OT: Spring Warmth, 3/5-3/12+? Winter 2025-26 - Patterns and Potential Winter Storms

NWS snowfall map is up. Seems reasonable if maybe slightly overdone - maybe a mood coating for most and 1-2" at the immediate coast, which will cause problems with temps in the teens and everything accumulating, especially during the time it might be snowing off and on, i.e., from about 11 pm Saturday until noon on Sunday. It's also a better than 50/50 chance that only the coast sees any flakes. Also, expect wind gusts to 40+ mph at the coast and likely minor coastal flooding.

In an unusual move, they're showing the snowfall out over the ocean and how close much more snow is, i.e., 6" snowfall amounts being 40-50 miles from the immediate coast, so the track would only need to move that far NW to get to the coast (low probability but still possible). Of course this also means a complete whiff even for the coast only requires a 40-50 mile track shift to the SE. The key part of the NWS discussion is below.

FYI, the only model showing measurable snow (a couple of inches) at 95 is the SREF ensemble, which is why the NBM (model blend) maps are greater than anyone would guess as the SREFs are ~30% of the NBM's weight. But being ~60 hours out (from the 18Z model inputs at 1 pm today) still allows some track shifting, so keep an eye on things.

Also, temps look to be near or even below 0F Friday and Saturday morning for most, especially away from the urban corridor. That's pretty damn cold.



Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Mount Holly NJ
307 PM EST Thu Jan 29 2026

Getting the storm details of timing and impacts, Some light
snow could start breaking out over southern Delaware to around
Cape May as early as late Saturday afternoon. The better chances
for seeing snow though will be for Saturday night into Sunday
morning as the storm moves north and east makes it`s closest
pass to the area. By midday Sunday and beyond, the storm will be
pulling way bringing any snow to an end. In terms of forecast
snow amounts, we`re thinking at this point 1 to 3 inches near
the coast (areas near and east of the Garden State Parkway)
Except around 2 to 4 inches for Sussex County in Delaware.
Amounts should then taper to under an inch near the I- 95
corridor with nothing likely north and west of the urban
corridor. It should be noted though that despite forecast models
being in pretty good consensus at this point that the
QPF/Snowfall gradient will be quite sharp along the north/west
edge of the system. This means that if the storm tracks even 50
or so miles farther N/W than current thinking, higher amounts on
the order of 3- 6 inches will be possible near the coast with
at least a couple inches then possible near the I-95 corridor.
It doesn`t seem likely at this point that that will happen but
it`s still possible. Similarly, if it tracks just a bit farther
S/E than current thinking it could be pretty much a complete
miss for our whole area in terms of anyone getting any snow at
all except right near the coast.

At 0Z tonight not a single model shows more than 1" anywhere in NJ, but about 1/3 of them still have 2-4" amounts less than 50 miles from the coast so while I expect to see the NWS step down forecast accumulations again to probably something like <1" for coast areas and nada towards 95, there is still some small chance (5-10%?) the system ends up with an inch or so along 95 and 2-4" along the coast. Far more likely only AC to Cape May sees a dusting to a coating and that's it.

RU848789 said:

At 0Z tonight not a single model shows more than 1" anywhere in NJ, but about 1/3 of them still have 2-4" amounts less than 50 miles from the coast so while I expect to see the NWS step down forecast accumulations again to probably something like <1" for coast areas and nada towards 95, there is still some small chance (5-10%?) the system ends up with an inch or so along 95 and 2-4" along the coast. Far more likely only AC to Cape May sees a dusting to a coating and that's it.

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I think we can finally stick a fork in this one. At most a dusting for AC to Cape May with nada everywhere else and even those dustings are now unlikely. Big storm for SC/NC/SEVA though with possible blizzard conditions.

RULoyal said:

Cape May hangin’ tough

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Not anymore, lol. Full whiff. And most of SE VA and parts of central NC (Raleigh) getting way less snow than forecast, while Charlotte, Greenville, SC and coastal SC/NC are getting hammered.

