In my last post I outlined the likely scenario for the Northeast for the upcoming cold shot. The questions I had appear to be answered, and it looks as if much of the Northeast will miss out on what could be the last good shot at another snowstorm.
To recap: A trough over the Gulf of Alaska led to a flat ridge over the CONUS that caused blowtorch conditions from coast to coast. Since zonal flat ridges are baroclinically unstable over time, arctic air over south-central Canada will induce a trough over the Northeast to complete a more stable trough-ridge wave train later this week. The leading clipper will combine with the filling remnants of the cut-off low currently over TX to form a stronger low that will ride up the coast over the weekend. This first impulse will NOT be a snow producer for anyone but the higher elevations of northern New England because there is no cold high over SE Canada due to the blowtorch this week. Instead, the low will be forced inland along the boundary between the arctic air and the mild Pacific air in place.
As I maintained in my original post, the best chance for a significant NE snowstorm from this scenario was if an initial clipper bombed out in the Atlantic maritimes and allowed for a cold high to settle over SE Canada. Therefore, any following clipper to dive down would have the chance to become a Miller B storm. This actually appears to be well set up for early next week except for one thing. A strong Pacific low is well modeled to crash into the West Coast early next week, which would recreate a flat ridge across the CONUS and once again lead to blowtorch conditions east of the Rockies by mid-to-late week. Before any warmup arrives, any clipper that dives down from 3/20-3/22 may end up being pushed too far offshore for any coastal redevelopment. While it will be anomalously cold from 3/17-3/23 across the NE, I think the only snow will occur in the higher elevations of NNE and from any post-frontal convective snow showers.
