Bad Storm Likely On East Coast By Friday, But What Exactly Will It Do?

It looks like there will be some sort of big storm
near the Northeast coast on Friday, but exactly
where and how bad is still up in the air. 

As of this Monday morning, the computer weather forecasting models have come to a consensus: There will be a big, bad storm somewhere near the northeastern United States coast on Friday.

Earliest indications are the track of the storm might go from the central or southern Plains to the Ohio Valley, then it would redevelop strongly on or off the New Jersey coast.

However, that forecast track could change dramatically as we get new information later this week.

As you can imagine, there's a lot we don't yet know: What will be the exact track of the storm? Will it rain, snow or mix? How heavy will the precipitation be? Who will get the heaviest precipitation? It also seem likely there will be a lot of wind and probably some coastal flooding. Who gets nailed and who gets spared?

So yeah, there's a lot more questions than answers, but that's pretty typical on occasions when we know there's likely to be a big storm, but it'll happen four or five days from now.

Many of the ingredients for this storm were still off or near the British Columbia coast as of Monday morning. It's hard for forecasting computers to get good data for things that are over the ocean. Weak data, weak results. That explains the lack of clarity with this storm.

Still, we can begin to look at some of the things that could easily happen. Given that the storm will probably be big, most of these things will not be good. I'll pick them apart starting with:

HIGH WINDS

As I said, this will be a strong storm. Big storms have high winds, and it's beginning to appear the orientation of the storm will bring strong northeast gales to somewhere along the coast. Things could shift, but the worst of it looks like it will be somewhere between the central and southern New England coast down to the Mid-Atlantic states.

COASTAL FLOODING

Astronomical tides higher than average are scheduled for around Friday, so the timing of this storm is really bad. Storm surges and battering waves have the potential to be really destructive, as there will be a broad flow of winds off the water, which could really gather up those surges and waves.

My guess is if there's destruction from this storm, the coastal flooding will be the worst of it. At this point, I would pinpoint the New Jersey coast as most at risk, but coastal problems could arise anywhere from Maine to North Carolina.

RAIN/SNOW

Usually, when a late February or early March storm tracks just off the coast and a little south and east of New England, the interior Northeast can expect to be buried in snow. (See: the "Pi Day" Blizzard last March 14 that dumped more than three feet of snow on parts of Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania.)

This time, there's not a lot of cold air for the storm to work with. So the question of rain or wet snow is really up in the air. Even though there is not much cold air to work with strong storms like this potential one manufacture their own cold pool of air aloft.

Heavy precipitation helps bring that cooler air downward. The atmosphere over the western and northwestern side of the storm cools, and you get snow, despite the lack of large masses of cold air from Canada.

Somebody will probably get a lot of rain and/or snow from this, but who gets it is a huge question.

VERMONT EFFECTS

Nobody really knows the effects of this likely storm in Vermont, either. As of now at least, it seems like the storm wants to track well to our south, meaning southern Vermont would get the biggest effects of the storm on Friday.

People in northern Vermont shouldn't dismiss this one yet, though. If the track of the storm is more to the north of what people are thinking now, the north will get into the action as well.

If it snows in Vermont with this thing, the snow is pretty likely to be wet and heavy. It'll be windy, too, during the storm. So if wet snow does happen, we'll have to deal with power failures. That's a big if, an we'll have to wait and see.

This storm is part of a blocky weather pattern that's bringing frigid weather to Europe and an unseasonable thaw to the Arctic.  When weather patterns are this far off the rails, forecasting becomes tricker.  That makes the predictions for this storm even murkier than usual.

As I always say, stay tuned for updates.