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\n Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a long time since a major snowstorm set its sights on New York City, and residents are assuming once-familiar roles. Nervous weather watchers are overbuying at the grocery store, the mayor is projecting competence<\/a> while crushing snow-day dreams, and John Homenuk \u2014 the enthusiastic but sober-minded meteorologist behind New York Metro Weather<\/a>, whose \u201chype free\u201d forecasts are a trusted resource for thousands of New Yorkers \u2014 is delivering cautious forecasts. On Friday, I spoke with Homenuk about what New York and the rest of the country can expect from an unusually expansive storm system and its frigid aftermath.<\/p>\n It\u2019s fair to say that this storm is not going to be a miss at this point, right? There\u2019s very little chance that we\u2019ll get some paltry amount of snow? That does seem to be the big question \u2014 at what point the sleet starts. But you think it will happen at some point, regardless? But this event is driven by a process called warm-air invection. Basically, it\u2019s the movement of warm air from southwest to northeast. This storm is starting in Texas, and all that moisture and warm air is lifting up toward our area. It\u2019s vectoring toward us, and that\u2019s great for bringing a lot of moisture into the area, but it also brings warm air with it at multiple levels \u2014 not just at the surface but also a couple thousand feet above our heads. So we have a lot of moisture coming in from the south, a lot of lift to produce precipitation, but we also have this big Arctic high to the north. Typically, this would be a storm where it snows for a little and it flips over pretty quick. It wouldn\u2019t be a big deal. It\u2019s the massive Arctic high we have coming in just before the storm that\u2019s making this so interesting and potentially significant. The combination of that big cold to the north and that moisture surging up from the south puts us right on this gradient where we could have quite a bit of snow before there\u2019s any sort of changeover.<\/p>\n And that makes a changeover into sleet likely even if the actual air temperature is well below freezing? On Friday, those trends show that the sleet line is near New York City or maybe just south of it, which is the nightmare scenario for my sanity. The takeaway for New Yorkers is this: There will be significant, and anything over six inches is considered significant by the National Weather Service. I think the floor on this is at least six inches. The ceiling will depend on whether we can hold off the sleet. If we can\u2019t, I think it ends in this six-to-ten-inch range and then we flip over to sleet if we can. We probably have a decent chance of getting a foot of snow or maybe even a little more of that.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also going to be freezing cold before and after the storm, and there\u2019s no end in sight to that trend. So the effects might really stick around. Good one. And then, not to be the bearer of bad news, but there is probably another storm threat coming up. That one is a little more boom or bust; it could be huge or it could be nothing. It\u2019s much more coastal-storm oriented, a little more like the classic ones of the past, but right now you\u2019ve got some models showing nothing and some models showing a huge storm. The other thing I know about New Yorkers is we\u2019re always trying to be prepared. So big cold, don\u2019t forget about that \u2014 and then just keep an eye on next weekend. I\u2019m going to leave that alone until this storm passes to avoid confusion.<\/p>\n This is affecting an enormous swath of the country, including places like Texas and Tennessee that don\u2019t usually get a lot of snow and ice. What is causing such an unusual setup? Which leads me to a point I definitely wanted to make sure people get about travel. I\u2019ve gotten so many questions about this, and I think the travel impacts are going to be massive with this one. Someone said, \u201cWhy worry about travel on Saturday night if the storm\u2019s not here until Sunday?\u201d And I said, \u201cThink about where your airplane comes from.\u201d If your plane is connecting through Dallas or Atlanta on the way here, and there is a winter storm going on there, it\u2019s not getting here. That\u2019s how the cascade starts. So to me, if you\u2019re flying from the second half of Saturday through all of Sunday and the first half of Monday, be prepared to have some problems. Maybe you get lucky and don\u2019t have any, but this system is affecting seven major hubs for carriers, and it starts in Dallas and Atlanta late on Saturday into Sunday morning.<\/p>\n What does the pattern look like after that? Just more cold for a while? But how reliable are these kinds of forecasts more than about ten days out? Isn\u2019t making long-term projections like that a tricky business?
