Special Report...A Model Bust...Snow After All?

Hello this is Junior Meteorologist Kyle Elliott with a special report on the upcoming weekend winter storm…and now that push has come to shove, could it actually be that the models were wrong this entire time? Well, the 0z run of the GFS model for this storm was just completed, and it no longer shows the primary low giving way to coastal low. Instead, it takes the lowest pressures of the primary right over York, Lancaster, and Allentown, Pennsylvania…and actually has the primary moving all the way to Long Island and becoming the coast itself! Weird, huh? Well anyway, what do I make of all this? I think that this solution could in itself actually be right although it seems to be impossible. There is really no clear explanation to why this low would cross the mountains…but if it is drawn over the mountains to the coast because it feels enough warm air and moisture sitting on the coast…could it actually be drawn over far south of where they have it now, say in Virginia or North Carolina? Well these are all questions that will be answered on the next two runs of the Nam and GFS models, but personally, I like this latest solution because we walk away with like 4-7 inches of snow here in southern/eastern Pennsylvania before changing briefly to rain before quickly changing back to snow. Now, is that my official forecast at this point? Well, no, but it is still a possibility to watch. Anyway, I think we will end up with a general 2-4…maybe 5 in spots…inch accumulation here. I still tend to think that this low will transport it’s moisture to the coast and spark a coastal…but if it moves over the mountains and to the coast itself, remaining south of here, we could be in for a major snowstorm after all. In all reality, that still appears to be a far-out scenario at this point, but it is something we will have to watch as we move through the day tomorrow. So right now, I think York gets about 2-5 inches, Lancaster gets 1-4, Harrisburg gets 3-6, Philadelphia gets 1, Allentown gets about 3-5, Williamsport gets 5-8, Baltimore gets 1…maybe 2…, and Washington, D.C. gets 1 at most. So that’s about where I stand for now, but I will continue to update for the next 1 or 2 hours or so before retiring for the night. So I’ll talk to ya’ll soon! This has been Junior Meteorologist (Storm Tracker) Kyle Elliott with a special report for the AKStormtracker Forecasting Center, in Storm Alert Mode!