Was Irene Really a Bust?

In the days leading up to Irene, the media was alive with dire warnings about how bad Irene could be. In the days following the hurricane, the buzz is about how terrible of a job the predictions were. Really? Or, rather, I should say "You've got to be kidding me!?"

If you were expecting a monster storm surge to flood into New York City like in the movie, "The Day After Tomorrow" (left), then of course you will be calling this storm a bust. That is Hollywood and nothing like that was ever predicted. The real storm surge predictions were 4-8 feet. In an area unaccustomed to hurricanes, such a storm surge could catch people unaware and prove to be deadly. It does not take much of a storm surge to be destructive. But never, ever was total destruction of New York City actually forecast. Many areas met this storm surge prediction and it was a good forecast.

The forecasts called for Irene to be a weak hurricane or strong tropical storm as she moved over top of New York City. At 9am EDT on Sunday, the center of Irene moved directly over Central Park- a remarkably accurate positional forecast which should be applauded, since one of the harder things to predict about a hurricane is its future position. When Irene moved over, the winds were at 65 mph- a strong tropical storm, as expected. Additionally, Central Park received nearly 7" of rain. That is nearly double the average amount of rain Central Park gets in August. What more do you people want before this is labeled significant?

If you are still not satisfied, we can chalk New York City up to being spared the worst and, if you really wish to believe so, over-hyped by the media (not the meteorologists). But the miss was pretty much only for there. It is extremely insensitive and just plain wrong to say Irene was a bust.

As of this writing, 2.5 million homes and businesses were still without power, 2-3 days after Irene came through. Roads throughout the Northeast are washed out or impassible due to fallen trees. Homes have been washed away. Entire towns have been flooded or cut off completely. Some towns have lost all their bridges. Some of these bridges that were washed out have been in service for over 150 years. Even part of the New York State Thruway remains closed. If this storm was such a bust...such a run-of-the-mill storm...nothing worse than a nor'easter...then why all the unprecedented destruction?

And that is just the material loss. At least 40 people have died from this "over-hyped bust" of a storm. Any loss of life is tragic. Those 40+ deaths translate to 40+ tragedies. Ask the family members of any of those who lost their lives if Irene was blown out of proportion. Perhaps they would have a different perspective.

The bottom line is this: even large weather systems like Irene have small subtitles that are not understood and certainly not possible to forecast. The geography of an area also plays a significant role in what exactly happens during a storm. Just because New York City was spared destruction does not mean other areas were. Look beyond your own backyard, your own town, even your own part of the state. It is easy to forget the sufferings of other and blast the forecasters for crying wolf. Just because the wolf didn't get you this time doesn't mean that next time you will be so lucky.

No Alert Mode this time...

A potentially significant severe weather outbreak across much of the northeast, including our area is beginning. However, Grotonweather.com will NOT be going into alert mode for this event. As I mentioned in the Alert Mode blog, I take the issuing of Alert Mode very seriously. I only issue them when it seems like widespread, life threatening weather is likely.

Today's event is very close to that criteria, and I cannot say for sure that I will not issue Alert Mode status later in the day. At this point though, I do not think the storms will organize quite fast enough to bring the high risks necessary for an Alert Mode. If this site was for Chenango, Monroe and Otsego counties, I very likely would be going into Alert Mode. The worst of this event, in terms of spatial coverage and intensity, will likely be just to our east.

That being said, storms are already starting to develop in our area and just to the west. These storms will not take long to become severe, and our threats for wind damage and hail remain at a 'MODERATE' level. Winds up to 80mph and two inch hail are not totally out of the question. Stay tuned for updates!

Winter's Fury Unleashed

As posted by Drew Montreuil on Syracuse.com, 1/21/11

Old Man Winter sure is angry these days, and we will not be escaping his wrath over the next week or so. The first fits of his anger are already being felt across much of the northern half of the country. Yet another Nor'easter is striking parts of New England. This storm brought us 3-6" of snow overnight, but parts of Maine will see over a foot.

