Friday, January 16, 2009

Pre-Inauguration Snow Threat Possible

After days of showing relatively dry conditions through Inauguration Day, the last couple of model forecasts have been hinting at a storm developing off the Southeast coast on Monday and becoming a classic nor'easter off New England by Monday night.

The most recent model run, made from this morning's 7 am observations, is just now generating its output, and it shows a particularly strong development. Since this is within the 72-hour range for which model forecasts have some positive skill, the situation bears further watching. As shown in the current model output, the heaviest snow (green shading) would be to the south and east of Washington, but several inches of snow in the immediate area would still be possible. The strong northwesterly flow behind such a storm development would also bring much colder temperatures to the Washington area on Tuesday.

Stay tuned for further developments (and remember where you saw it first :)).

Click here for previous Inauguration Weather posts.

Image (click to enlarge): GFS model sea level map of pressure and precipitation, 7 am, January 19, 2009, from NCEP/NWS/NOAA

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