AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Albany NY
632 AM EST Tue Jan 25 2022
.SYNOPSIS...
High temperatures will be near normal today before a cold
front tracks through our region. Behind the cold front, another
Arctic airmass returns, resulting in bitterly cold conditions
through Thursday morning. There is potential for a coastal
storm to impact the area Friday night into Saturday, although
uncertainty remains high.
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.LONG TERM /THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH MONDAY/...
Main focus during the long term will be the track of a potential
coastal storm for Friday night-Saturday night. This looks to be a
strong storm system, however there remains uncertainty regarding its
ultimate track.
This is a low confidence forecast at this time, given there are
multiple pieces of upper level energy involved, all of which will
need to interact favorably in timing to allow for a large storm to
form, and ultimately determine its track relative to the eastern
seaboard. Tracing these pieces of energy to PV, it appears that one
main piece will be reaching the northwest coast of British Columbia
this morning, with a trailing impulse tracking across the Aleutian
Islands today; these two main impulses should ultimately form the
"southern stream" disturbance at play. Then, another PV anomaly will
be heading into NW Alaska today, while yet another impulse tracks
around the main polar vortex over northern Canada. Depending on how
quickly the southern stream disturbance ejects eastward, potentially
phasing with the 2 northern stream pieces of energy, will be the
ultimate key to the forecast.
At this time, 00Z/25 guidance has shifted slightly eastward compared
to 24 hours ago, although the EC remains farther west. Using a blend
of all the deterministic and ensemble guidance, eastern areas
(western New England) would remain the favored area for any
potential impacts from this system, although can not completely rule
out areas as far west as the Hudson River Valley being impacted yet
given some 00Z/deterministic and ensemble guidance still depicting a
farther west track. Have kept chance PoPs for the entire region for
Fri nt-Sat, with likely PoPs confined to western New England. Either
way, it will remain cold and will become windy by Saturday, with
highs in the teens and 20s, and overnight lows in the single digits.
