Friday, January 6, 2012

As we talked about earlier this week, there is the chance that a minor storm system may impact the mid atlantic late-weekend into early next week.  The questions remain of how far north the low pressure will track, and just how much interaction there will be between precipitation and cold air.  Scenario 1 keeps the low suppressed to the south, not allowing much precipitation to even get into VA, shown below by the 12z gfs.

Scenario 1 would be no snow for anyone, with light rain showers staying mainly south of the va/nc border.  On the other hand, scenario 2 brings the storm much farther north and the low tries to come further up the coast.  Although still a very weak storm, enough precipitation would be thrown far enough north and west to provide rain showers for much of va. 
In the area highlighted in red, the temperatures in the upper atmosphere would be cold enough for snow.  The surface temperatures still look to remain above freezing for most of the event, but I would not be surprised to see snow mix in (if the storm takes this path of course).
The gfs continues to flip flop on which scenario will occur.  We should have a better idea on this system tonight into tomorrow as the NAM model comes into its range.

After this storm, a more major one will affect the area mid to late next week.  Expect all rain with this storm, although it will drag behind an arctic blast similar to the one we had earlier this week.

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