In the Midwest, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued an 'Extreme Cold Warning' for parts of Minnesota last night. The Extreme Cold Warning is a new warning the NWS is trying out for temperatures lower than -40º. The warning surely verified, as temperatures this morning in International Falls, Minnesota got down to a mind-numbing -46º. Even Rochester, Minnesota, in the southern part of the state, dropped to -20º.

Some of the cold is on the way for us, but Old Man Winter has another shot to throw at us first: another bout of heavy lake effect snow. Schools across northern Cayuga, northern Onondaga and Oswego counties are dismissing early in anticipation of the lake effect blitz.

A huge contributor to heavy lake effect snow in a set-up like today's is whether or not moisture from the Upper Great Lakes is able to feed the Lake Ontario band. Observations from Canada this morning are indicating that the connection is being made, which only will increase the chances of heavy snow.

The lake effect will start up this afternoon and last into tomorrow morning before only gradually weakening and moving northward tomorrow. Some areas across Oswego, Oneida and northern Onondaga counties could see upwards of 2 feet by late tomorrow morning.

If that was not bad enough, the cold temperatures and winds will bring wind chills down to potentially dangerous levels late this afternoon and tonight. Even those not impacted by the lake effect will want to make sure they are properly bundled up against the cold.

This is all just the beginning though, and the next assault from Winter's War comes in Sunday and Monday. The bitter cold air mass that was over Minnesota this morning will work its way over us later this weekend.

High temperatures Sunday and Monday will struggle to reach 10º, and Sunday night will be the coldest night we have seen in a few years. Many areas across Central New York will see the mercury drop to -10º, and some of the outlying areas may even see -20º.

And now, could a grand finale to Old Man Winter's assault be in the works? The latest long range weather models are showing hints of another coastal storm in the works for the middle of next week. If the current model projections hold true, Central New York could be looking at its biggest widespread snow of the season so far. While it is way too early to tell whether or not that will come to pass, it will need to be watched as we head into next week.

On the bright side...at least its not -46º!

Snow Map

There have only been a couple changes to the forecast in the past 24 hours since last night's blog entry. Firstly, there is little question now that the entire storm over our area will remain as snow. The main stream of warmer air will remain north of us, and I question how far west it will make it. This makes it a very difficult forecast for Syracuse, but I think even they will remain mostly or all snow. The second change is more precipitation for the Grotonweather area. These two factors combined have given me the confidence to up my snow totals to 12-18" for most of the area. Here is my snow map for the entire storm.



I apologize for not having more updates today and not having a video, but its been a busy week at school this week. I am planning to do a video tomorrow morning though, so make sure to check in sometime after 10am. Oh, and Groton students, enjoy your day off- School has already closed for tomorrow!

Largest Snowfall of 2009-2010 Winter Looming

The largest snowfall for the Grotonweather.com area is on our horizon. This storm has consistently been on the models since Saturday, and I've just been waiting for it to become obvious that it won't happen. Over the past day and a half, I began to believe that this storm actually was going to happen, but the models remained inconsistent with the timing and exact location. There are still plenty of uncertainties to be figured out, but its time to start nailing down the seriousness of the storm. My main concern is not how much snow actually falls, but rather the blowing of the snow as the low explodes to our southeast. It will be a significant snowfall too, probably on the order of about a foot, but winds will make it seem like its snowing even heavier with near zero visibilities at times. Lets take this storm one aspect at a time.

Overall Pattern:
Low pressure is developing off the Southern New England coast this evening and tracking north. This is not the main storm. As it moves north, it will run into a sprawling area of high pressure and begin to weaken. Meanwhile, an upper level trough will dig into the eastern third of the county. This will create prime conditions for explosive storm development off the coast yet again. This low will absorb some of the energy from the dying low and continue to rapidly intensify. As it moves north towards New England, it will encounter that same high pressure, and begin to move more westerly. Over time, the storm, which still wants to move to the northeast, will do a loop over Southern New England and Southeastern New York, before heading out to sea.

