Is Winter finally about to arrive? That’s the question that’s been on everybody’s mind. Especially along the east coast, where it has been much milder than average as of late.
The bottom line is, most computer models are suggesting that there’s a strong possibility of a significant pattern change later this weekend.
This is likely to be characterized by a switch in the jet stream placement. Rather than being aligned from west to east across the country, which sustains a flow of rather mild air, “dips” in the jet stream are forecast to develop, helping produce some north to south alignments and hence push colder air into continental parts of the U.S. This following jet stream forecast for Sunday shows exactly that, a “diving” jet.
This should help to produce colder conditions for many eastern parts of the U.S by the weekend. The following temperature anomaly map from Pivotalweather.com shows that much colder conditions (than of late) are expected to head into eastern parts of the U.S, notice the shades of blue around the east, indicating that temperatures below normal can be expected by Sunday.
By next Monday, New York City could be looking at temperatures hovering around 28F. Granted, not very cold, nor unusual, but certainly a lot more like what NYC “should” be during mid Winter. With it of course, is the risk of some snowfall.
Snow potential
This weekend is loaded with snow potential for north eastern parts of the country. Notice the word “potential” was used, because the weekend is too far out to give an accurate forecast. However, a lot of moisture mixing with cold air injection is producing a real Winter Storm risk this weekend. There are many “options” on the table, regarding the forecast outcome, however many of them point to a real risk of snowy conditions across central and eastern states. Could NYC see it’s first snow storm of Winter 2019/2020? We shall see.