Coastal storm possible early next week, but it’s too soon to say rain, snow or mix

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Capital Weather Gang

Coastal storm possible early next week, but it’s too soon to say rain, snow or mix

By Wes Junker February 3 at 2:25 PM



Models are showing signs of a coastal storm early next week, but it’s too soon to tell how significant it will be for the D.C. region. (weatherbell.com)

Forecast models have recently been kicking around the idea of a coastal storm that may provide some wintry precipitation for the Washington region early next week. The evolution of this storm is one that rarely delivers big snow but occasionally blasts the Mid-Atlantic with a sloppy snowstorm. Even if this storm doesn’t deliver a large amount of snow, just a couple of inches — or a few hours of wintry mix — could be enough to have an impact on the D.C. region.

It’s far too early to nail down what kind of precipitation we’ll see or how many inches of it will fall, but it’s something we will be monitoring over the coming days. However, we can say that a coastal storm will likely develop somewhere along the East Coast Monday night or Tuesday and that it could bring us some kind of precipitation, and it may be of the wintry variety. How much of it will fall is certainly still a question mark.

This storm does not have nearly the same kind of model agreement like we saw leading up to Snowzilla. Models have really been jumping around on how the system might evolve. And we see a few flags that indicate this storm may not be too worrisome for the Washington area.

First, this storm is a Miller B-type storm. Yes, it’s the same kind of storm as Snowzilla, but it has one significant difference. The models have it forming too far to the north to deliver much snow to the Mid-Atlantic, with the original storm tracking across the Great Lakes instead of across the Tennessee Valley or Southeast.

[elleng]

1. 'Morning snow showers' forecast for DC suburb (sil spg) & southern MD

Tuesday morning, after 'warm' temps til then.