Timing:
The snow will being to work into our area sometime in the morning Thursday and become heavy into the afternoon and evening. The snow will taper off in intensity Friday, but will still be around. By Saturday, everything should be pulling out, making the total time of this storm somewhere around 36 hours, with probably 12 hours of the heaviest snow.

Precipitation:
Snowfall totals are still a bit up in the air. I am concerned that warm air wraps around the system and causes a variety of precipitation types. The further to the west this storm comes, the more a concern that is. If we did change over to rain for a while, it would be later Thursday evening most likely. The models are not in agreement with whether or not this will happen, and it will have huge impacts on the total snow fall from this storm. Assuming an all snow event, which I think it probable at this time, snow fall totals should end up around a foot, give or take a couple inches. Expect a snow map Wednesday evening.

Winds:
With the low pressure coming into Southern New England and even Eastern New York, winds will become quite strong. Winds could be sustained near 25 mph for a time Thursday afternoon and evening with higher gusts. With the heavy nature of the snow, this could cause some tree damage and power outages, not to mention near zero visibilities and large snow drifts.

Temperatures:
Temperatures during the storm should stay in the upper 20s and low 30s for Thursday (mid 30s if we change to rain, but I just am not seeing that) before dropping off a bit Friday.

Stay tuned for the latest, as I will be tweaking this forecast over the next 24-36 hours. I will try to get a forecast video done tomorrow evening.

3PM Snow Video

NOTE: The watches, warnings and advisory part of the show is already out of date, with a WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY in effect for the entire Grotonweather.com forecast area, and WINTER STORM WARNINGS in the bordering counties south and east. Enjoy the video...leave comments!

Late Season Storm

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Here is the latest on the late season snow event tomorrow.

Not a whole lot has changed since this morning. The cold front is spreading areas of rain across the region this afternoon. This front extends all the way into the southeast and back towards Louisiana and Texas. An area of low pressure is developing across the Deep South and will trigger a large severe weather out break tomorrow. The Storm Prediction Center has a large moderate risk out for that:


The front that is moving through today will stall out to our east. Meanwhile, that low will fly up the front to a position near New York City by mid afternoon tomorrow. There will be just enough cold air being pulled into the storm that it should be all snow for the areas in blue on this map I created:


The low will be moving pretty quickly up the stalled front and the ground is warm, so accumulations shouldn't be huge. The change over to snow will occur first in the higher elevations, and it will remain colder there as well, so expect the highest totals there. The rest of Central New York should get a moderate snow, but not enough to cause too many problem. It will be windy as well though, so use caution traveling tomorrow as the wind and snow will create poor visibilities. Here is my snowfall map for the entire storm, which should wind down pretty quickly tomorrow afternoon.


Where does this storm rank with some other 'out of season' storms? Its actually not very impressive. In 2007, our area was hit by almost 2 feet (18" is what I measured) on April 16-17th. In early October 2006, a monster lake effect event pounded Buffalo, causing millions of dollars worth of damage since the heavy wet snow stuck to the leaves on trees and brought them down. So this is more just a nuisance storm than anything. One commonality between the three storms is the lack of willingness on the part of the media to be bold and predict snow. Granted, the models are all over the place with this, as can be expected. But I feel really confident about this storm, as I did the April 2007 storm.

I will update again late tonight. I have a test in Tropical Meteorology (so ironic, isn't it?) tomorrow, so I won't be able to update again until 10 or 11. Stay tuned though!

Groundhog Day Speculation

The meteorological community is abuzz with excitement today. Numerous models are all in agreement with a major storm coming up out of the Gulf of Mexico Monday and then sitting somewhere over the Northeast Tuesday into Wednesday. I thought that with all the hype around this storm already, people might be curious what I think.

