February 5 2016 Surprise Event

The heavy rains moved through the region yesterday, and the associated cold front has pushed through today. As this was going on yesterday, models began keying in on another disturbance that will ride up along the cold front that will be situated off the East Coast. Initially, this was poised to be an event that would scrape the coastal areas and maybe bring some snow showers further inland. In successive model runs, the trend has spread the precipitation field back to the west and beefed up the amount of precipitation. As of now, it looks like we could have a nice surprise waiting for our Friday morning commute This will not be a long lasting event. In fact, it will probably end during the late morning, and the sun may be out by the afternoon. 

What we are looking at: temperatures have been warm. The will begin dropping steadily down tonight into the upper 30's as rain pushes in during the late evening hours. Temperatures will also continue to fall and the rain will transition over to snow during the very early morning hours and last through the morning rush. As mentioned, the warm temperatures will more than likely keep accumulations to grassy surfaces and colder areas. If we can get some more intense snowfall rates, maybe then we will have some accumulations on the streets. In any case, snow will fall, but more than likely this will just be a pretty scenery event. For the most part for western areas, a general coating to 2" may fall....coastal areas may get a little more depending on when they changeover. 

There have been a number of significant developments with this event over the past 24 hours, so maybe some more surprises are coming, but this is my latest thinking. Once this passes, we will focus our attention on some much colder air next week, with a couple chances at some snow. More to come.