Someone will end up at 30 inches from the Blizzard, as we look at the rest of the upcoming week’s weather

In brief: Today we take a look at the stats from the East Coast blizzard so far. We also introduce a hopefully new weekly feature that outlooks Texas-wide weather. And a look at how at an atmospheric river event will evolve into our next Eastern U.S. storm this week.

Blizzard update

The East Coast blizzard will exit today, but as of this morning, we’ve got numerous reports.

Reported snowfall from observers across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic as of mid-morning Monday. (NOAA NWS)

The highest reported snow total so far comes from Brookhaven on Long Island, which has reported 26 inches. That total is also now being reported near Richmond, RI, Narragansett, RI, and Quogue on Long Island on the south shore just east of Brookhaven. It is still snowing in all these locations. Some other notable totals in 24.2 inches in Freehold, NJ, 24 inches near New Bedford, MA, 19.3 inches in Bethel, DE, and 22 inches in Langhorne, PA and Chester, CT.

Officially, Central Park is at 15.1 inches so far, putting this storm in 19th place for New York City back to 1869. The 14.5 inches at Atlantic City Airport so far means the storm cracks the top 10 list there back to 1945. Just for the record, I would like to point out that the Atlantic City area saw a total of 4 top 20 storms in the 18 years I spent growing up there. Since I left, they’ve now had 9 of them.

You’re welcome.

More to come on the snow, but what about the wind? We have seen several gusts up over 65 mph. Atlantic City hit 60 mph, Barnegat Light 70 mph, and Stony Brook and Nantucket both hit basically hurricane equivalent at 74 mph. Marthas Vineyard hit 71 mph.

Recorded maximum wind gusts of 60 mph or stronger so far. (NOAA)

Obviously, these kind of winds are knocking out power. As of this writing over 250,000 customers in Massachusetts are without power, 130,000 in New Jersey, and 76,000 in Delaware. In total, we’re around 600,000 customers from Virginia into New England without power right now. We’ve had worse storms to be sure in that regard. But obviously, this is quite a powerful storm.

One area where the storm has tended to underperform was with tidal flooding. Most tide gauges that were predicted to approach major flooding came nowhere near it overnight, so some good news there, although there is certainly some coastal flooding and beach erosion ongoing with this storm.

More to come on the final totals!

Texas weather this week

Trying something new this week. Texas is big, and as a part of Space City Weather, we’re often asked about weather elsewhere in Texas. Well, I’m going to try to commit to a Monday 50,000 foot overview of what to watch for in Texas and generally the southern Plains and Louisiana for the upcoming week, as a number of our readers hail from there.

“No Rain,” by Blind Melon

First off, the weather word for Texas is dry. Most of the state should be absent any rain at all this week, with a midweek storm cranking up well off to the east. This will mean periodic fire danger, particularly as winds kick up through the week. Conditions may be at their most considerable on Tuesday, particularly in West Texas.

Fire Weather Watches are posted across the Texas Panhandle and eastern New Mexico for Tuesday. (NWS Lubbock)

Red flag warnings are likely tomorrow. Winds don’t look insanely strong, but given the dryness and relatively low humidity, it will be enough to create meaningful fire weather conditions.

Meanwhile, the biggest question may be if one of the Texas triangle cities (Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston) can hit 90 degrees first and if so, who might it be? The leader in the clubhouse right now is Austin (Bergstrom) which hit 89 degrees on January 2nd. Forecast highs this week are expected to top off in the mid 80s in most of the larger cities. Corpus Christi has a shot to do so on Thursday, and much of the Rio Grande Valley will hit 90+ on Wednesday.

Most of the Valley will hit 90 degrees on Wednesday, but the chances of 90 are non-zero into parts of Hill Country as well. (NOAA GSL)

But the main story will continue to be the dryness across the state.

