We all woke up Tuesday morning to about 3” of snow in western New Jersey give or take. So what happened? There is a storm and some areas got hit hard: Long Island, CT even NYC somewhat.
So what happened? Once the coastal storm formed and started strengthening it was about 50 miles or so further East than expected. This didn’t allow most of NJ to get into the heavy snow. The snow we did receive was during the day Monday from the initial clipper storm itself.
My theory on what helped this is as follows: Central PA received more snow from the clipper than forecasted. State College received a foot of snow! From a clipper? State College is certainly too far inland to be impacted from a coastal storm. I believe some energy remained over central PA. This combined with the rapidly developing storm over the ocean resulted in a snow “hole.” What I mean by this snow hole is as follows. Rising air is what causes clouds that ultimately turn into precipitation (very simplified). But you can’t have rising air everywhere. Someplace has to see sinking air. When air sinks is dries out and hence no or lighter precipitation. This is a common occurrence in these type of clipper storm that suddenly intensify when hitting the ocean. This was in part why I was keeping my snow totals much lower than most – even lower than the NWS.
I saw the signs late yesterday but I didn’t want to change thinking there was a chance. But the chance is gone. We will see breezy conditions develop today as the storm pulls away. We will see occasional snow showers that could result in a small additional accumulation.
Cold weather will continue all of this week – be prepared for that. Then ANOTHER clipper will move through the area fast on Thursday night into Friday morning. Don’t worry this won’t won’t be intensifying since it will be further to the North. But these types of storms, as we have seen already this winter, can drop nuisance snows.
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