It seems like something has supercharged the winter weather pattern recently. Storms have been parading across the country at a higher frequency and targeting higher latitudes. The latest moved out of the Midwest late Wednesday and into the Northeast.
There was a dramatic temperature profile from north to south on Wednesday afternoon. In the country's northern tier, the temperature never made it above zero, while highs in southern Texas topped out near 90 degrees. Taking into consideration wind chills, it felt more than 100 degrees colder in northern North Dakota than it did in the southern tip of Texas.
The country's temperature profile, or "temperature gradient," is the kind of environment conducive to the development of winter storms.
More than 128 million people across at least 35 states on Wednesday were under winter weather alerts. Those alerts included winter storm watches, winter storm warnings, winter weather advisories and cold weather advisories.
Thirty states were directly impacted by the snow produced during Wednesday's storm. The storm will end up producing snow from the Texas panhandle through northern Maine.
Northern New England will get the brunt of the heavy snowfall as a secondary area of low pressure develops off the coast Thursday. Over a foot of snow could fall in portions of Maine by the end of Thursday night.
Connecticut will be relatively spared as the storm track stays north of the state, with an expected one to three inches of snow by the time the snow winds down Thursday morning. Some spots will end up with a total of about a tenth of an inch of ice accumulation.
This storm is a good example of what can happen when a strong temperature gradient, or high rate of change of temperature over a given distance, sits over the middle of the country. Most winter storms to this point have featured the strongest gradient either too far to the north or south for Connecticut to get in on the snow action.
It appears this storm-producing gradient will be close enough to the state over the next several days to keep everyone alert for the possibility of impactful weather as systems move close to or directly into the Northeast.
A "baroclinic" atmospheric scenario will establish itself in the central U.S. and spawn subsequent storms over the next week or so. A baroclinic zone results from very distinct air masses with large temperature differences coming near each other. On Wednesday, Arctic air helped fuel snow on the cold side of the storm, while unseasonably warm and moist air fueled severe thunderstorms south of the storm.
The large temperature gradient induces a large pressure gradient. The jet stream, a relatively narrow band of the strongest winds aloft, is usually found directly over where the two contrasting air masses collide. This plays a part in lifting the air to help ignite a storm.
Computer models suggest that after Thursday, there could be at least another three systems to monitor by the end of next week. The first would arrive later Saturday and continue into Sunday afternoon.
The next system will be up in the middle of next week. Models are shunting the storm far enough south to spare New England its impacts.
That is followed by another storm towards the end of next week, poised to hit late Thursday into early Friday with more direct impacts.
A word of caution here. These are very early looks at long-range forecasts that will undoubtedly change. The variables that determine where a storm will track and how strong it will become will vary during future model runs. We also have to consider we are looking at possibly three systems and not just a single storm and adding up all the snow that could fall from them.
One thing is for certain: the atmospheric environment that has been set up favors a more active pattern with more frequent storms that could either strike or skirt harmlessly by.