Less active pattern, but still some snow

US and Canada Daily Snow

Heads up, there may be fresher snow! Read the latest US and Canada Daily Snow

By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 5 years ago January 10, 2019

Summary

The remainder of the week will bring powder to the northeast, British Columbia and maybe the southern Rockies. Then the mid-Atlantic will see a storm late this weekend, with snow possibly returning to the west later next week.

Short Term Forecast

Forecast for Thursday and Friday

The northeast will offer some of the best powder thanks to snow falling from Tuesday through Thursday morning with totals well over 1 foot. On the west coast, it looks like the best powder will be in British Columbia. For the Rockies, the map below doesn’t look like much over Colorado and New Mexico, but a slow-moving storm has the potential to bring decent totals to these areas on Friday into Saturday.

Forecast for the weekend

For most of the major ski areas in the United States and Canada, it’ll be a quiet time. There is a chance that parts of Colorado and New Mexico have fresh snow on Saturday, but this is a low chance at the moment. Over the east, a storm will take a track across the mid-Atlantic and should bring snow to West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and southern Pennsylvania on Sunday into Monday, so resorts in this region could end the week with 6+ inches of snow.

Forecast for next week

The main idea that I am focusing on is that storms will move from the Pacific Ocean into the western US and Canada and weaken and split as they come ashore.

This type of pattern results in a low-confidence forecast because storms that split, weaken, and/or move slowly can wobble around and the weather model guidance has a difficult time figuring out the exact outcome.

It is looking likely that at least one or two of these western systems should bring snow next week, but I placed a dashed line around the potential snowfall in the map below because my confidence in the details of the forecast is very, very low.

Extended Forecast

The outlook for January 19-23

A quick glance at the map below, which shows projected temperatures for mid-to-late January, might leave you feeling unhappy since there is so much red and not much blue. While it does look like temperatures will be near to above average for many areas, this doesn’t preclude snowfall.

We could see a continuation of the weak and/or splitting systems across the west, and maybe later in the period, colder air could begin to settle over the eastern half of North America.