Correct. The range I put out <\/a>is six-to-ten inches for New York, followed by some sleet, and that\u2019s very much on the conservative side. Which is definitely intentional, because I feel that the potential mixture mixing with sleet at some point during the storm creates a lot of uncertainty. It\u2019s unclear to me when that sleet changeover is going to occur. So I\u2019m at six to ten right now, but getting higher amounts than that is totally not out of the question.<\/p>\n
I do. A little bit about the dynamics of this event: It\u2019s definitely not a classic or one of the historic-looking snowstorms. Typically, our biggest storms come from systems that reform off the coast and form into a strong coastal low. If you remember January 2016<\/a> or even what\u2019s called the Boxing Day Blizzard on December 26, 2010,<\/a> those storms all had a coastal low that really strengthened rapidly off the coast of New Jersey and South Long Island. That\u2019s how New York City tends to do the best with big snowstorms, because you have the dynamics from the strong coastal nor\u2019easter, but when we are to the left of the low, the wind orientation brings in cold air from the north throughout the storm. So you are just funneling cold air in and you have the strong dynamics to keep the snow coming.<\/p>\n
Yeah, though I think that\u2019ll happen after significant snowfalls. Sleet forms when you have a warm layer that is a couple thousand feet above our head, so the snowflake falls out of the cloud and it falls through that warm layer. The snowflake melts into a raindrop, essentially, and refreezes when it leaves that warm layer as it\u2019s tumbling down toward us, since that warm layer is pretty thin. It remelts into an ice pellet, and that\u2019s what hits the ground. So you can very much have sleet with temperatures in the single digits or teens at the surface. If it\u2019s above 32 degrees at 3,000 feet, that snowflake is melting on its way down. So what\u2019s going to be really close is \u2014\u00a0how far north can that warm layer get before the high pressure to our north pushes back on it? And New York City is right on the line.<\/p>\n
First of all, there\u2019s a cold-weather advisory tonight in New York. That Arctic high is coming in, and I think it has slipped under the radar \u2014 that\u2019s a weather joke.<\/p>\n
People have not really been talking about it. Wind chills will be down to as low as minus-10 degrees. So that should be kept in mind, because if I know New Yorkers, we\u2019re going out tonight because we can\u2019t go out tomorrow night and Sunday. And it is going to be really cold then behind the storm, with the snow pack and ice pack and\u00a0Arctic air mass coming down \u2014 this is the real deal. This is really cold. And so we\u2019re talking real-feel attempts below zero during the evening multiple days in a row.<\/p>\n
The Arctic cold \u2014 the press of cold I talk a lot about, these features called high-latitude blocks, and they are exactly what they sound like: a blocking high in the higher latitude, so Canada, Greenland, Alaska, We have a lot of them right now. There is a very strong high-latitude block over Alaska, and it stretches all the way across the Arctic and Greenland. That\u2019s important because that blocking high takes all that air that typically is all the way up there and it dislodges it somewhere else. So in this case, it\u2019s dislodging it straight down through Canada and into the United States. So you have this anomalously strong high pressure taking cold air and funneling it straight down into Texas, into the southeastern U.S., and you have a disturbance coming up out of Baja California at the same time. So it really is a timing thing where you have the incredible cold and the strong disturbance trying to drag moisture up. And the combination of that is leading to this really huge elongated area of winter weather across the country.<\/p>\n
For now, it looks cold and potentially stormy for the near future. I think at some point in February we\u2019ll get a break, but even that month looks colder than normal. If I take a 30-degree forecast and drag it out for the next 30, 32 days, we\u2019re at least ten degrees below normal for that timeframe.<\/p>\n
I would say specifics are not as accurate, but generalities are, and there\u2019s multiple models showing temperatures below normal. So I think it\u2019s more believable than not. With a long-range forecast, I wouldn\u2019t look at a forecast that\u2019s calling for 31.3 degrees on February 21, because there\u2019s just no way to be that accurate. But predictability in the long-range forecast has increased enough so that if there are strong signals for below-normal temperatures on multiple pieces of guidance, it\u2019s correct more often than not.<\/p>\n