Snowfall Forecast: Blizzard of 2015
A major snow storm is projected to bring blizzard conditions to much of New England Monday night through Tuesday. When all is said and done, many areas in and around the Boston area can expect two feet of snow with locally higher amounts.
The overnight run of the European model has shifted slightly east and further increases confidence in this forecast. The data consensus favors sharply decreasing snowfall amounts west of southern New England. As low pressure rapidly intensifies and moves toward Cape Cod and the islands, snow will become heavy with strong winds and blizzard conditions along the I-95 corridor from New York City to Boston and downeast Maine.
As low pressure nearly stalls and does a loop, similar to historic blizzards in the past, a band of intense snowfall should drop excessive to possibly historic snowfall amounts. It appears that the likely positioning of this band would be on a SSW to NNE axis between central/eastern Connecticut and interior eastern Massachusetts. This may include the Boston metropolitan area. Although mesoscale details of such a band are not 100% clear, the potential exists for some 30″+ totals where this band sets up. Snow in this area will persist through the second half of Tuesday, before finally winding down early Wednesday morning.
Here is the thinking for this storm.
The greatest bust potential lies across far western New England, New York State, New Jersey and points west. The models have been somewhat inconsistent with how much snow to predict here. The NAM/GFS backed off on totals considerably and have since nudged up slightly. The trusty RGEM short-term model continues to show lower amounts to the west and the Euro, while it trimmed back on amounts across interior New York and western New Jersey, was still showing around two feet of snow near the New York border. The forecast map remains unchanged from Sunday night and is a compromise of the solutions.
Another consideration is that liquid to snow ratios, especially across the interior high terrain, will be greater than 10:1. Ratios in the range of 14-18:1 across western and central Massachusetts should help offset some lower precipitation amounts with a considerable fluff factor.
