Brace for impact. The National Weather Service is calling what’s coming overnight “crippling” and “potentially historic.” The region is already under a state of emergency with travel bans in place; roads and schools and businesses closed. And tomorrow’s shaping up to be one epic snow day. Meteorologist John Cifelli told NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams that the forecast is tricky and some areas could get slammed while places nearby get a more moderate amount of snow.
“Right now there’s still a discrepancy, even at this late stage of the game, even with the system already having made an impact in New Jersey, there is a variation within the models. Some of them are showing a crippling, historic blizzard for eastern New Jersey and northern New Jersey, certainly Long Island and New York City. While some models are still showing much less, with much of the bulk of the action forcing into southeastern New England,” Cifelli said.
As of 6 p.m., New Jersey had seen rain and snow showers, with varying levels of accumulation. Cifelli said Central Jersey saw one to two inches of snow early in the morning, but it tapered off after that.
The storm is offshore over the Atlantic Ocean, which is similar to Hurricane Sandy. “Kind of a similar setup here where we have what’s called an inverted trough aloft. The steering currents upstairs in the atmosphere, we’re used to what’s called the prevailing westerlies — our weather here in New Jersey’s affected from west to east, really all across North America. But with this particular setup, we have the curving mechanism that is bending and pulling this storm back in,” Cifelli said. “And also, as it does so, you’re also gonna see that precipitation field explode and blossom over eastern New Jersey first and then western New Jersey as well.”
Cifelli expects Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Union, Monmouth and maybe northern Ocean counties to see the brunt of the storm with blizzard conditions, the highest winds and the heaviest snowfall.
According to Cifelli, the storm is going to depend on banding. “Banding is where we have these intense areas of strong lift in very regionalized areas. And in those small bands, you can have prolific snowfall rates — two, three, four inches of snow in one hour,” he said. “Immediately next to that, you could have much less. So there will be a very sharp radiant and there will be very regionalized pockets of very heavy snowfall with more average snowfall next to it.”