The 9-day streak of temps at or below 32F has ended today for most folks, which has been the longest such stretch since most of the area had a 12-14 day stretch like this in Dec-17 into Jan-18 (see the NWS-Philly graphic below; the streak also ended for EWR and NYC). However, the colder than normal weather will continue through about 2/10, with brutally cold conditions this Friday through Monday with lows in the single digits to 0F (or below) and highs in the 20s (and teens on Sat/Sun) and dangerously cold wind chills likely. Even though the streak has been broken for most, we'll likely have a streak of 18 days at or below 35F for most, through 2/10, which is impressive cold.

Despite the cold, it'll remain pretty dry with only a couple of minor snowfall chances over the next week, on Tuesday night and Friday night. Could be about 1/2" of snow Tuesday night south of about 78 from a weak clipper system, as per the map below, and there could be another clipper late Friday which could bring an inch or so of snow into Saturday morning. But no big snowstorms (or any storms) on the horizon for at least the next 10 days.

Also, January averaged about 2.5-5.5F below normal for most across the entire NWS-Philly and NWS-NYC areas (EPA, all of NJ/DE, and NYC/LI/SENY/S CT) with well above average snowfall (4-11" above normal depending on location), as per the graphics below from both NWS offices. We got 19.3" in January here in Metuchen, which is ~10" above normal.

RU848789 said:

Well, we're now ~24 hours from the start of the event and we've seen the 18Z, 0Z and 6Z models since the quoted post above and with most models showing less snow and more sleet than the NWS was showing in its forecast at 1 pm yesterday, the NWS-Philly and NYC finally adjusted snowfall decently downward towards what many other forecasters have been showing, i.e., 8-12" for areas generally S of 78, especially Lee Goldberg/AccuWeather (the NWS did bump down a little at 5 pm yesterday, but this is more substantial of a drop). Even the very sleety NAM backed off its 3-5" of snow then 2-3" sleet forecast for much of CNJ/SNJ at 6Z and has 5-8" snow there now plus substantial sleet (~2"), which is still very impactful (about 12-14" worth of 10:1 snow, by mass). There are also still models showing 10-14" of snow, with 13-15:1 ratios for most of the area N of 276/195, so snowier solutions than 8-12" are still on the table. Note that the NWS-NYC didn't change their forecast at all really, as all of their counties are near/N of 78.

Lee's map from last night is also below and has been very close to my thinking with the exception that I wouldn't have anywhere <6" (especially the NJ coast north of Toms River) as I think that initial thump of snow will be at least 6" everywhere as per almost all of the models, but the 8-12" amounts for the entire 95 corridor from DE through NYC and in PA/NJ up to 78 seems like a pretty good forecast. I do like the NWS keeping SNJ in the 6-8" swath SE of a line from about Middletown DE to LBI (Lee has 4-8" for most of that area- like the 6" min better). In addition, the NWS is predicting up to 0.3" of ice accretion near/along 95, especially SW of a Trenton to Red Bank line. NWS has me at 11.9" of snow/sleet, which I think is still a little high, so I'll go with 10.4". Below is a summary of the updated warnings and the NWS discussion is also below.

NWS-Philly Counties

• For Sussex-Warren-Carbon-Monroe-Lehigh-Northampton, the warning is for 11-15" of snow/sleet, but no freezing rain (ZR)
• For counties in PA/NJ south of 78 (except coastal counties south of Ocean), i.e.,Hunterdon-Somerset-Middlesex-Monmouth-Mercer-Salem-Gloucester-Camden-Burlington-Ocean-Cumberland-Berks-Delaware-Philadelphia-Chester-Montgomery (and Newcastle/Kent in DE), the warnings are for 7-13" of snow and sleet with up to 0.3" of freezing rain accretion, especially SW of Trenton as per the ice map below.
• For Atlantic/Cape May counties and southern DE, the warning is for 4-8" of snow/sleet plus about 0.1" ZR

NWS-NYC Counties

• For W. Passaic, the entire Hudson Valley and the coastal CT counties, the warning is for 12-16" of snow
• For NENJ (Union/Essex/Hudson/Bergen/E Passaic), NYC and LI, the warning is for 10-14" snow/sleet plus a light glaze of ZR

https://forecast.weather.gov/wwamap/wwatxtget.php?cwa=PHI&wwa=winter storm warning

A few bulleted comments below.