First and for most, I will play the broken record and say what I normally do: It is WAY too far out. The models have been showing a storm and are all in pretty good agreement with that, so I do think a storm system will form in the Gulf of Mexico and move north. Beyond that point is where I feel it is too early to place much weight in the models with the track and strength of the storm.

Just to speculate though, here are a couple scenarios that could happen.

The Groundhog Day Blizzard: This scenario would take the low pressure system up the Eastern Seaboard to near New York City, where it would then sit for about 12 hours before heading north. For the first time now in a few years, the atmosphere is getting clogged at the perfect time for a blizzard. The models show an area of low pressure over Greenland, with a strong High over northeastern Canada. This will impede the progress of the coastal storm. This would be the perfect set up for probably the biggest snow storm Central New York has seen in a few years.

The Slop Storm: This scenario would have the storm coming up the Appalachians and either over northeast Pennsylvania and Eastern New York, or right over top of us in the Finger Lakes. This track would give us a mix of precipitation. Some warm air will be in place ahead of this storm, so our precipitation would likely start as either rain, or sleet and freezing rain. As the low tracked towards us, warmer air would come up, and we would go over to rain for a while. Then, as the low moved to our northeast, strong northwest winds would come in and change us back to snow for a moderate snowfall. If I had to guess, I would say this is the most likely scenario at this time. Will it happen? Only time will tell.

February Flooding: The final scenario has the low moving up the west side of the Appalachians. This would pound Ohio with a heavy snow, but for us in Central New York, it would mean a big warm up, probably at least into the 40s, with a soaking rain. Currently there is anywhere from 2 to as much as 10 inches of water equivalent sitting over top of us. That means if all the snow was to melt, that is how much rain it would equal. If even half of that snow pack melted rapidly, plus an inch or more of rain fell, there could be some major flooding problems.

Now, all of these situations focus on the different tracks of the storm. I am cautious right now about the strength of this storm as well, and do not think it will quite be as strong as the models are saying. That being said, the potential for a very memorable, if not historic storm is there. I will be watching this one closely over the weekend and early next week. Keep checking grotonweather.com for more updates!

Wednesday's Storm

I have decided not to issue a snowfall map for this storm simply because it looks like the entire area will have a pretty uniform accumulation from this. All of the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier look to be in for a good 7-12". I upped the amounts slightly from this morning based on the models bringing in more moisture than previous runs. I even saw some indications of amounts over a foot, but I think that is overdone.

All of the models are now in pretty good agreement with each other except for one. Normally, when a model is drastically different from the others, it wouldn't put too much of a damper on my confidence levels. However, this time it is the European model, which has been out-performing the other models all winter. The problem is...the Euro brings in enough warm air to cause a snow/sleet mix to occur over Central New York. My forecast totals do not reflect that happening, but if it does happen, I would think accumulations more on the order of just 4-8".

Another concern I have is my old nemesis, the dry slot. With any big storm, dry air works around the center and gets wrapped up into the storm from the southwest. If I mess up a big-snow forecast, usually it seems to be the dry slot that is the culprit. The models have this punch of dry air working across Pennsylvania during the day tomorrow, staying to our south. I imagine the counties right along the State Line have the best chance of being hit by it, meaning their snow totals may be on the lower end of the 7-12", where as the northern areas will be on the higher end. Like the mixing, my forecast doesn't have the dry slot coming in, but if the models miss and it ends up 50-100 miles further north, most areas will be hard pressed to get into that 7-12" range.

As for the timing of this storm, the snow will likely start tonight between 9-11PM. It won't take too long for the snow to get heavy, and we should have 3-5" by tomorrow morning's commute. I do not expect the snow begin to let up until after sunset tomorrow. Even then, we will be dealing with snow showers and perhaps some occasional periods of moderate snow right through the night. I would say a snow day is a decent bet for most places tomorrow, but its never an absolute. The WeatherChat will be opening sometime after 6:30 tonight and will likely stay open right through 11pm or midnight.

Love That East Bias!

