This Week’s Snow Remains Meh. Watching Mon-Tues

Discussion: The clipper came through overnight/this morning and dropped a coating to an inch or so before quickly melting with temp increases. Minimal impact.

Tomorrow night’s slider wave, if it happens far N enough, is looking more like a conversational snow event where snow showers, or even a more mature band of snow, could pass across SNJ mostly along and to the S of the extended Mason-Dixon line. The problem is that peak surface temperatures are going to be in the 38-44 range when snow would break out (noon-2pm). Perhaps natural surfaces get down to 32 mid-snowfall (~4-5pm) but it would take paved surfaces longer…likely too late for any sort of road accumulations. I would say worst case scenario (GFS model): 2-4 inches fall out of the sky, a coating to 2 inches sticks on natural surfaces, and roads remain wet, possibly slushy at the very end. The Euro is not as enthused with even less of a snowy outcome than that. And most mesoscale models are complete misses to the S with rain only across Delmarva. So the range of possibilities for NJ tomorrow (Thursday afternoon-evening) are from a complete miss to the S to a mostly conversational snowfall where roads are likely ok and just some light stuff on the natural surfaces…aka a white rain event. We might not even put a snow map out and just call it passing snow showers with little-to-no accumulation.

There might be a sneaky small wave of snowfall in the Sunday-Monday period…similar to what came through last night/this morning. A coating to an inch at most overnight with the cold front passage. Nothing crazy.

Monday-Tuesday (March 2-3) is a better signal for snow accumulation. A much better case for some stickage given the cold front to come through Sunday night into Monday. The GFS is more of a snow only event Monday (1-3 for NNJ/2-4 for SNJ). The Canadian and Euro have front-end snow thumps Tuesday that change to rain by the end of the event (Tuesday night). Canadian is the most aggressive with a statewide 3-6/4-8 scenario. Euro is 1-3 NNJ and 3-6 SNJ. Not a blockbuster but possibly a range of light-to-significant snowfall. Will track one more day tomorrow (Thursday) casually and then enter serious tracking if there’s still support for it on Friday.

After whatever happens Monday-Tuesday, another synoptic signal is showing later next week (March 5-7) in the form of rain that kicks off a 1-2 week period of milder temperatures afterwards. I’m seeing temps in the 50-60 range for the March 7-11 period and these warmups tend to trend warmer as you get closer.

Assuming that’s true, the second half of March would then have to trend to well-below average temperatures for snow to still be in play. Will be fighting serious sun angle and climatology (avg highs in the 50s). The baseball game goes to March 30 for a reason though. There is some more action in the polar vortex region that may produce another split and dislocation/spill into the E US. If this sent a very cold trough into the NorthEast and Mid-Atlantic US (like 1993, 2014, 2017, etc.), that could support additional late-season snowfall to March 30. However, if temps only fall back to just slightly below-average, that won’t be enough to produce accumulating snow. Therefore, I think we will know if the snow season is over come March 12-15 period. We should be able to see general temperature trends through the rest of March at that point.

In English: This morning’s snow was cute. Tomorrow’s action (Thursday) could be anything from a complete miss to the S of NJ up to snow showers producing mostly white rain across CNJ/SNJ (snow falls on warmer surface temps – high of 38-44F). Another cute wave could quickly push through Sunday into Monday with a coating to an inch at most and that wraps up the “meh snow” this week. Next Monday-Tuesday is more interesting to me regarding snow falling and sticking. It doesn’t look like a big event but could be a little something-something (light-to-significant) before possibly ending as rain. Then a rainy system later next week to usher in a warmer period March 7-11+ where temps could potentially break 60 in spots but at least 50s. Second half of March too far to see clearly at the moment but winter will definitely be in its sunset phase, possibly hospice phase, after the Monday-Tuesday snow potential. I will casually watch Mon-Tues through tomorrow and then get serious about it if still showing support for it on Friday. Have a great rest of Wednesday and please be safe! JC

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Jonathan Carr

Jonathan Carr (JC) is the founder and sole operator of Weather NJ, New Jersey’s largest independent weather reporting agency. Since 2010, Jonathan has provided weather safety discussion and forecasting services for New Jersey and surrounding areas through the web and social media. Originally branded as Severe NJ Weather (before 2014), Weather NJ is proud to bring you accurate and responsible forecast discussion ahead of high-stakes weather scenarios that impact this great garden state of ours. All Weather. All New Jersey.™ Be safe! JC