• Expect the snow to come in like a wall after 15-20 minutes of flurries and remain heavy (1-2" per hour at times) from 4-7 am (depending on start time) through 2-4 pm for most before any changeover to sleet.
• It's going to be in the teens for the entire storm N of 78 and S of 78 temps will generally only warm up into the mid-20s with the arrival of sleet/freezing rain (maybe at or above 32F with plain rain for far SENJ only).
• With total precip (QPF) amounts generally between 1-1.5", most areas south of 78 will see substantial amounts of sleet, i.e., 1-2" worth. Let's do an example of what this might mean, i.e., something like 9" of snow at 13:1 ratios (0.7" QPF) and 1.7" of 3:1 ratio sleet (0.5" QPF) for a total depth of 10" (after a bit of compaction from the sleet), topped off by 0.1" of ZR for a total QPF of 1.3".
  • If this 1.3" of QPF were all 13:1 snow, that would be 17" of snow, but in this case it's about 10" of depth, which will have a top half maybe that quickly becomes very compacted and icy after the freezing rain is absorbed and freezes and being the same mass in both cases, will be equally tough to drive in, shovel and plow, i.e., very similar impacts - all snow is just much prettier.
• For folks who might get 0.1" or more of freezing rain with surface temps in the 20s, I'd highly recommend leaving a few inches of snow on your paved driveway/sidewalk until the freezing rain is done; this allows the snow/sleet to absorb the ZR rather than allowing it to form an icy glaze on your driveway/sidewalk - it'll then just be a slushy few inches to shovel.
• On the flip side if you get a decent amount of sleet and some ZR, don't wait 12 hours to shovel as much of it'll become frozen solid.
• After this storm, temps likely won't make it above 25F through next weekend with some nights having lows around 0F (or below), and beyond that we might not see temps get above 32F until about 2/7 or so - and there are some more chances for snow (2/2?)

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Finally getting around to do a post-mortem on the 1/25 Storm. At a high level, the storm was very well predicted from about 5 days in and especially from 3 days in and the forecast from the NWS the day before the storm was pretty good relative to the actual snowfall, as per the graphics below. I included the snowfall map for our area (Philly/EPA/NJ/NYC/LI/SENY) and for the entire DC to Boston region, including inland, which was also generally forecast pretty well.

Started talking about this 8-9 days out as the long range models were showing occasional big storms in that timeframe, but not consistently, which is typical that far out - however, the ensemble runs were consistently showing the potential for snow around 1/25 indicating much greater confidence than usual in snow that far out. Then, about 6-7 days out, models started showing more consistency in portraying a significant storm, but with wide variance in the details, as expected; see the post from 6.5 days out, earlier in the thread.

https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/...d-half-of-jan-verified.8454878/post-180261765

About 5 days out the models were generally showing 6-10" for most of our area, but significantly more to our south in NC/VA/MD/DE with 12-18" there (4th graphic below) and the concern was that suppression of the storm from the very cold air mass modeled to be in place to our north when the storm approached from the SW would push the storm further south as happened several times last winter when it looked like we might have significant snowstorms 4-6 days out - almost all of these missed to our south.

Then over the next 36-48 hours, the models uniformly shifted the heaviest snowfall 150-200 miles north, putting our region in the bullseye and making it much more likely areas well to our south would get major sleet and freezing rain storms, which occurred. Then over the last day or two before the storm, most of the models started showing that there would likely be a mid-level warm nose several thousand feet up, leading to the initial thump of heavy snow changing to sleet (and maybe some freezing rain).

