Major snowstorm may strike East Coast on first official spring weekend
UPDATE: March 18, 2016, 3:33 p.m. EDT
- Afternoon computer model runs and current weather observations show that there remains a high likelihood of accumulating snow late this weekend in eastern New England, with some snow -- a few inches -- possible in New York and Philadelphia as well. However, this is not looking like a major snowstorm with greater than 6 inches falling in New York City. Boston, however, may see more significant accumulations. Mashable will continue to have updates as the forecast continues to evolve.
UPDATE: March 18, 2016, 9:15 a.m. EDT -- As of Friday morning, considerable uncertainty continues regarding whether Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York will receive accumulating snow from this storm. The highest odds for significant snow is in central and eastern Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Mashable will continue to have updates as the forecast continues to evolve on Friday.
Residents of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast are about to be hit with an epic case of weather whiplash, as the first official spring weekend could bring with it a powerful coastal storm that may plaster areas from near Washington, D.C., to the Boston area with upwards of six inches of snow.
You May Also Like
In addition to befuddling millions of people who thought they'd put winter behind them for another year, the storm will have the potential to cause damaging winds, heavy rain and coastal flooding, depending on its exact track and intensity, which is still subject to considerable uncertainty.
The one thing that's becoming more clear with each run of sophisticated computer models used to help predict the weather is that a coastal storm is likely to form and track close enough to the eastern seaboard to bring heavy precipitation to many highly populated areas. That was in doubt until Thursday afternoon, when computer models began to lock into a track closer to the coast.
There is some question as to the magnitude of the snow threat south of New York City. Snowflakes could fly as far south as Virginia, if some computer model projections hold true, with accumulating snow possible from near Washington, D.C., north and eastward.
But it's far more likely that significant snows will accumulate in New England.
The storm will evolve from late Saturday through Monday night, spreading precipitation first into the Mid-Atlantic, then extending into New York City by Sunday afternoon, with the biggest impacts anticipated in New England from Sunday night through Monday night.
There is the potential for more than a foot of snow to fall in parts of New England if the storm intensifies rapidly and slows down slightly as it tracks near Nantucket, as some computer models are hinting at.
In fact, some projections would translate into a classic New England blizzard, particularly in central and northern New England, which have missed out on nearly every snowstorm of the winter. Unfortunately for many suffering ski areas, the snow may be too little, too late to salvage profits this year.
Notably, the forecast model from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting, or ECMWF, has consistently been showing a stronger storm system that would pose more of a threat to cities from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine. The resolution of that computer model was recently upgraded, in a bid to increase its accuracy even more.
It had already been consistently beating the top U.S. weather model in projecting weather conditions at various timescales.
Depending on the storm's track and intensity, Boston could conceivably see its biggest snowstorm of the entire winter from this storm (though the storm would not occur during meteorological winter, which ended on Feb. 29, it would still count toward the 2015-16 snow season).
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Boston missed the "Snowzilla" blizzard that buried Washington, Philadelphia and New York under more than two feet of snow in January.
There are many reasons to be cautious about the storm forecast for now, though.
To get a heavy snowstorm in the Mid-Atlantic and coastal New England at this time of year, heavy precipitation rates and below average temperatures tend to be needed to overcome the high sun angle.
If the heaviest precipitation were to fall at night, that would make for far greater accumulations than if the snow were to mainly fall during the daylight hours, for example.
Heavy snowstorms at this time of year are relatively common, particularly in Hartford and Boston.
But heavy snowstorms at this time of year are relatively common, particularly in Hartford and Boston. The April Fool's Day Blizzard of 1997, for example, dropped 25.4 inches of snow in Boston, and was accompanied by thundersnow.
This year's expected storm would follow record warm weather that has prompted the Cherry Blossoms to bloom in Washington, D.C., spring flowers to appear in New York City and an early push toward al fresco dining at restaurants up and down the coast.
For example, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island and New Hampshire each had a record warm winter, and the first two weeks of March were extraordinarily mild as well -- with record highs of 77 degrees Fahrenheit in Boston as early as March 9. The average high temperature for the date was just 54 degrees.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
The storm will come as quite a shock to a region that is now more accustomed to late spring and early summer weather than it is to wintry conditions.
Even the meteorologists tasked with predicting the storm seem a bit stunned by the prospect of a major snowstorm.
In a technical forecast discussion at about noon on Thursday, forecasters at the Weather Prediction Center in Maryland stated:
WITH NEARLY ALL OF THE 2015-2016 WINTER SEASON BEHIND US ... IT SEEMS THAT THE COMPLACENCY OF A RATHER 'MILD' EL NINO WINTER... HAS SET IN. BUT THE 'WILD' TEMPERATURE AND SENSIBLE WEATHER VOLATILITY THAT SPRING TYPICALLY CAN DELIVER DOES MAKE ANOTHER APPEARANCE ACROSS THE NORTHEAST QUARTER OF THE LOWER 48.
Before you get too depressed about the possibility of a significant snowstorm this weekend, though, rest assured that the long-range forecast calls for a return to milder-than-average conditions across much of the U.S. later next week.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Andrew Freedman is Mashable's Senior Editor for Science and Special Projects. Prior to working at Mashable, Freedman was a Senior Science writer for Climate Central. He has also worked as a reporter for Congressional Quarterly and Greenwire/E&E Daily. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, online at The Weather Channel, and washingtonpost.com, where he wrote a weekly climate science column for the "Capital Weather Gang" blog. He has provided commentary on climate science and policy for Sky News, CBC Radio, NPR, Al Jazeera, Sirius XM Radio, PBS NewsHour, and other national and international outlets. He holds a Masters in Climate and Society from Columbia University, and a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
