Big Storm Next Week? No Storm...What To Believe?

The Meteorology subculture inside the global Twitter world is buzzing with the prospects of a major east coast wind/snowstorm sometime early next week before Halloween. As with all long range computer model simulations, some have a better handle on the atmospheric dynamics this time of year than others. Rather than bore you with the specifics of each computer model, I'd rather show you what a few of the projections are saying about late this weekend/early next week:

One note first. I really like warm weather versus cold weather any day of the week, any time of year. So my excitement over the upcoming scenarios for early next week is not to quickly passover the nice warmup this week. Temperature will be in the 70s from Monday through Thursday. The meteorologist grim reaper I am not. The meteorological realist I am. (Was any of that grammatically correct?)

Let's set the stage with the three components that will be intertwined into this potential system:

1) Warm air building in the east
2) Cold air pushing southeast behind the cold front
and 3) The late season tropical system soon-to-be called "Sandy" in the Caribbean.

Lots of map ahead so find OHIO and work east. I show these maps to illustrate the point that computer projections this far out usually have differing results. Also, understanding how these computer models tick make you a better meteorologist in the long run and a more informed viewer of weather





The clash between the warm air ahead and the cold air behind will be the trigger for some thunderstorms across Ohio this weekend. Notice the energy developing late Thursday followed by the cold air behind.

The clash between these components is very apparent on this map that I created for the morning show. 

The big question is what component becomes the dominating feature this weekend?

Using Google Earth, soon-to-be Tropical Storm Sandy is projected to stay out to sea. The lines shows the different projections.

The National Hurricane Center shows that most of the October tropical storms take this general track.

What to these computer projections say specifically? The EUROPEAN model shows this MONSTER STORM off the east coast with strong winds late Monday with a push west into Ohio and PA on Tuesday.

 The CANADIAN model shows some development late Saturday night off of the coast.

The NAVY MODEL show development further out at sea.

The AMERICAN MODEL shows hardly any development early next week.

I can guarantee you one thing: ITS GETTING COLDER NEXT WEEK!

More updates on my FACEBOOK FANPAGE as the week continues.