I hinted this morning in my forecast discussion that "If it [the storm] really gets its act together, we could end up on the high end of those totals [from last night's snow map]." Well, the storm remains very impressive on satellite and radar. One thing is very evident though. The eastward bias of the models I was talking about is showing up perhaps even more significantly than I thought it would.

When I looked at the models last night, the back edge of the precipitation was roughly from a Pittsburgh, PA to Rochester, NY line. Already though, precipitation is being detected on radar as far west as Cleveland and Buffalo (though it is probably not yet reaching the ground). The low right now is over northern Georgia and is already a good one hundred or so miles further west than it is supposed to be.

The National Weather Service and local media stations have picked up on this finally and have more or less come into agreement with what I was saying yesterday. Tompkins and Cortland Counties are now under WINTER STORM WARNINGS instead of the Advisories that were in effect. Those last until 10AM tomorrow. Since the low will track a little further inland, the precipitation may be a bit heavier and last a bit longer than last night. I also mentioned this morning the possibility of expanding the 6-10" range west. As you can see, I have now done that with this new data.



After school activities have been canceled for many schools in our area. I would say that the chances of a snow day have increased a bit. It is still far from a certainty, but there is certainly cause for hope!

Also, if you haven't heard yet, I have a new feature on the site that I just added this morning. If you look to the black bar on the right side of the page, you will see a link to the 'GrotonWeather Weather Chat.' The text will either say the chat is open, of that it is closed. If it is open, it means I am sitting in the chat room, ready to give you whatever information you want to know about the weather! So, if you see that the room is open, come on in!

Here we go!

Winter Storm Watches have (finally) been posted for the grotonweather.com forecast area! I say finally because, if I had been working at the National Weather Service, I would have issued these watches yesterday. All season long, and going back into last season, the models have shown an eastward biased with storms coming up from the south. This is a large part of why a lot of last winter had a lot of hype about snow storms (myself included), only to have the storms start as snow, then change to ice and/or rain. The actual storm tracks have continuously come further west than the models suggest. So when I saw the models showing snow for Eastern New York and New England yesterday, I thought 'Thats going to hit CNY'....and now, it looks like it will.

The NWS has Winter Storm Warnings up for areas just south and east of us. I again have to say though...they are too far east! Even just a day or so ahead of this event, I do not trust the models to place the heaviest snow properly. So, I am diverging from them and the NWS and, while I haven't checked them, likely the local media as well.

So, what is this all about. An area of low pressure is over the southeast. As I said in this morning's discussion, severe thunderstorms, including torandoes, have been ongoing constantly since yesterday morning. This is indicative of the energy of this storm. As this storm comes up the coast, it will interact with the cold air left over from today's front, with the circulation just pulling more of it in. It will be a classic nor' easter...just not super powerful.

Snow will likely begin to fall in our area sometime in the late afternoon tomorrow and become heavy into the night. This storm will be a pretty quick mover, so that will help in keeping totals down. I also think that, even with the eastward biased, the heaviest snow will stay just east of our area. I haven't had enough time to hammer out a snow map yet, but, on a whim, I am thinking 5-9" is likely for most of Tompkins County and Southern Cayuga County, with perhaps 6-10" over Cortland County.

And now...what you all really want to know....will there be school on Friday? After my epic failing on predicting a snow day last February, I considered not even doing snow days this season...but, due to popular request, I will. Since this storm is coming through at night, I would say there is certainly a chance. Just how much of a chance remains to be seen. You will have to keep checking back to find out!

Next projected update: 10-11:30PM: Snow map!

First snow of the season!

The past 24 hours have been crazy on the weather models. Yesterday, all but one model, the North American Mesoscale (NAM) were showing an area of low pressure heading into eastern New England, leaving Central New York more or less alone, with lake effect kicking in towards Tuesday night and Wednesday. The NAM, however, brought the storm much closer, giving our area its first accumulating snow of the year. Over the past 24 hours, however, the other models have come into agreement with the NAM, and suddenly we have a snow storm on our hands!

