Winter Storm on the Way!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and New Year! I know I did! I had the opportunity to travel to Pasadena, CA and the Rose Bowl with the Penn State Blue Band. It was an awesome experience. Now on to the weather.

We have certainly had our share of sleet storms and wintry mix in State College this winter. We seem to have trouble getting a good 4-8" all snow event. Each time we have moisture coming our way, the LO has come to close to the area and we end up with warm air intruding in the upper levels while Cold Air Damming (CAD) in our area remains strong at the surface. Result: SLEET. Well, this drought may be about to end on Friday night and Saturday!

Currently, we have a nice dome of cold air (-10 degrees C at 850mb) moving over our area. We will then see the southern and northern jet streams partially phase and create a nice area of LO pressure over the Southern Ohio Valley on late Friday. The LO will move East through VA on Saturday and off the DE and NJ coast by early Sunday morning. There is fairly good agreement among the models at the current time with the latest (0z) NAM coming into line with the 12z and 18z GFS runs. Below is the 54 hr NAM from the 0z suite:

At this point, it looks like the cold air will hold strong and the track of the LO will be far enough south for KUNV to remain all snow. The 850mb LO is a little to close for comfort but soundings show all snow at this point.

Overall, I am extremely confident about this storm system being a good snow event for a line 50 miles either side of I-80 through PA and NJ. As an early call, I'm going to forecast 3-6" for that area with localized amounts in the 6-8" range. The NAM usually overdoes precip and I don't like it's ~.75 QPF. Yes this system has southern stream moisture with it, but I can't see that much liquid. I like the GFS's QPF output a lot better. .5 inches and a little greater seems much more reasonable.

I hope the 0z run of the GFS doesn't through a curveball into the equation. The only outlier is the Euro which is usually better in longer range situations anyway. So, for now, I like my early forecast and think KUNV will remain all snow (the NWS even had a Winter Storm Watch out early this afternoon). Precip should end at state college before midnight on Saturday night.

Have a good one everyone!