Storminess

It will be a moderately active week across the country in terms of storminess. A pretty healthy atmospheric river event is bearing down on the Northwest early this week, tipping AR4 on the 5-level scale for portions of southern Oregon and northern California.

The atmospheric river intensity will be a 3 to 4 on the 5-level scale into tomorrow on the Oregon/California border. (CW3E)

Rain totals are expected to be on the order of 1 to 3 inches from Tacoma south through Redding, CA. This will be a warm AR event, with snow levels up above 6,000 feet even into Oregon. Although the risk of severe flooding is not high with this event, there are numerous flood watches up across the West and a slight risk (2/4) for excessive rainfall on Tuesday in parts of the northern Sierra.

5-day rain totals show the peak in the West and the Southeast later in the week. (Pivotal Weather)

Meanwhile, the tail end of that storm is going to become the next Eastern U.S. storm by later in the week. Right now, it appears this will primarily be a locally heavy rainmaker in the Southeast, but there has been some back and forth in model guidance as to whether or not the storm could carry a wintry component on the northern fringe. This was aiming along I-90 on Sunday morning, but model guidance has mostly lost it at this point. Some of that uncertainty is likely due to the typical issues in predicting exact trajectories and intensities of West Coast storm systems. This tends to happen at times, and it’s one reason why we don’t usually get super excited more than 3 days out ahead of a winter event.

Still, as we saw with the East Coast blizzard, this can change quickly, so we’ve got another 36 hours or so before we can feel particularly confident one way or another on the future outcome here. Stay tuned.

East Coast blizzard about to get underway: Some last minute final forecast updates

In brief: The massive winter storm that will bear down on much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic is about to kick off, so this post just runs through the expectations at the final hour.

Hopefully you all were able to watch Team USA take the gold this morning, and if you love cold and winter, the day should only get better for you in the Northeast and parts of the Mid-Atlantic. Here, we’ll walk you through the various expectations now that we’re in the final moments before the storm really begins.

Snow totals

This should not be a major storm in the DC Metro, though a few inches are possible.

Snowfall forecast across Virginia and Maryland and Delaware (NWS Baltimore-Washington/Sterling, VA)

Snow totals begin to ramp as you approach the northwest and east side of the Chesapeake Bay. Around a half-foot is expected in Baltimore with higher totals to the east, rapidly escalating to 12 to 18 inches from Salisbury, MD north across all of Delaware. A period of mixing near the coast may hold totals down there a bit, particularly around Ocean City, MD.

Snowfall for Delaware and South Jersey. (NWS Mount Holly)

Snow totals really crank once into New Jersey with 12 to 24 inches likely in all of South Jersey. The riskiest spots for lower totals may be in Cape May County up to about Atlantic City and for the Delaware Beaches where a period of sleet or rain may mix in with the snow for a time, cutting totals down a little. There will still be a *lot* of snow.

Snow totals for eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. (NWS Mount Holly)

The gold medal winners for this snowstorm will probably be somewhere in Ocean or Monmouth Counties in New Jersey or just southwest of there, where we could, theoretically, see someone pick up nearly 25 inches of snow. We’ve seen some models put out 30-inch totals here, but I do think snow ratios may hinder that effort a bit. Likely someone between Salem County and Monmouth County will pick up 25 inches or more when all is said and done and be crowned champion. Elsewhere, 12 to 20 inches of snow is likely across most of the rest of New Jersey.

Snow totals in the NYC Metro area. (NWS New York City)

Around 20 inches of snow is expected for most of the New York City Metro with closer to 12 to 18 inches up into Connecticut and perhaps higher totals on Long Island. To make the top 10 list all-time for snowstorms in New York City, we’ll need to see at least 18.2 inches at Central Park. We need 14.1 inches for the top 20 list.

Total snowfall forecast for the Boston area and southern New England. (NWS Boston)

Snow totals will remain around 20 inches in southeast New England, with both Providence and Boston likely to come close to there. Lesser amounts will fall on Cape Cod and especially Nantucket. A secondary snowfall maximum for the event overall could occur between Providence and Boston.

