Cold Weather on Tap for Next Several Days in the Northeast...

The overall weather pattern will be colder than normal for the next several days in the NYC Tri-State area as well as nearly the entire eastern half of the country. As I mentioned in posts last week, there will be freezing temperatures early this week along the Gulf coast and into northern Florida. A storm will intensify off the coast of New England on Saturday producing very strong winds and a little light snow over eastern Long Island that could produce 1 to 2 inches of snow with no more than scattered flurries and snow showers in and around the city. The main feature will be the strong winds circulating around the storm that will gust to 40 to 50 mph from the northwest which will likely result in a Wind Advisory for the NYC metro area on Saturday afternoon into at least Sunday afternoon. Wind chills will be down into the single digits to near zero degrees with daytime highs not climbing out of the mid to upper 20s. The surface maps above indicate the tight isobaric gradient that will develop as this low strengthens off the coast of New England. The closed cyclonic flow at 500 mb will gradually move northeast which will result in a broad trough over the eastern third of the nation that will funnel down the cold air to the Deep South. Look for lake effect snows that could be heavy in upstate New York and Pennsylvania for the next two or three days. The long term trend for the next two weeks from the GFS continues the cold and relatively dry pattern with not much in the way of an active southerly branch of the jetstream. A very strong impulse of energy from central Canada is forecast by the GFS to dive down in the northwesterly 500 mb flow resulting in a potential for 1 to 3 inches of snow for our area Thursday night or Friday. No major snowstorms are forecast for the next week to 10 days.

George Wright is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and President of Wright Weather Consulting, Inc. Our website is WrightWeather.com.