December 14-17 Potential Winter Storm

There is rising potential for a winter storm to strike anywhere from the Plains to the Northeast. We'll start off with today's 12z ECMWF model, forecast for the morning of December 15th. Here, we see a good low pressure system on the Illinois/Iowa/Missouri border. It's central pressure above 1000mb tells me that this is not a particularly strong system. Despite this, very cold air based in east Canada is funneling into the Plains in the wake of this system. Such a solution would portray a likelihood of snow in the area, but again, we're a while out.

Moving ahead to the morning of December 16th, we now see our system has moved offshore and is entertaining residents of New England. We now see our cold air still coming down from Canada, but now has moved into the Ohio Valley. I would not be surprised to see some lake effect snow in the Great Lakes if such a solution verified. The continued abundance of very cold air in southeast Canada says that snow is even more likely for the Northeast if the ECMWF forecast were to verify.

As for the GFS, this is the forecast for the evening of December 15th. We see a much stronger storm system in the Ohio Valley, with a very wide precipitation area giving snow to the Midwest and Ohio Valley, with a very very wet Mid Atlantic/New England area. Again, cold air coming south from Canada could bring up the lake effect snow (LES) possibility.

This is the GFS forecast for the morning of December 16th. Here, we see the system has strengthened even more as it moves into New England and feeds off the energy in the Atlantic Ocean. We now see very heavy rain in the Atlantic and towards Nova Scotia, with heavy snow ongoing in the eastern Great Lakes and parts of the Northeast.

Models are hinting at the potential for a system to impact the East US during this timeframe, but as for if this will even happen, no one knows yet. This will certainly be interesting to see how it plays out.

Andrew