Cloudy and Cool

While the next major East Coast Snowstorm will grab the headlines in the coming days, the storm following has the potential to bring snow from Texas to South Carolina from Wednesday night through Friday. 

The storm will not have a tremendous amount of moisture associated with it, so it’s not going to produce a monster snowstorm; however, any snow in the Deep South is a major weather story–not that Deep South snow has been that unusual this winter. 

The storm is already visible on the eastern Pacific satellite image; it’s the small curl just to the west of the Pacific Northwest on the following map. It is NOT the large area of clouds with the tail of moisture extending to the north of Hawaii. 

NOAA Eastern Pacific satellite image from Feb 8, 2010

California Storm First 

The storm will first  southward through California from Tuesday through early Wednesday, producing showers and perhaps a couple of thundershowers. Snow levels will be quite low, so its first snow-related problems might be related to California travel, especially through the Grapevine that connects the Los Angeles Basin with the Central Valley. Snow might also fall in the elevated deserts, which doesn’t happen every winter. 

Plains to South Carolina Snow 

Although the storm will be fairly slow to leave California, it will scoot eastward fairly quickly once it arrives in the southern Plains on Wednesday night, departing South Carolina by late Friday night. Its quick eastward progression will give it little time to pick up moisture, so precipitation amounts will remain fairly light. 

Its quick progression will also give it too little time to develop a warm southerly flow in advance of its arrival, ensuring that the precipitation will fall as snow on its northern flank, from the Texas panhandle and north-central Texas through Oklahoma, northern Mississippi, northern Alabama, northern Georgia, and South Carolina. 

Some snow is also likely in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee, but I didn’t highlight those areas since they’ll also have snow from the current storm–most likely more than they’ll have with the second one. 

–Paul Yeager