Despite the lack of snow in the region, resorts are staying open, making snow to get bases thick, and even opening a couple of trails. Check out Liberty Mountain Wednesday with 57% of the terrain open. 

Thursday will be mostly clear and, ‘the calm before’ the arctic front. A major arctic air mass will move into the region Thursday evening and bring some drastic changes on Friday and Saturday. New York will be the first affected Thursday evening with a quick-moving area of snow squalls ahead of the main front. Snow squalls will be brief but intense and keep tracking to the south through Pennsylvania, northern Maryland, and northern West Virginia early Friday morning. 

This cold front will drop a quick 1-2 inches of snow and cause whiteout conditions with gusty winds. Night skiing should be fun in the northern Mid-Atlantic, just be careful on the roads and don’t be afraid to pull over. Snow squalls do not last long! Here is a look at the NAM 3 km model’s depiction of precipitation type and intensity from 7 pm Thursday, February 2nd through 5 am, Saturday, February 4th. 

Lake effect snow will continue around the Great Lakes through Friday and for most of Saturday. Snow accumulations will be heaviest in the northwestern Mid-Atlantic and the Finger Lakes region. Here is a look at the NAM 3 km model’s snow accumulations through 7 am Saturday, February 4th. A few more inches of snow will continue to fall around the Great Lakes Saturday, especially to the east of the Finger Lakes. 

Conditions will be awesome for resorts in those lake effect bands. The only downside is the cold air that will make being outside hard. High temperatures on Friday and Saturday will be in the single digits for the northern half of the Mid-Atlantic and extending through WV. Wind chills will be well below 0 degrees for most areas Friday and Saturday. Eastern NY is under a wind chill watch. 

This cold air won’t be here long with temperatures warming above freezing on Sunday, and even a few 50s to the south! Wow, what a change. Unfortunately, this warm air is a sign of things to come next week… 

There is not a lot of hope for the extended forecast to be blunt. Next week starting on Monday, February 6th will see temperatures stay above average with a storm tracking to our north. This storm will bring initial rain, but potentially some backside light snow north and west into Tuesday, February 7th. 

The rest of the week will see a few more rain chances, and the storm track will shift well to our north. This means most places will stay dry, with some rain to the north and west. How confident am I in this? Very confident since models have been giving a strong signal over the last week. 

Let’s look at the GFS model’s predicted upper-level pattern from Wednesday, February 8th to Saturday, February 11th. 

The warm colors show warmer temperatures and a northerly storm track for the region. The cool colors show cooler temperatures and favorable conditions for precipitation (near next weekend). 

This large warm anomaly will bring well above average temperatures. Temperatures should be able to get below freezing overnight for northern ski resorts, but other areas will stay above freezing. A few signs of cold air could return sometime during the week of February 13th. 

That is all for this forecast and thanks for reading. I’ll have the next update Saturday morning. 

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