Good morning to all my skiers and riders out there! I’m excited to be back forecasting and our season is right around the corner. Many resorts have already tagged opening day around Thanksgiving. Man-made snow looks to be the major source of any turns in our near future but I’m here to tell you we could have some flakes accumulating in the next week. Let’s take a current look at Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia with some man-made snow on their slopes. 

Image courtesy of Snowshoe Mountain.

Right now it’s fairly mild throughout the region, but by Friday we will have a storm system bringing rain to the region. Cold air will move in behind this system on Saturday and cause lake-effect and upslope snow showers to develop. Snow showers will begin scattered and light on Saturday but band together in the western Mid-Atlantic and central New York overnight into Sunday. Snow will stick mostly to the higher terrain. Let’s take a look at the ECMWF (Euro) model’s depiction of precipitation type/intensity, and mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) from 2 am Saturday, November 13th until 5 pm Sunday, November 14th. 

GIF courtesy of WeatherBell.

A few inches of snow will fall quickly, especially in the higher terrain, from Saturday night into Sunday morning. This would be the first ‘real’ snow of the season for many resorts in the Mid-Atlantic. Here is a look at the Euro and GFS model's prediction of snowfall amounts by Sunday evening.

Images courtesy of WeatherBell. 

Following this round of light snow, we will be talking about more lake-effect snow showers developing on Monday and continuing through part of the day on Tuesday. There is a lot of model uncertainty at this point, but west to northwest winds will move cold air into the northern parts of the region and give some widespread snow to the higher terrain. Let’s take a look at the GFS and Euro model on Monday, November 14th at 5 pm.

Images courtesy of WeatherBell. 

Some decent totals could show up from this lake-effect event but stay tuned for exact amounts as we get closer. Following this storm on Tuesday, warmer weather will move into the region. 

Following our first taste of winter, a warm-up will move into the region on Wednesday, November 17th. With this warmth, dry weather will keep a stale week for the region. The good news is that the models are giving indications of the weather pattern switching by next weekend which could give us some more tastes of winter. This will continue into the week of Thanksgiving as well. A typical early-season pattern is developing for the Mid-Atlantic, bringing lake-effect snow to the Great Lakes region, and high terrain snow for the Appalachian Mountains. Let’s take a look at the Euro model’s upper-level pattern from Friday, November 19th until Wednesday, November 24th. 

GIF courtesy of WeatherBell. The cool colors show the area of cooler temperatures and favorable patterns for precipitation. 

We will see how this pattern develops in the next week but good signals are coming our way to start this ski and ride season. I’ll continue updating all of you and hope for the best!

Zach Butler, Meteorologist for the Mid-Atlantic Daily Snow. 

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