, but unfortunately I have to let this one go so I can try and finally graduate. Stay tuned for updates, as it will be interesting to see which model verifies with this potentially record-breaking winter storm.
http://www.tornadovideos.net/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1094-possible-historic-noreaster-snow-storm-from-dc-to-new-york-city-this-weekend
