Snow On The Way???

Cold Front Moving Through Jersey Could Set Stage For Coastal Storm On Saturday

Good evening. Yesterday morning as I was getting breakfast with my morning paper, I was alerted to an article in the Wednesday Star-Ledger saying that snow was possible late this week into this weekend. I didn’t really pay any mind to it. It is one thing to see October snowstorms and blizzards in places such as Colorado, but it is another to see a significant snowfall in Central Jersey, or any part of the Garden State for that matter.

However, as the day progressed on Thursday, and I’ve been watching the weather reports from the various media outlets, I’m becoming more convinced that we could have some snow on Saturday, particularly later in the day and evening. The earliest significant snowfall that I’ve recalled here in New Jersey was back in 1989 when a storm system brought six inches of snowfall to South Plainfield and other parts of Central Jersey. In the weeks leading up to that snow, there had been a couple significant storm systems that brought severe weather including 80 mile per hour winds to Middlesex County College and an EF3 Tornado to Belle Meade in Southern Somerset County.

Now, we have had a series of fronts come through over the past month including one that brought some strong thunderstorms on October 14th. Those storms got stronger, and brought more wicked weather to Monmouth County. However, none of that weather was as severe as that back in 1989. It has been quite a year of weather here in Central Jersey as well as the rest of the Tri-State area. Actually, since the middle of September last year, the weather has been extraordinary. If there is significant snow on Saturday, it will be another event among a long list of weather occurrences in the past 13 months that have left me scratching my head.

Right now the latest snowfall amounts forecast for Northwestern Middlesex County from the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly, New Jersey is close to 2 inches. Points eastward are looking at an inch at most while points westward are looking at 3 to 6 inches from Central Somerset County to Western Hunterdon County into Eastern Pennsylvania. The NWS has issued a Winter Storm Watch out for portions of Eastern Pennsylvania and Western New Jersey.

What is causing this? Well, right now, we have a very long cold front stretching from the Northeastrn United States to the Southern Great Plains. We had some snow earlier in the week in parts of Colorado near Denver. The rainy weather that we are experiencing right now is just the first part of what is about to transpire over the next few days. Temperatures have dropped from the low to mid 50s earlier in the day to the mid 40s right now. While there hasn’t been any torrential rains, the rainfall has been steady. A little more than a half an inch has fallen in Northwestern Middlesex County.

The front will push off the East Coast by Friday morning, and cold air is rushing in behind it. Temperatures will struggle to get into the low 50s for highs on Friday, which conditions remaining unsettled. The second punch in this one-two is expected to start rolling in late Friday into Saturday. Much of the precipitation in the Eastern portion of the Garden State will start out as rain. As the day progresses though, more colder air will build in, and that will lead to the development of snow in South Plainfield and other locales around the Central Jersey area. Up to a half a foot could occur in places such as Sussex, Warren, Morris, and Hunterdon counties. Everything just depends on the track of this storm.

Some forecasts from local media outlets are holding off on making any projections on how much snow we are going to get. The storm track is still a bit uncertain. The closer the coastal low gets to our area, the more likely we could see some sort of snowfall. Things should become clearer as we get into Friday. Greg’s Weather Center will continue to monitor the developments with this storm, and if snow does materialize on Saturday, we’ll try to capture it on video.