Foot's Forecast | Weather Intelligence

White Friday For Eastern U.S.? Here we go again

10:15 AM EST 1/24/13 | By Winter Stormcast Director Zachary Fasnacht, in collaboration with the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast Teams. Authentic local updates for areas to be affected by the next event in the Eastern U.S. can be found at these lead pages for their regions:

• NORTHEAST: Metro New York | Central New Jersey
• PENNSYLVANIA:  Central Pennsylvania | Three Rivers (Pittsburgh) 
• MARYLAND: Central MD | Capital Region | Southern MD | Potomac Ridge (West MD) | Bayshore (Eastern MD) 
• VIRGINIA: Northern VA | Central VA | VA Tidewater 
• SOUTHEAST: North Georgia & Metro Atlanta | Charlotte & Metrolina

OVERVIEW: A cold Arctic air mass has frozen over the mid-Atlantic over the past few days and now rounds o' snow are arriving with this cold air. Overall, we expect the next event to be relatively low impact, with the Friday evening commute being most affected. That said, a light snow will cover a large area and affect millions of people from Friday night into Saturday. Our latest team map for this next snow event as follows:

TIMING: Expect snow to begin across West Virginia and western Pennsylvania during the early afternoon hours on Friday. 

• The snow will push east through the afternoon, arriving to the rest of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia by mid-afternoon. 
• The snow will finally arrive by late-afternoon in New York City, New Jersey, and Delaware. Snow should end early Saturday morning across the mid-Atlantic as a few snow showers. 

PRECIPITATION TYPE: Models are showing the cold air hanging around the mid-Atlantic for a few more days so precipitation is expected to fall in the form of snow for all areas. The mountain areas of West Virginia could see some heavy snowfall rates of 1” per hour at times. 

IMPACTS: This system should be a low impact even with the worst being Friday afternoon and evening. Models show a general 1-3” snowfall across the mid-Atlantic at the moment. 

• Some western areas of the mid-Atlantic such as western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the Maryland Panhandle could see 2-4”, with the mountains of West Virginia possibly seeing 5-6”. 
• Coastal areas could also see some higher accumulations if the storm redevelops close enough to the coast. 
• It also possible the a dry slot may form over some areas of central Maryland in which case only a coating to an inch of snow would fall over central Maryland. 

Many areas will see temperatures well below 32 during the storm, so back roads to become snow covered and main roads to melt and possibly refreeze when the sun goes down. The snow will be very fluffy so it will be easy to shovel up, for this reason we expect this to be an easy storm to clean up after. 

Jack Frost Returns, Brings Snow Miser? 

3:00 PM EST 1/23/13 | Winter Stormcast Director Zachary Fasnacht in collaborating with the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast Teams of Foot's Forecast.

(UPDATE: This report is revised text of our Mid-Atlantic & Southeast Team statement as posted 11:00 AM EST 1/22. A second update is pending later tonight. Your comments, observation and analysis are welcome on this page, or on lead Facebook pages for this event)

Winter Stormcast | Mid-Atlantic  (Left: FF team map)
Metro Atlanta & North Georgia (Right: NWS Peachtree City, GA map)

OVERVIEW: Jack Frost has returned with a vengeance, bringing with him a rush of Arctic air to the Eastern U.S. We know many Powerhounds are wondering, given it is so cold, can there still be snow? Well the answer for most in the Mid-Atlantic: Yes. Our team still expects a snowstorm to move through the mid-Atlantic Friday into Saturday, with an increasing probability for moderate snow accumulations to occur across much of the region. 
If this current scenario were to play out according to our projections, we have outlined the following setup. We will revisit this statement in the late PM update ready for review early Thursday morning.

TIMING: Precipitation will move into West Virginia, western Maryland, and western Pennsylvania early Friday morning. 

• Precip would push east through the day, arriving to all areas by sundown. The snow will continue through Friday, possibly heavy at times Friday afternoon and evening. 
• Snow would begin to taper off in West Virginia, western PA, and western MD around midnight Friday night. 
• Areas further east will see snow end between midnight and sunrise Saturday morning. 

PRECIPITATION TYPE: Most of the mid-Atlantic is expected to see mainly snow.

• Southern areas such as MD, southern Pennsylvania, DE, and southern NJ could see some mixing with sleet and freezing rain at times. 
• This will make travel difficult as many of these areas will see the wintry mix change over to plain snow leaving a hidden layer of ice below the snow. 

IMPACTS: This system has the potential to be a high impact event and affect a large area with many metropolitan cities possibly being affected including Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Newark, and New York City. 

• Road conditions will deteriorate through the day Friday leading to difficult travel Friday evening. Many areas of Pennsylvania, New York, and central New Jersey could see temperatures well below 32 degrees so as the snow melts due to the sun, the roads will quickly refreeze leading to icy roadways. 
• Travel will be improving by Saturday morning, but with the reinforcing shot of cold air for the weekend, black ice could be an issue in many areas. Our models show total accumulations from this system of 2-4” across the mid-Atlantic. 
• There is still some variation in the models so there could be some changes. Some areas including DE, NJ, and eastern MD could see some additional snowfall on top of that depending on how quickly the storm redevelops when it gets to the coast. Other areas of Pennsylvania and New York could see higher totals because temperatures could possibly be in the teens, leading to higher than normal snow to liquid ratios. 

Collaborating Forecasters: 
Zach F. (PA); Alex D. (DE); Jason I. (GA); Jason M., (MD) Greg J., (MD) Connor M., (MD); Mike N. (MD); Andrew B. (PA)