November 7th Northeaster Thoughts

After a historic storm effected the northeast just under a week ago, mother nature is reloading. A strong northeaster will effect the regions damaged by sandy starting wednesday night and continuing into thursday evening. Currently there are two pieces of energy that have the potential to phase. One vorticity max is over the prairies right now and is weak. As this feature tracks to the southeast it will carve out a large trough digging as far south as the northern gulf of mexico. This will allow the system to pick up copious amounts of Gulf Moisture before tracking northeastwards off the south carolina coast. In the meantime our second piece of energy will move over a strong upper high centred over california. As this tracks eastwards a strong vorticity max will form over Manitoba and dive southeastwards into the trough and phase with the southern branch energy sitting off the carolina coast. The phased system will track up along the east coast and have a chance to intensify over the warm gulf stream. The trough will have a negative tilt to it which will allow cold air to come charing in from the northwest. These two factors will allow for major intensification. Models have been consistent on the possibility of a 980mb mean sea level pressure off the new jersey coast which is nothing to just shrug off, especially with our current situation. There are some disagreements on the models. Currently there are two camps. The 0z Ukmet and 06z GFS ride the storm along the coast with lowest pressures in the low 980's. The GFS phases the branches further north and east before moving the storm westwards into eastern mass. This causes a stronger storm to form south of cape cod increasing impacts in eastern mass, rhode island, new jersey, NYC and connecticut. This would send a 6-8ft storm surge onto the jersey shore which has no protection after sandy. Since this stays over water a constant battering of 30-35mph sustained NE winds along the coast and 25-30mph inland is to be expected. Gust of up to 60mph would also be felt on the jersey shore, in NYC, coastal connecticut and mass, something trees cannot afford after sandy. This would be a very bad scenerio for the jersey shore and NYC. The ECMWF has a slightly different solution, tracking the storm further west with an earlier phase. Sustained winds are similar to other models but Wind gusts of 63-70 mph can be felt as far inland as NYC, the jersey shore and costal connecticut. Further NE Cape Cod and eastern long island can experience gusts of 75-80mph. The wind concern will be felt mostly along the immediate coastline which is areas effected the worse by sandy. The ecmwf sets up the heaviest rain bands southwest and east of new jersey/ NYC which is good news. Right now I am favouring more of a west solution similar to the ECMWF because I think this model is handling the phase better then the GFS. I see this occurring earlier with storm peak intensity off of the nj coast. A pick your poison situation is setting up as if the euro is correct more wind concerns will be felt along the coast while less rain will fall further north. If the GFS is correct rain will batter the northeast coast with less wind. Either way, even though it pains me to say it power outages will be another big concern in NYC, eastern mass, rhode island, connecticut and the jersey shore. Take necessary precautions to prepare for this storm early on so that you aren't caught off guard later, especially if you live along the immediate coast. Flooding will be a major problem further south across eastern virginia, north carolina and southern maryland. Snowfall will also be a major concern with this storm as cold air is already in place from our current trough. Major snowfall accumulations in amount of 3-6" are possible for interior sections of the northeast including the catskills, adirondacks, northern vermont and new hampshire as well as western maine. Many areas near sea level across central and eastern PA as well as south eastern NY will start of as snow before changing over to rain or a mix as the system allows warm air to advance northwards. Here is my preliminary forecast for cities effected by the storm.

Albany: Starts as snow before changing over to a mix 1-3" accumulates
Burlington: 7 inches falls, 3-5" accumulates
NYC: 0.75-1.5 " of rain, gusts up to 50kts
Boston: 2-3" of rain gusts up to 55kts
Atlantic City: 1-1.75 " of rain, wind gusts up to 55kts
Philadelphia: Gusts up to 45kts, 0.5-1" of rain
New Haven: 0.75-1" of rain, gusts up to 55kts
Virginia Beach: 1.5-2" of rain, gusts to 65kts
Montreal: 5-7" of snow falls 5-10cm accumulates
Quebec City- 5-7" falls 5-10cm accumulates
If you want me to do a forecast for your city/town it would be my pleasure to do so, just reply or PM me.