Updated Feb. 27, 2021 3:02 PM EST
The ground is still white, but the sky was gray in the middle of Pennsylvania and the many other areas on Saturday morning:
The satellite view shows a river of moisture stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic:
Remarkably, there wasn't excessive precipitation despite the amount of cloud cover. There was wintry precipitation across New England. The cloud area thinned over Kentucky and Tennessee then thickened in the area from Arkansas southwest through Texas.
The surface analysis shows a number of high and low pressure areas, but missing is any place with a strong northerly flow.
The rather weak storm that affected the Northeast on Saturday is getting ready to move off the coast Saturday afternoon. However, as the next map shows, another area of precipitation will be on the way later Saturday night:
This second disturbance has rather heavy rain with it, but will not extend as far north as the previous storm did. However, as succeeding maps show, a low pressure area on the 1 p.m. Sunday map centered over northern Lake Michigan sends precipitation across New England Monday, so there will be some snow as colder air moves into that region.
The batch of rain that extended from southern Indiana to New Jersey on a Sunday afternoon forecast map appears to race off the coast but is quickly followed by another round of rain from the southwest as shown here on the forecast map for 1 a.m. Monday. On this map, you can also see the snow breaking out associated with a low pressure area from Lake Michigan.
A fresh mass of cold air will move southward behind the area of rain and take over the Northeast during Monday afternoon and Monday night.
The next map shows the GFS predicted rainfall between 7 a.m. Saturday and p.m. Monday. The very heaviest rain, more than 2 inches, occurs in an area that currently has much less snow than places to the north. If the entire Northeast experienced a bigger warmup during this time and received the same amount of rain as the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, we'd be looking at a major flood situation. Fortunately, it does not look like that situation will develop in this case.
The map for Tuesday afternoon shows a bitterly cold flow across New England, but a southwesterly flow of warmer air will move across the Plains toward the Great Lakes.
Wednesday looks like a dry day. It'll feel springlike from Des Moines to Pittsburgh in the afternoon, and the cold will ease in New England.
Later next week, it looks like there will be some renewal of the cold in the Northeast as a new high pressure moves in well to the south and a major storm develops.
This forecast map for next Friday shows that storm moving northeastward into the Carolinas. Such a storm could cause a blizzard if it came all the way up the East Coast!
However, at the moment, it looks like substantial snow could occur in parts of the area from eastern North Carolina to southern New Jersey with drier air holding for the north. Realize we're now talking about things a week in advance and one aspect that makes today's forecasting efforts so interesting is that from this far out, details are likely to change.
MARCH
This is the chameleon month of March. Always searching for a sense of identity, its days stagger through punches of waning winter, dance with the sunlit caresses of coming spring, and hide behind thick clouds through the windswept battles between the two. The midday sky looks brighter now, but the sun sneaks out of view before the dinner dishes can be cleared. Winter's cloak of white melts down to oozing mud and rushing streams. The crocus and daffodil bravely blossom, but wiser plants bide their time til a less treasonous season.
Dark December no longer holds the keys around here, and the door to winter's dungeon creaks open. And, yet, rather than seizing this moment of weakness, rather than racing headlong into warmer times, spring prefers the test-market approach: try a hint of south wind here, a puffy cumulus there; teasing breezings between the freezings. Even the south wind has ragged, chilly edges on many a March day; subtle hints of warmth vanish all too quickly in the gathering dim of dusk.
Like a 12-year-old on Saturday morning, March is full of hope. But Mother Nature and Old Man Winter rule the household. One day, with ice water in its veins, the northwest wind blasts in from the still frozen hinterlands of the Arctic north.
And if the south wind does quicken, there's usually an instigating storm waiting in the wings, a two-faced wanderer of the westerlies dealing dreadful thunderstorms on its south side and freezing gales with drifting snows to its north. As storms approach, the day carries a hint of mildness, but the fading sun gives ground to a milky veil that would all too readily drop snow but for the want of a few degrees.
And through it all, we mortals whose days are most surely numbered somehow yet yearn for them to pass ... so sweet the lure of prospective spring ... its meadows splashed with gold, its captivating sunshine, its renewal of earthly life. This year, the continued rollout of the vaccine in spring adds hope.
The set changes each March, and the players follow different scripts. But no matter how many times we see it in life, we are always eager to see it again.
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