The clipper going through tonight, I expect a Coating to 1″ for most areas and amounts up to 2″ are not out of the question for areas in North-Central NJ, Orange County in NY, as the low heads right over them and with best lift there. And also over Eastern LI and Eastern Conn, as the storm begins to intensify offshore later tonight.

As for storm on Thurs. night and Fri AM, you’ve seen me discuss it on tri-state, so now you want to know snowfall amounts. I’m actually suprised by the amount of forecasts, already out there even though it is premlinary, give large amount variables there are and changes that can still occur. Anyway, it appears that models have come to an agreement on a track further offshore than earlier this morning. Normally that would bring more snow to the coastal areas, but being that there will be no ridge to the our north to keep cold air and the wind direction coming from the warmer than normal ocean waters, a change to snow to rain is likely along coastal areas.

For now I will put a “Snowfall Potential” map, that will be more of an outlook on how much snow I feel we may get around the tri-state right now. This is NOT a preliminary forecast map and I probably will not put one until sometime tomorrow:

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/8499/snowfallpotentialzf6.png

To explain in short, I think that 3″ or more is possible over many inland areas away from the coast, where they should not see so much of marine influence and remain mainly snow. Closer to the coast, accumulations are most likely to be under 3″ due to the likely changeover. However, a few questions for me:

1. How much moisture will get back to the west? Will the east trends on the models continue?

2. How fast will the storm move out? Will the most of the precip be over before the changeover along the coast?

3. What about the warming layer that the GFS Bufkit keeps showing at 900mb to 925mb level across the area? There could be a period of freezing rain from some coastal areas, before a complete changeover to rain. Also some inland areas not far the coast may see a mix or changeover to freezing rain as well, cutting down snowfall amounts.

Back to tristateweather:

http://www.tristateweatherboard.com

When these things become clearer to me I’ll put a forecast map.