Update on next week's weather

Update #431d

Hello all - Ben here, checking in with a quick update on next week’s weather.

Monitoring trends is an important part of forecasting. If the outlook is consistently trending in a certain direction with time, it can give a meteorologist confidence.

Trend monitoring is particularly important 3 to 5 days before a storm, as this is when the details of an event start to come into focus and public interest in a potential event is near its peak.

I thought it would be good to comment on a few of the trends that I’m seeing:

• Stronger high pressure system to the north of the storm: this may keep the shield of snow suppressed to the south of the Hudson Valley for longer or only allow part of the region to get into it on Monday. In other words, a sharp snow cut-off is possible if not probable.

• A low pressure track that is a bit farther offshore: this may cut down on how far inland the snow can reach and ultimately on accumulation on Monday-Tuesday.

With that, it’s fair to say the 24-hour trends look a little less favorable for widespread, significant snow in the Northeast. Instead, a relatively narrow corridor of heavy snow is more likely, with less snow on the outer fringes. So will the Hudson Valley be in the narrow corridor or the outer fringes? That is the million-dollar question 😉

I’ll be in touch again soon.

Note how the “latest run” image shows a southward shift compared to “latest run - 24 hours”

My forecasts this week have been coming from a very far-flung place. This was my view earlier today ✌️