MAJOR SNOWSTORM For Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and VA, MD, DE, NJ

Models are now in better agreement and the future weather pattern is becoming better defined for tomorrow night and Saturday. A huge area of precipitation now over the Gulf Coast and Mississippi River Valley will continue to track eastward through Friday spreading clouds across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions. WINTER STORM WARNING for 12" to 18" in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, southeast PA, northern VA, MD and central and southern NJ, with a BLIZZARD WARNING in effect for for 18" to 24" in southeastern NJ and eastern Delaware. Three to perhaps 5" or 6" may fall in the NYC/Long Island area if enough precipitation moves northward. Even central NJ should receive as much as 8" or 10" of snow.

The models continue to suppress the snow to the south of NYC in response to the cutoff low over eastern Canada that is bringing down a northwest flow of dry air. Just last Saturday a major snowstorm hit the same area while producing only flurries in NYC. And a light snowfall remained heavier to the south this past Tuesday evening with less snowfall (1 to 3") in NYC. So I expected that this storm would also likely remain to the south of the city in response to this blocking vortex over eastern Canada. And that is what the models are forecasting with a slight change possible in the next 24 hours. Any slight change of 20 miles or so could affect the amount of snow an area receives in a big way. So the actual track of the storm is very important in the prediction of the snowfall amounts for a specific location.

Some of the maps above provide the NAM weather forecast model's prediction of the path of the storm in 42 to 54 hours from 1 PM today.

George Wright is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and President of Wright Weather Consulting, Inc. Our website is WrightWeather.com. George is also a meteorologist with News 12 Cablevision.