A regional snapshot of total forecast snowfall. (Pivotal Weather)

That’s a lot of snow. This storm will be in a future edition of “Northeast Snowstorms” I am sure.

Powerful winds

The forecast wind gusts remain very impressive across the region, with coastal communities likely to see 50 to 70 mph wind gusts from New Jersey through Long Island and southeast New England.

Widespread 50 to 70 mph gusts on the coast and 40 to 50 mph gusts inland are likely with this storm through tomorrow. (Pivotal Weather)

Hence, blizzard warnings are spread over a wide area for most areas south and east of I-84.

Coastal flooding

Tonight’s high tide is expected to cause locally major coastal flooding on the Delaware coast and Jersey Shore up through Long Island. Atlantic City is now forecast to see major tidal flooding levels reached. An 8-foot high tide would be the highest there since Hurricane Sandy.

Major tidal flooding is expected to be tested at Atlantic City tonight. (NOAA)

Widespread moderate tidal flooding will occur outside of those pockets of major flooding. Thankfully, the storm is moving away by tomorrow, so that should limit the number of elevated high tides we see, with mainly just tonight’s being the most troubling for the region.

And so now we wait and see the totals pile in. Here’s hoping everyone stays safe through this event in the East. Feel free to share your reports with us too!

East Coast blizzard: Saturday evening update

In brief: Forecasts through the day today have tended to trend toward an even more impactful storm from Delmarva through southern New England tomorrow and Monday. Major snow, powerful winds, and major coastal flooding have all escalated a bit since this morning.

There have continued to be a few changes today to the forecast with respect to the East Coast blizzard that will begin bearing down in about 12 to 18 hours. As a radio DJ said in college ahead of the Presidents’ Day storm of 2003, “we’ve upped our totals, now up yours.”

The expanse of snow seems to have grown a bit. It’s certainly expanded a bit more north and west. You can see this by looking at snow totals across New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Snow totals forecast by NWS through Monday evening. (Pivotal Weather)

It now appears that the one-foot line will extend to the north of Boston out through Poughkeepsie and south into Allentown and possibly into much of Delaware now. Blizzard Warnings have also been expanded through the day today, now covering a huge area from Boston through the length of Delmarva.

Blizzard warnings (red) extend from Boston through all of Delmarva. (Pivotal Weather)

Additionally, it seems that the wind forecasts have ratcheted up some since earlier today too. Here is one ensemble model, the HREF and its probability of wind gusts hitting 65 mph or higher through the event.

Probability of 65 mph wind gusts from the HREF model for the storm are above 50% in New Jersey and nearly certain for portions of Long Island and southeast New England. (NOAA GSL)

Those probabilities are quite high. These winds may locally cause some damage, particularly on the immediate coastline, with numerous power outages possible near the coast as well.

Another notch upward came via tidal flooding outlooks today. There is now likely to be some pockets of major coastal flooding from Delaware through Long Island. For example, the gauge at Lewes, DE is now expected to hit 8 feet with Sunday night’s high tide cycle. This would be the highest since the January 2016 blizzard.

Major coastal flooding is likely in Lewes, DE, with pockets of major flooding also possible up the Jersey Shore and onto Long Island (NOAA)

The NWS in New York City is highlighting the potential for significant coastal flooding for portions of southwest Long Island in particular.

Significant coastal flooding is possible in Nassau and southwest Suffolk Counties on Long Island. (NWS New York City)

By the way, a pro-user tip: Go to your local NWS forecast office and read the briefing packages they put up during events like this. These are primarily geared toward media and emergency manager partners, but they contain a metric ton of information for the local area, including some very useful details on forecast uncertainties. Some offices make this easy to find. Others do not. But with enough digging, you can find them.

