Ladies and gentlemen, would you look at this. The perfect setup for a big winter storm. It is not often that the atmosphere develops this look, so you can imagine all the excitement that has existed in the AccuWeather.com forecasting center today. What will happen is that two branches of the jet stream will merge late in the weekend, a signature of all great storms. This allows cold air from the north to come in direct contact with mild, moist air to the south, and the result is often explosive storm development. There will probably be two storm centers at first: one crossing the Midwest, the other starting out in the Gulf of Mexico. Later Monday and Tuesday, the storms are likely to merge over the Northeast, forming one giant circulation. You may want to pay close attention to this one. It could be a whopper.