In the last day or so before the storm, the NWS and some other forecasters who had been predicting 12-18" of almost all snow for our region, reduced that to 8-12" of snow S of 78 (which is what I had been thinking, along with Lee Goldberg and others), due to substantial amounts of sleet for areas south of 78, leaving areas N of 78 as likely getting 12-16" of snow with a little bit of sleet and that's generally what was observed. Looking back all of the models were pretty good at predicting at least 1.0-1.2" of frozen QPF (liquid precip), with about 1.4-1.8" QPF actually falling, but some only had 3-5" of snow S of 78 (the NAM, which did get the sleet right) and some had 10-14" of all snow with little sleet (the UK), while the CMC did the best overall, showing 7-10" of snow followed by 2-3" of sleet for most S of 78. See the post linked below for the final model forecasts.

https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/...d-half-of-jan-verified.8454878/post-180635439

Having said that, most people outside of SENJ (Dover DE to Tuckerton and SE of there, where they did get substantial plain rain) actually got 12-18" worth of snow on a frozen mass basis, i.e., most folks along/S of 78 got 6-9" of snow initially, followed by 2-3" of sleet (due to that mid-level warm nose), which is 3x as dense as snow, meaning it has the same mass as 6-9" of typical 10:1, snow:liquid ratio snow giving a total of 12-15" of "snow."

For example, at my house we got 8.5" of snow, followed by 3.5" of sleet (10.5" of 10:1 snow, by mass), which is 19.0" worth of "snow" by mass contained in 12" of depth. And anyone who drove in or shoveled or plowed that mass knew it felt like way more than 12" of fluffy snow - and the very high frozen mass also has played a big role (along with the cold, obviously) in why we've seen so little melting so far. I still think the meteorological community needs to find a better way to convey the impacts of sleet than they currently do (frozen mass is the way).

I hope everyone enjoyed this one as much as I did or at least weren't too terribly inconvenienced.

RU848789 said:

Coming colder than normal and potentially snowier than normal pattern for 1/15-1/31 (2nd half of Jan) for our area?

Our 3-4 day major warm-up with temps >10F above normal is now over and while the next 4 days will still be a bit above normal (highs in the mid/upper 40s), a colder pattern returns around 1/15 and will likely last through at least the end of January if not through the first week or so of February. Highs are likely to generally be in the 30s from about 1/15 through 1/23 and average below normal through the first week of February as per the CPC graphic below - so below normal (with a few warmer days here and there possible), but no obviously brutal cold conditions.

In addition, it appears that we'll have a more active storm track (vs. the first 2 weeks of Jan) emanating from the subtropical jet, at times augmented by northern system energy, which will likely mean chances of wintry weather. The first of these is around 1/15-16, where we're seeing everything from nada to a major winter storm (snow inland and maybe a mix for 95/coast) across the models. At 5-6 days out in a complex setup, we just don't know exactly how this will play out, but it could be wintry. After that there look to be chances around 1/18-19 and a few beyond there, although that's getting into fantasy land.

This kind of pattern favors above normal snowfall for at least the second half of January, as indicated by the ensemble means (average of dozens of runs of each model to explore variability) showing about 2-4" (which often translates to more than that as these means take into account many zero-snow outcomes) or so of snow from 1/15-1/25 - still no guarantee, but a strong signal for snow. FYI for half of January, "normal" snowfall would be about 3.5" in Philly up to 4.5" in NYC.

So far this winter, I've talked about two patterns that looked to be cold and potentially snowy. The first one was the first half of December, which delivered very cold conditions and well above normal snowfall for most of the Philly-NJ-NYC region, mostly from the 12/14 snowstorm. The second one focused on the first 2-3 weeks of January, which featured very cold conditions for the first 6 days, but that has been largely cancelled by the warmth since then and next week's modest warmth and we've had very little snow, so far and that will remain through at least 1/14. Sometimes the patterns don't deliver.