Now, keep in mind, I use 'snow storm' in the context of a normal October. We won't be seeing feet of snow, but for a first snow, this is pretty big. Here is what is happening:

An area of low pressure is beginning to form over North Carolina. Already moisture is spreading northward ahead of this, though most isn't reaching the ground yet. As this storm explodes and heads north, it will pull down some chilly air. That will make the precipitation that starts tonight and for the first part of tomorrow mostly rain. More importantly, however is that this rain will be snow not very high up in the atmosphere. As it melts, it will aid in cooling things down and changing precipitation over to snow. The higher elevations will see the change over first, probably as early as mid to late morning tomorrow. The lower elevations will begin to change over during the afternoon and evening hours. By tomorrow night, everyone should be seeing accumulating snow. Cayuga and Tompkins counties are not under any advisories, but Cortland county, with its higher hill tops, is under a Winter Weather Advisory.

The winds will be gusty with this as well. That, plus the heavy, wet nature of this snow could cause some branches to come down in the higher terrain. Had this come a week or two earlier, when the leaves were still on the trees, we would have some problems. We are lucky though and I am not anticipating many, if any, power outages.

This storm will be a quick mover, so real high totals aren't expected. The map below shows what to expect through 9AM Wednesday. Beyond that, Lake Effect snows will set up, but probably stay to our north, with additional accumulations. Stay tuned!

What happened...or rather, why it didn't

I've done some thinking and analyzing this morning, and I think I know where I went wrong with my forecasts last night. Lets start by looking at the last radar image I posted.



As you can see by the radar loop from last night, the snow developed mostly over Western Pennsylvania, West Virgina, and Eastern Kentucky, with lake snows further northwest over Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Now we did and are still getting the lake enhanced snow, but the other area of snow never formed. Why? The answer lies in the two images I made below:





The area where the snow broke out was just west of and along the spine of the Appalachian mountains. These mountains acted as a lifting mechanism. As the winds hit the mountains, they had no where to go but up. Rising air cools, and with all the moisture left over from the storm, condensed into clouds and moderate to heavy snow. This is called upslope snow. Since there is not nearly the elevation gradient over our area as there is to the south, there was not enough lift to cause a secondary outbreak outside of the light lake effect. This just goes to show that there are so many factors that go into forecasting, which is why it is such a tough job.

And just in case you were wondering how much snow fell as a result of the upslope effect last night in the mountains, Accuweather.com meteorologist Jesse Ferrell put together a small list of some totals on his blog, which you can see here.

One other note about this storm. I have had over 800 hits on my website since Monday, including 571 yesterday! I just wanted to thank all of you for using my site and making it well worth my time. I really enjoy this and I am so happy that you are finding it useful! Thank you again!

Now, one final thing for now. For the past month or so, I have been working on a new website with a group of meteorology students here at SUNY Oswego. This site will give weather forecasts in a similar format to grotonweather.com for clusters of 2-5 counties. This will be a great source for specific weather information outside of our area. I am both the chief meteorologist of this new site, along with the forecaster for the Finger Lakes region. I have set this site up so that Tompkins, Cortland and Southern Cayuga are in a cluster. What does this mean for the future of grotonweather.com? No changes! I simply using grotonweather.com for that region, keeping everything the same for you. This new site will be launching this weekend and will have the URL www.empirestateweather.com, so check it out come Saturday!

9:30 PM Storm Update

The heaviest of the precipitation is racing very rapidly into northern New England and the worst part of the storm has ended over our area. However, all that wrap around moisture I was talking about in my last post is sticking around and will continue to keep the light to at times moderate snows around overnight and tomorrow morning. The winds will continue to increase as well and the temperatures will drop overnight as well. This will allow for considerable blowing and drifting tomorrow, so even when it is not snowing or doing so lightly, travel will be difficult.

