Here Comes Linus!

It looks like the Northeast (and a few other areas) are in for yet another winter storm!

After Juno dumped crippling amounts of snow on the Northeast and New England last week, the 6z GFS is forecasting yet another winter storm. Decent amounts of precipitation from Illinois through the Northeast/New England states will fall Sunday through Monday due to the newest named winter storm, Linus. Most of Indiana and Ohio are looking at liquid equivalents of about half an inch from 6pm -12am Sunday into Monday. Using those values and a 10:1 snow-water ratio (how many inches of snow will fall from 1 inch of rain), we can expect 5-6 inches of snow to fall in these areas. (Just using the 6-hr precip image to the left, snowfall totals will be more as snow accumulates over the length of the storm). As the low progresses eastward, it will strengthen, turn north and move up the coast. Here is where is bombs out (yet again) and drops more snow on the Northeast and New England states.

The above images show the positioning of the storm Sunday night. The low is centered over Virginia and the 540 line (the red dashed line thats going through the L in low, commonly called the rain snow line) suggests that the areas south of Pennsylvania will most likely see a mix of rain and snow during this time. Referring the the 6-hour precip image, it is suggested that at this time, Central and Northeast PA, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut will see the heaviest snowfall and largest accumulations. Most of these areas can expect to see between 6-10" with some areas seeing up to 12-18". These areas would be the darkest blue areas on the map above. After discussing positioning of the storm with the StormTrackerWx lead meteorologist, we think that the 12-18" snowfall accumulations on the 72-hour snowfall forecast map could be shifted slightly south. This would mean that central Illinois, central Indiana and central Ohio could see greater snowfall totals than shown by this map. The agreement of both the NAM and the GFS with the positioning of the storm helped facilitated in making this decision.

72-hour snowfall totals due to winter storm Linus. This map shows more in depth expected snowfall amounts for the areas
that will be affected by the newest named winter storm. Photo courtesy of : The Weather Channel