One other note: This is likely to be fairly wet snow, which makes shoveling a little more stressful. Please exercise caution when clearing the sidewalks. Your risk of a heart attack increases substantially when dealing with this sort of snow. As we tell people here in Houston when it gets a little extra hotter than usual in summer: Don’t underestimate the impact these more extreme events can have on personal health risks.

I had seen some comparisons to the Blizzard of 1978 (the New England one, not the Midwest one) thrown around, which seems, kind of reasonable? No two storms are identical, and indeed this storm’s track will not be identical to that one, nor will the snow totals be identical. But just including that as an analog puts this storm in rarefied air.

NAM model forecast of the storm. (Pivotal Weather)

We are probably looking at a memorable, if not historic storm for the coast from Delmarva through southern New England. This one appears to be one for the books.

A Jersey, Long Island, and southern New England blizzard is in the offing Sunday and Monday

In brief: An extremely impactful winter storm is going to impact the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England beginning tomorrow afternoon and continuing through Monday. Blizzard conditions, powerful winds, heavy snow, and coastal flooding are all part of the mix.

I was having a text message exchange with a friend of mine from New Jersey, and we both agreed that more often than not, it’s the storms that seem to come out of nowhere a day or two before they hit that seem to overperform. And indeed, we’re shaping up to see quite a storm in the Mid Atlantic this weekend.

Potential snowfall accumulation looks impressive for New Jersey and the NYC Metro into parts of southern New England. (NWS Mount Holly)

In addition to the impressive snowfall accumulations that are forecast across New Jersey above, Blizzard Warnings are posted for coastal Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.

75th percentile NBM model forecast wind gusts show potential for 50-60 mph gusts on the coast between Delaware and Connecticut. (NWS GSL)

The onset of snow should be Sunday morning, although it may start as rain in many spots. As a South Jersey native, I can assure you that there’s always some uncertainty as to how long it takes for rain to change to snow there, but at present, the models think this will occur by early afternoon on Sunday. From that point, the storm system is going to rapidly deepen off the Jersey Shore and Delmarva, possibly bombing out, deepening at least 24 mb in 24 hours. Regardless, this will lead to the wind cranking out of the northeast. Wind gusts will top off probably in the 50 to 60 mph range, but some higher gusts cannot be ruled out. A good idea to charge your electronic devices on Sunday afternoon in case you lose power.

The storm itself will track toward New England or just off the coast of southeast New England by Monday afternoon.

Snowfall forecast as of Saturday morning for NYC, Long Island, and coastal Connecticut. (NWS New York City)

Heavy snow will expand into New England as well, with significant snow likely in the southern half of Connecticut, Long Island, and Rhode Island.

Snowfall forecast for southern New England as of Saturday morning. (NWS Boston)

In addition to the snow and blizzard conditions, we will also see some coastal flooding of at least the moderate variety in many areas. The Jersey and Delaware shores will be most susceptible, with a secondary concern into Long Island and southern New England.

Moderate coastal flooding is likely with high tides late Sunday and Monday from Delmarva into Long Island. (NWS Philadelphia)

Overall, this is expected to be a highly impactful storm from Delaware through New England.

Monday’s winter storm severity index outlook from the NWS is “extreme” from Atlantic City through parts of Cape Cod. (Pivotal Weather)

In terms of how quickly this sort of came about… There had been hints about this system for awhile now, but it really wasn’t until the last 36 hours that it really started to lock in. You can see the forecast precip from the European model for the last several runs and how it took some time to show up and lock in — and even then there were some issues with consistency!

European model forecasts of total precip in the 48 hours ending Monday afternoon since this past Tuesday. (Pivotal Weather)

You can see from an animation like this how little it takes to take a storm from being a nothingburger to being an extremely high impact. Most of this has to do with geography, right? The storm forecast may have only shifted by tens of or a couple hundred miles over a week, but it just so happens that several million people live near the coast. Snowstorm forecasting in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic is not for the weak!

Anyway, our hope to all in the storm to be safe.