Both the European and American models are predicting a powerful winter storm developing this Friday in the mid-Atlantic region. The American GFS model is predicting than an area along the Maryland Pennsylvania border will get over 30 inches of snow. A corridor from the northern suburbs of the District of Columbia to Baltimore to Philadelphia is forecast to be hammered by twenty to thirty inches of snow driven by strong winds as a deep low bombs off the mid-Atlantic.
The atmospheric wave that will create this intense low over the mid-Atlantic is now part of a storm in the Gulf of Alaska. That jet stream wave will be driven south by the Arctic air mass as it crosses from the west coast to the central states. Then it will whip back up the jet stream towards Virginia, developing a strong surface low pressure area that will pull moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf stream up and over the Arctic air mass locked in over the northeastern U.S. When a second jet stream wave kicks in over the Gulf Stream late Friday or early Saturday the storm will “bomb” over the extraordinarily warm waters off the east coast.
Water temperatures as much as 10ºF above normal off the east coast will provide extraordinary amounts of water vapor which will be driven above the Arctic airmass & dump huge amounts of snow.This situation is an example of what happens when the low level polar vortex breaks down as it did at the end of December and the cold air floods out of the Arctic while temperatures soar near the north pole. The extreme contrast between the near record Gulf Stream warmth and the Arctic air will contribute to the potential for extremely high snowfall amounts. This storm may well be an example of the warm oceans - high snowfall paradox that has so confused cow state senators.
The GFS model predicts a classic mid-Atlantic snow “bomb” to develop off of the Delmarva shores.