I am not quite as confident about a snowday now, but I am going to stick with my original forecast and say it will happen. Just because the heavy snow is over doesn't mean the effects of this storm won't continue well into the day tomorrow.




Here is the latest radar. I didn't bother to color-code it because it is a bite easier to see the different intensities of precipitation on the unmodified version. As you can see, all that snow to our southwest is still sitting there despite the storm being well into New England. As the main precipitation shield continues to lift away from our area, I am expecting a similar set up to form over our area; you can already see it happening in Western New York. Generally, only another 1-4" can be expected tonight with a few locally higher amounts. But again, the wind is going to be the more significant feature of this storm here on out.

PS: I am going to try to do one more update tonight before I go to bed, so if you are still up, check back around or just after midnight!

6PM Storm Update

I have decided to not make any more changes to my last snow map. I like the amounts on the low end of the ranges of we get more sleet, and the upper end looks good for a mostly snow event. I think it will probably be on the lower end, but that isn't certain. It is such a close call with this storm; every source I have checked seems to say something different! That being said, its time to watch what happens and how the storm unfolds and make short-term forecasts as opposed to trying to figure out what could happen...because at this point, that is pretty much impossible.

So, here is the latest radar from weathertap.com covering the entire Northeast.



As you can see, snow (blue) has overspread the region and there is quite a bit out there. Also interesting to note is the very slow progress of the pink line northward. That pink line is where the precipitation is sleet and freezing rain. Expect that to be a lot closer tonight when I post another radar near 11PM.

So for the rest of this evening, expect snow, heavy at times and quickly accumulating since it is so cold. This will make travel difficult. By 11PM tonight, most areas will have already seen a good 2-5", with some localized amounts upwards of 6" or 7". Feel free to send me your measurements! Just leave a comment right here on the blog!

Wasting no time!

Well, the first storm has pulled off and accelerated, meaning even the far eastern reaches of New England are mostly precipitation free. I recorded 6.4" here at my house...if you have any measurements, feel free to send them in!

Now, its already time to focus on the next storm. The National Weather Service didn't give us much of a break and has already issued a Winter Storm Watch. Piecing together what this says and what Henry Margusity of accuweather.com has been saying, I think our chances for a foot or more are pretty decent. I will issue a map for the entire East Coast sometime tomorrow and will likely go into "storm mode" Saturday afternoon. The snow should start sometime Saturday evening or Saturday night and last into Sunday night. Keep checking back for updates as things come together!

East Coast Beware

This post is what is called "hype." That means its something that needs to be watched, but there is no promise it will or won't happen because its just too early.

However, the models have been handling this one consistently and has started to get Accuweather.com into an uproar...and in my experience, when Accuweather starts acting like they are now, there is a decent chance it will happen. What we are looking at is right now just a blob of clouds off the east coast of Florida. As the high pressure that has been over us for the past week or so slides off to the east, it will act as a big plug, preventing this blob from going anywhere. So, it will sit over warm waters and could spin up into a hurricane by later this week. It is too early to tell how strong, but a category 2 or 3 is possible. Its also impossible to tell where it will go. So, everywhere on the east coast, but especially the Carolinas and Virginia, needs to keep an eye on this one.

As for how it could impact us here in Central New York...we will have to wait and see. Keep checking back in the coming days for more on this potential storm!

Vigorous Tropical Wave Needs Watching

For days now, models have been saying a tropical wave would develop into a hurricane and churn across the Atlantic. Friday, the system in question came off the coast of Africa as a vigorous tropical wave. This wave has stayed healthy in its first 36 hours over water and could become a tropical depression as soon as this afternoon or evening. Conditions look favorable and the models still agree that this should become a hurricane. The thing the models haven't been agreeing on is where this will go, ranging from Mexico to Maine. Most times with storms that form where this one is, it is somewhere between Florida and Virginia that gets hit. Of course, it is way way way too soon to tell where it will go. The storm is still 10-14 days away from the United States coast. I will be posting updates through the week, so stay tuned!