After a winter that was much less snowy than might have been expected, a major and potentially damaging winter storm will affect parts of the mid-Atlantic region and Northeast late in the weekend into early next week. Some areas from the mountains of West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and western New York will receive more than six inches of heavy, wet snow from later Sunday through Monday. A foot of snow is possible in the higher elevations.

Predicting the amount of snowfall is very difficult in a situation like this (insert your favorite joke about the weatherman here). The ground is very warm and temperatures will be above freezing while the snow is falling, so the amount of official snowfall will be higher than any amount of snow that accumulates on the ground. For instance, in a given location, four inches of snow might fall, but there might never be more than two on the ground at any given time.

What is easier to predict–and more important–is the impact of the storm. Travel will be slowed at night when snow will accumulate on the ground, but the main danger is the potential for power outages caused by tree limbs (and possibly entire trees) being brought down by the accumulation of snow on the leaves, which are well ahead of schedule given the amount of warmth this spring.

Downed tree limbs, of course, also pose a danger to house roofs, cars, and pedestrians.

Only three or four inches of heavy, wet snow will cause major tree damage in a situation like this, and some locations will receive double that.

The areas in blue on the map below are in a winter storm watch (as of Saturday evening). The dark green areas along the East Coast are flood watches, where rain amounts will locally exceed four inches.

It’s going to be an April storm that’s remembered for a very long time.

I enjoyed the nice weather as much as anyone else, but it looks as if we’re going to pay for the extended and exceptional early-season warmth tonight. With frost and freeze warnings extending from the Midwest into the mid-Atlantic region, along with very cold conditions in the Northeast, damage is likely to the upcoming eastern fruit crop.

Watches and warnings map from NOAA; Light blue areas are under freeze warnings, and dark blue areas are under frost warnings.

We all know that fruit trees are susceptible to below-freezing temperatures once the trees flower, many of which in the mid-Atlantic region already have–the areas warned above–but it’s less clear to me how much damage can be done to trees when they have budded but not yet bloomed.

Interior Pennsylvania and New York state are not in the warned area, which surprises me since it seems as if the trees in those areas are also susceptible to serious damage. The trees may not be as far along as trees in the warmer areas, but according to my limited research, damage is still likely.

An article in the Centre Daily Times (central Pennsylvania) over the weekend indicated that farmers believed that fruit trees have advanced enough to be susceptible to damage, and an interview on the Weather Channel over the weekend made referenced to concerned farmers in parts of New York State. (New England has not been warm enough for trees to sustain damage.)

I hope that damage is not too extensive, but I’m not hopeful given the amount of time temperatures will be below freezing (six hours plus in some areas) and the intensity of the cold (temps in the teens in parts of northern Pa/southern New York).

For more on the threat to fruit crops in the Midwest, see today’s Jeff Masters’ blog.

I know. I know. It’s been a while since I’ve written, but I’ve been enjoying all of the late-season snow and cold here in Pennsylvania. It’s been a heckuva winter, with somewhere between one and two snow storms and between one and two cold outbreaks!

Sarcasm aside, I’ll try to be a little more diligent in writing here, but remember, I write the occasional post for the Huffington Post. I rarely write posts about current weather since it sometimes takes a little time between when I write a post and when it gets published because it’s such a large site.

I have written a little about the upcoming (or, more accurate, ongoing) tornado season, and I also wrote about the latest global climate stats for February and the winter.

I know that it’s been exceptionally warm across the U.S. this winter, but that has not been the case globally. In fact, you might be surprised to learn that the global land surface temperature in February was the lowest in nearly 20 years.

I’m not making a statement about climate change or global warming, just reporting the facts in the form of stats. I know that any post about climate stats is interpreted as a political statement about global warming, but mine generally aren’t (at least I hope!)

I don’t work for or have clients in the oil industry who have a vested interest in denying climate change, and even though my political views are liberal, it doesn’t mean that I think that I have an obligation to believe in global warming/climate change. My views are always my own.

In this case, I’m not giving an opinion, but I’m pointing out that it’s been much cooler globally than the stats for just the United States might indicate.

Don’t worry–I’m not becoming one of those meteorologists who is obsessed with (and thinks he’s an expert in) climate science, but since the weather has not been terribly exciting across the U.S. this winter compared to recent years, I thought I’d highlight a climate-related post that I published on the Huffington Post yesterday: January: 19th Warmest Globally and “Coolest” in Four Years.

