Off Topic: Here Comes Another One - Just Like the Other One!

February to Remember Continues: East Coast Blizzard #3 of the 2009/2010 Winter Season On the Way

The last in a series of major Mid Atlantic and Northeast US snow events is currently taking shape over the central plains. This area of low pressure is causing heavy snows across Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee and will be interacting with a powerful arctic wave dropping southeast from Minneapolis to Kentucky. As the two systems phase in the upper levels of the atmosphere, a secondary area of low pressure will develop in Georgia and make a bee-line for the Gulf Stream waters, eventually winding up and rapidly intensifying just east of Central New Jersey by late Wednesday. The system will then stall and slowly weaken, allowing for continued backlash snows into the late night horus Wednesday in the Northeast and even the Mid Atlantic. For people from DC to Philly to State College, this will be two crippling winter storms within 3 days of each other and many emergency management agencies will be stretched well beyond their ability to recover.

The regional forecast:

Tuesday. Increasing clouds in the morning, region wide. A chance of light snow by early afternoon in DC and after midnight in NYC, increasing in intensity from SW to NE across the metro regions of Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia. Tempreatures will start out near or above freezing but as the snow begins to fall more heavily, they will fall through the low thirties and upper 20s much like what happened Friday.

Tuesday Night: Snow will overspread the entire region and become heavy in some areas where narrow, intense snowbands form. Precipitation will mix with and possibly change to sleet, freezing rain or plain old rain south of a line from Charlottesville to Fredericksburg to Southeast Prince Georges County to Dover (DE) and some sleet may occasionally mix with the snow as far north as northern VA (Woodbridge to Warrenton), and the coastal communities from Lower Southern Maryland to Cape Cod. Winds will become increasingly strong overnight, blowing from the north or northeast at 15-25 mph gusting over 40 mph in the strongest snow bands. Lows in the mid 20s NW of DC and Philly and near 30 SE of DC (mid 30s in the far SE zones), lower 20s and upper 10s will prevail in Southern New England and mid 20s in the NYC area and Long Island.

Wednesday: Snow will taper off in all zones from west to east as the storm gradually stalls and weakens. Backlash snow squalls and showers will, however, continue to make travel treacherous from Philly northeastward for much of the day and even into the overnight hours and some of these bands will pile on significant accumulating snows, especially in the NYC metro area. Highs will be little different than the previous night's low temperatures, so once you've gone over to snow in the mixed or rainy zones (and this will happen from west to east for almost everyone who starts as or changes to rain during the height of the storm), you will stay snow for the duration of the event. Winds will increase along the coastal parts of the North Atlantic with some beaches receiving 40-50 mph sustained winds and higher gusts and even inland areas feeling wind chills near zero.

Snowfall Totals: In Washington DC - ground zero for the previous blizzard, especially north of the city, expect another general 6-10 inch pasting with higher amounts anywhere that receives significant mesoscale banding. Further NE, expect 8-12" in Baltimore, 12-18" in Philadelphia and NYC, and 4-8" in Boston. The bullseye - that being the location that sees the mesoscale banding the longest - is likely to be near or just west of NYC in central NJ or far eastern PA, but some places further east in Long Island, metro NYC and southern CT and RI could easily see 18+ inches of snow as well. Mixed precipitation is a distinct possibility in southern NJ, far eastern Long Island and Cape Cod, but unlikely further north.

Bach battering wind and waves will also be a major problem as this is a classic "bomb" system whose central pressure is expected to drop as low as 968 mb (over 30 mb in 18 hours)...the most at risk beaches would be the northeast facing shores of the DelMarVA Peninsula, the east facing beaches in New Jersey and the west end of Long Island Sound and New York Bight, as well as SE MA and the exposed islands south of Rhode Island. In these areas the combination of 30-50 mph sustained winds (with gusts to near hurricane force in banded precipitation) and 25+ foot seas spell serious trouble for an already severely damaged coastline that has been blasted by a range of disasters including Tropical Storm Ida, the unnamed Hurricane which struck New Jersey in October, the December 19th Blizzard, and the most recent Blizzard of 2010.