Just got back from a nice evening in Jersey City (Liberty House restaurant for an RU chem eng'g alumni party - gorgeous views of the Manhattan skyline and great food), then figured why not go to the Garden and catch the RU game simply a huge win over Indiana - #3 Purdue tomorrow night, yikes.
Anyway, I've been completely away from all weather info since 6 pm and it was a nice surprise to come home to the Euro moving very much towards the consistently fairly snowy NAM (and pretty snowy HRDPS) for the I-95 corridor (all of them are showing 5-10" for Philly to NYC. And for what seems like days now, the GFS and CMC continue to show no snow for the 95 corridor or the coast.
As I've mentioned several times most of the pros on 33andrain think the GFS and CMC are wrong, since they're lower resolution, which usually means they don't handle dynamic, highly convective systems like this well (and their thermal fields have been way off so far). Would love to get 6" or more, although not counting on it, per se, since so much can go wrong with this fragile setup. I'm still thinking 1-3: for Philly to NYC and places near/along 95 and the coast, but am becoming more optimistic we might get the 3-6" that News12NJ, who are usually pretty conservative are calling for. I'll also be amazed if the NWS doesn't at least put the 95 corridor down for 1-3" in their 4 am update, instead of the zilch they have now.
One more thing that really should be stressed is the likelihood of blizzard conditions wherever it ends up snowing. With the wind warnings and advisories up, all it will take is heavy snow with <1/4 mile visibility, which this storm will certainly have the power to generate, to get blizzard conditions. Even if many places only get a few hours and maybe an inch or two of snow, they will likely have blizzard conditions for much of that time On a Friday afternoon, that is a recipe for disaster, especially when I think most people will go to work assuming it's just a big rainstorm. We'll find out soon.
4:30 am edit: Very surprised NWS didn't up totals for 95 and the coast - only significant snow well NW, as per the maps. They did acknowledge how far off they could end up being though, in the discussion below which makes me wonder even more why they didn't hedge their bets a bit and at least go with an inch or two. Multiple pros on the weather boards criticizing the NWS (which is pretty unusual) for completely discounting the Euro and the high res models like the NAM and HRDPS, which all show 5-10" for the 95 corridor and even towards the coast (and much more inland).
If they're right everyone will owe them an apology, but if they're wrong, they'll have really dropped the ball when they could at least be showing some snow. Anyway, the maps are up below. Here's the thing - if the NWS is wrong and we get even a modest 2-4" snowfall for the 95 corridor from Philly to NYC and most of NJ (not even the 5-10" amounts we're seeing on the Euro, NAM and HRDPS), that snow is going to fall in the afternoon and produce blizzard or near blizzard conditions smack dab in the middle of a rush hour that people thought would be just rainy and windy. That's a recipe for disaster on the roads. Even if they don't think a few inches will fall they should show it, just in case they're wrong, so that people are aware of the risk - it's only a minor issue to predict 1-3" and get none, whereas from a public risk perspective, it's a major miss to predict nothing and get several or even a few inches of snow. I just don't get the logic.
National Weather Service New York NY
429 AM EST Fri Mar 2 20
While the cooling airmass associated with the upr low evidenced
by decreasing wet bulb zero heights remains a crucial component,
the wwd trend brings warmer air aloft in as well. Because of
these two factors, snowfall totals have been lowered from
roughly the Hudson River ewd, and increased elsewhere. Over a
foot of snow is now expected for some of the higher elevations
in Orange county.
Significant changes in snow amounts for the entire area are
possible with such little room for error thermally. The time
period thru noon will be critical for getting a handle of how
the rain/snow line is progressing.