So, let's see how today's post and discussion of a colder than normal and potentially snowier than normal pattern for the second half of January turns out. Never any guarantees, but at least there are some potential winter storms out there to track (that really didn't happen for the first half of January, as it just remained too dry). Below is what Walt Drag, esteemed retired NWS meteorologist had to say this morning about the 3rd week in Jan. The NWS isn't saying much about the possible storm on 1/15, yet, which is not surprising, given the high uncertainty this far out. The link below is to the general discussion on AmericanWx.

https://www.americanwx.com/bb/topic/62470-january-2026-obs-and-discussion/page/38/

Walt Drag, 1/10/26: Entire northeast USA 15th-18th: Wintry hazard events. Uncertainty continues but I find it hard to believe that there won't be at least one , 1-3" event within this 4 day period from just north of Atlanta through Asheville NC and then up the I95 corridor into NYS-New England. Broad and uncertain focus, but seems to be the 15th-16th for this entire region with snow interior and rain/ice/ snow coasts. This could result in travel issues.Those of us who have important travel plans around the 15th-16th should monitor forecast updates daily. Going to get cold for a day, even in the Deep South. The pattern after the 18th evolves into brief significant cold outbreaks with some snow northern USA including the northeast, with a fairly serious wind driven cold outbreak from MD-PA-NJ expected roughly near the 20th.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/813...027&hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen

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So, the cold and potentially snowy pattern for the 2nd half of January verified, obviously and hugely so. Using New Brunswick as the data source as it’s very representative of CNJ and the 95 corridor from Philly to NYC, that prediction verified easily, as the last 16 days of January averaged a brutally cold 9.7F below average and had 16.0” of snow, which is far above the 4.1” NB would expect to get in half a month (it gets 8.3” in January). So, that's 2 out of 3 cold and snowy patterns that verified so far this winter.

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=phi

For my family and friends in east central FL from Daytona Beach to Fort Pierce, including Orlando, yes, Sunday morning saw record cold for the date and for the month of February in most locations, as per the graphic below from the NWS. My dad in Vero wouldn't even go near the windows, lol. And yes the whole state had record cold temps for at least the day, as per the 2nd graphic. Iguanas were everywhere.

The clipper for tonight and tomorrow moved a bit south, so some light snow (1/2" or so) chances will only be for south of Philly-LBI. The clipper for Friday night into Saturday still looks like it could drop 1/2-1" of snow into very cold temps.

Smols said:

Was in Ocala through the weekend for my daughter's horse show. Our Air BnB pipes froze Sunday morning. Ice in the horses buckets They moved the events at the show to 12 Noon from the morning. Saturday wind was brutal.

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Yikes! Did the pipes burst or just freeze, leaving you with no water, but not a flood? A lot of folks don't winterize their outdoor pipes in FL. Moving from our area to Vero 30 years ago, my dad was always on top of that at his house there until he moved to a retirement facility 3 years ago and he always makes sure my sister, who also has a house in Vero, takes care of that.

RU848789 said:

The clipper for tonight and tomorrow moved a bit south, so some light snow (1/2" or so) chances will only be for south of Philly-LBI. The clipper for Friday night into Saturday still looks like it could drop 1/2-1" of snow into very cold temps.

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The Friday night into Sat morning clipper and associated very strong cold front (which could bring some brief, heavy squalls in the wee hours of Saturday, similar to what we saw on 1/1) is looking like it'll drop 1/2-1" for most folks in our area, with temps in the low 20s, so anything that falls will accumulate and even 1/2" will make for slippery secondary roads, driveways and sidewalks. Little of what falls will melt on untreated surfaces with temps not going above 20F until Monday afternoon and with night time lows near 0F for most on Sat/Sun nights, along with -10 to -20F wind chills. Brutal and dangerous cold for our area.

The NWS put out an updated map for this event going from just a dusting for most to 1/2-1" or so for most, as expected given the recent model runs. However, it's also still possible most places will just get a dusting and it's also possible places north of about 78 see up to 2" if this overperforms, especially given the likely high ratio snow (maybe 15:1 snow:liquid).

NWS has slowly crept up the snowfall amounts over the last 2 days, from <1/2" to <1" to 1"+. I know it's not a lot, but 1" of snow with temps in the 20s is going to accumulate on every surface and won't melt much during the day on Saturday with temps falling through the teens, so even 1" will impact driving.

There's also a high wind watch (places could see 60 mph gusts on Saturday) for Saturday and an extreme cold watch for Sat/Sun with wind chills from -10 to -20F.

https://www.weather.gov/phi