Unseasonably cold weather continues this weekend in western New Jersey. This will continue for most if not all of the week ahead.

Computer model forecasting continues to show a substantial snow storm for western New Jersey for very late Monday evening into most of Tuesday. The map above is a forecast from one of the many computer models meteorologists use as tools to forecast weather.

Tuesday storm will be composed of two factors, one storm that is now in the Pacific NW and the second a tropical low disturbance down in the gulf states. These two are predicted to interact with each other off the mid Atlantic coast up into the north east.

Of course everyone wants to know how much snow. In such a dynamic storm like this one will be almost always banding of precipitation sets up. If you are in a band for a considerable amount of time precipitation can be falling at extremely heavy rates. Meanwhile where there is no banding and only lighter precipitation is falling, it’s a much different story. You can see some examples of that in the map above. Looks at the dark blues in western New Jersey compared to the light blue in parts of eastern PA.

So in a storm that has bands of precipitation, depending on where the storm moves, also determines where the bands of precipitation set up.

Based on everything I’m seeing now I’m predicting that western New Jersey will receive 10-18″ from Tuesday’s storm. I dislike putting out such a wide range in amounts but at this time its the best call. The NWS map above agrees with this thinking and says 12-14″ is “likely” for western New Jersey.

Timing: snow doesn’t look to start in our area, at this time, until around midnight Monday night. It should be somewhat light at the beginning. But then will get heavier and steadier overnight and last into a good portion of Tuesday.

Our NWS has places western New Jersey under a Winter Storm Watch for this event. Further to the east in NE New Jersey, NYC and Long Island a Blizzard watch is in effect. So that tells us this storm will have gusty winds, especially on Tuesday.

can things change before the storm? Absolutely. If and when they do I’ll post updates here or on the Facebook page.