The word coolest is in quotes because even though the global temperature (combined land and sea surface average) is the coolest since January 2008, temperatures have remained about the 20th century normal.

Image of Romania snow--courtesy of Reuters via Capital Weather Gang blog

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I long for the old days, when we had three 30-minute newscasts per day but had more news stories covered. Since we’ve gone to the 24-hour-per-day news stations all over the dial, we get the same couple of stories over and over and over again–and they’re mainly about politics.

That might explain why there has been so little coverage to the major weather disaster that’s on-going in Eastern Europe. I don’t have access to unlimited stats and details, of course, since I’m one little blogger/writer in the U.S., but I did pull together some information from a Washington Post story yesterday to write something for the Huffington Post.

See Mild U.S. Winter, But Devastating Winter in Eastern Europe for some information on global climate stats and the disaster in Eastern Europe.

A recent post Huffington Post blog (who I also write for) was critical of the influence of meteorologists as it relates to the climate change discussion, citing their tendency toward skepticism of what is considered scientific consensus.

As a meteorologist myself, I try to defer to the climate experts as it relates to climate research and don’t feel obligated to understand all of the details of the science in the unrelated field of climate science, unless climatologists are interested in helping meteorologists are interested in understanding all of the details related to forecasting the weather.

I will say that the tendency of meteorologists to be more skeptical than other scientists as it relates to the climate change debate is most likely because of their knowledge and experience in dealing with the weather for years.

There is a tendency among non-weather experts to judge the climate change debate based on their own local weather or global weather patterns over a short period of time. Meteorologists understand better than most about the intense variability of weather from location to location across the globe and from one season to the next–and often understand that meteorological factors that influence those change are naturally occurring atmospheric phenomena.

Any climate changes that are occurring would need to be judged in addition to those weather factors, kind of like judging weather ocean levels rising needs to be judged based on knowledge above and beyond that of high tide.

I’ve too often heard that “it’s been a cold weather in the U.S., so there is no global warming” while other parts of the globe have more than compensated for the U.S. cold. That was the case in each of the past two winters. I’ve also too often heard that “the warm in the U.S. this winter is proof of global warming” while other parts of the globe have experienced cold that has more than compensated. That’s what’s going on this year.

As long as meteorologists need to explain that global temperature trends are not a reflection of the weather in one country or of one season, they will be viewed as skeptics even if they, like me, willingly admit that they are not experts in the science that truly does determing whether the global climate is changing.

As of today (Feb 10), the death toll in Europe has exceeded 500, and with the bitter cold pattern continuing, it’s only going to become more of an international disaster.

Hungary’s Danube River has been closed to traffic, bringing shipping on one of Europe’s busiest waterways to a nearly complete standstill. It’s considered the greatest amount of ice since 1985.

According to the another article, Italian authorities have reported 17 deaths caused by exposure, temperatures have hit -40 degrees F (or C since -40 is the same in both) in Finland, and the death toll is up to 131 in the Ukraine alone. In the Ukraine,  1,800 others have been hospitalized, and snow has isolated 70,000 people in Siberian villages.

Snow has even fallen in Libya.

I know that it seems as if I’ve been missing in action lately, but I’m still here!

I plan to make more time to write regular posts here, but in the meantime, remember that I do occasionally write blogs for the Huffington Post. I wrote one yesterday on the latest NOAA climate stats for January. As of this writing, it hasn’t been published yet, so I can’t provide a directly link. It will appear on my archives page when it is posted, though.

Just a quick note to let you know that I’ll be on NPR’s popular Science Friday show tomorrow to join host Ira Flatow and fellow guests Andrew Fraknoi and David Mizejewski. The segment will be called Winter Wonderland? Wonder No Longer.

One such accident occurred on I-80 in Jefferson County in Pennsylvania on Monday. Fortunately, no one was killed in the 45-vehicle accident that included a significant number of tractor trailers. WJAC-TV in Johnstown had some video coverage of the accident.

I-80 is notorious for such accidents, and much of the reason is related to the frequency of snow squalls associated with lake-effect snow, the situation that spawned yesterday’s accident.

Unrelated note:

I know that I have not been posting with great regularity lately, but don’t forget…I do occasionally post blogs on the Huffington Post as well.

Be careful even if the forecast sounds innocent!