Roller Coaster Week Setting Up

This upcoming week is shaping up to be a real roller coaster. Low temperatures this morning were very low. These low temperatures were helped by the fresh snowpack. Before delving into this week, lets recap the past storm. What a complex setup we had. One of the hardest things to do is look at the backlash snows you get on the wraparound (west side). This is tremendously hard to forecast and is your highest "bust" potential for any storm. Overall, I thought the models did a rather good job with the handling of the storm (although the NAM was amped over our area, it had a decent projection). By far, the EURO model was the model of choice with this storm. It was the first to see it, and remained very consistent. One thing that cannot be modeled is some of the mesoscale banding that occurs (areas of enhanced precipitation often times looking like a line of increased precip on radars). This was the driving factor that CT was the winner in the amount stakes. There was a band that was producing 4-6"/hr and thundersnow for an extended period of time in south central CT. Some of the pictures I saw from the inlaws and others in the area were VERY impressive. We may never see anything again like that, that is how rare that was. Many places received 24" in as little as 8-12 hours. For our area, we were hit with the backside of the storm which filled in nicely once the phase occured. There was quite a  sharp cutoff in precipitation.

For this week, we have a cold front moving through Monday. Prior to that, there is a low pressure heading into the Great Lakes (never a good sign to be on the east side, warm). It will bring us rain during the day on Monday. Front moves through and we head back towards normal for Tuesday. Wednesday into the Thursday is the next time frame I will be looking at for a snow potential. the GFS model has been pretty consistent with a Mid Atlantic special storm. We have a low pressure coming through the Gulf States which will then transfer off the NC coast. This is where the models separate. The GFS model brings the storm a bit further north, bringing precipitation into our area and then out to sea. The EURO moves it right out to sea and has little effect on our area. More to come on this.

90 hour GFS todays morning run:

96 hour GFS:

Also, the GFS model brings in some very cold temperatures for the end of the week, so I will also look at that.