We sat on the sidelines over the last couple of days as a major winter storm sliced across the country, creating blizzard conditions through Kansas City and bringing the Nation’s Capital to a standstill with several inches of snow. Naturally, we’re wondering if the shoe will drop here in New England as we fend off multiple waves of cold and wind in the coming days.
We may get our answer soon.
Guidance has squared off on a storm moving out of Texas later this week that takes aim for the Eastern Seaboard. Right now, both of our more reliable models display an all or nothing proposition: either we get a direct hit, or it silently sails off the Mid-Atlantic (apparently our new snow belt) and out to sea.
Weekend snow in Boston?
Storm track could still change
Of course, this presents us with a conundrum. Which is to be believed?
Knowing full well that ANY forecast or insight that we give will be outdated just as quickly as we type it, I’m leaning towards at least some impact here in New England. Overnight, the particular guidance that shows virtually no snow started leaning in the direction of at least a little snow.
In each case of our model guidance, we can investigate the individual “members” that make up a consensus forecast (stay with me here), known as an ensemble.
Of the 50 or so members in this ensemble, only a couple of them showed snow Monday morning. By afternoon, that number leaped to several more, and by evening, even more than that. In essence, it is “coming around” to the idea of some accumulation. This is a significant development in building confidence in a forecast.
Things like storm track, rain/snow lines, potential snowfall, and winds are still too distant to discern, but simply narrowing the field of outcomes is huge milestone. We’ll get the finer points in the days ahead, but for now, there is a legitimate weekend threat that we have to keep tabs on.
