Current conditions

[Stephanie]

Temp: 32 degrees
Wind: 2 MPH
Humidity: 100%
Flurries - no accumulation expected except for grassy areas if that.

Driving home from Atlantic City, I pretty much went through light rain/drizzle, to a mix and then a nice burst of snow closer to home. It really didn't start in NJ until the afternoon.

A quick question - was this the northern piece that the models initially thought would merge with the southern storm that's going through the SE tomorrow?

[Colin]

Yes, you're right Stephanie.

[Stephanie]

Thanks Colin!

I thought so - I remember when the models started to fall apart that the northern piece was moving too fast for the southern piece to catch up. Then we also had the suppression issue to contend with.

[Erica]

A quick question - was this the northern piece that the models initially thought would merge with the southern storm that's going through the SE tomorrow?

Yes, it was, but the phasing scenario was pretty much doomed from the beginning, and timing wise, out of sync.

Normally in order to get phasing between the northern and southern brnaches of the jet stream the southern stream energy has to come out ahead of the northern stream energy, so that as the northern stream s/w digs in, it catches or merges with the southern stream s/w. (thus the term phasing).

When you have the northern stream s/w digging in ahead of the southern branch energy, it normally crushes the southern stream energy, and no phasing occurs, although, at times, you can get a handoff to take place, where energy is passed from the southern stream to the northern stream. We saw an event like that in January.

The problem with this week's phasing scenario was that the northern branch s/w came out well ahead of the southern stream energy, that coupled with the fact that the eastward progression of the southern stream energy would not allow it to catch up to what would have been the phasing s/w.

[Stephanie]

Thanks Erica! As I was typing my question, I drew a blank with the word "phasing" so I used merge.

So, the northern s/w actually caused the suppression of the southern s/w?