An East Coast storm is expected to develop this weekend, but the track of this potential nor'easter isn't yet determined, leaving impacts such as snow, rain, wind and coastal flooding from Sunday into Monday uncertain from New England to the mid-Atlantic states.
As is often the case, parts of this forecast are somewhat clearer, while others are quite uncertain.
We'll lay all that out below.
(MORE:What Is A Nor'easter?)
What We Know
- Timing: late Saturday into Monday, with the peak snowfall occurring on Sunday and Monday.
- We expect low pressure to form Sunday off the East Coast, somewhere offshore between the Delmarva Peninsula and the Carolinas.
- That low pressure should quickly gain strength, and could do so quickly enough to be called a "bomb cyclone" by early Monday, a term for low pressure that intensifies rapidly.
(MORE:What Is A Bomb Cyclone?)
What's Still Uncertain
The main uncertainty iswherethis offshore low tracks. That affects who may see snow, rain, wind and coastal flooding and the magnitude of those impacts.
To keep it simple, there are two extreme ends of this forecast:
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1. The low intensifies too late and/or istoo far offshorethat impacts along the coast are minimal after some light rain, snow and gusty coastal winds Sunday.
2. The low intensifies and trackscloser to the coast, bringing a threat of coastal flooding, along with heavier rain or snow and high winds to the coast, and to some extent inland.
The trend currently is toward option number two here.
(MORE:Why Northeast Winter Storms Can Be Difficult To Forecast)
The Forecast, For Now
The maps below show our current best forecast of snow and rain from this system from Sunday through Monday.
Wind gusts over 40 mph are also increasingly likely from coastal Virginia to eastern Massachusetts. These strong onshore winds could cause coastal flooding.
This may change in the next few days. Check back with us at weather.com for updates to this forecast in the coming days.
How Much Snow?
The heaviest snow is expected along the coast from New Jersey to Massachusetts, where totals could surpass 4 inches, and in the northern Appalachians, where totals could surpass a foot.
Note that as this forecast is refined and the exact track and strength of this system are figured out, these totals will shift.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him onBluesky,X (formerly Twitter)andFacebook.
