Nor’easter: here is who is most likely to accumulate snow

A nor’easter is expected to develop, which could snatch the first snow accumulations of the season from parts of the Northeast Interior Snow Belt and Great Lakes. This will also bring some early frosts and freezes to parts of the East and Southeast.

Forecast schedule

Here’s when we expect this storm system to occur:

• THURSDAY: Rain over a large part of the North-East with increasing wind. Some areas of the interior hills will turn to wet snow late. Bands of lake-effect rain and snow developed across the western Great Lakes.
• Friday: Rain and some winds persist across southern New England, metro New York and New Jersey. More precipitation changes to wet snow in the interior Northeast, especially over hills and mountains. Lake-effect rain and snow showers will continue across the Great Lakes. A few rain or wet snow showers are possible from the Ohio Valley to Kentucky, Tennessee.
• SATURDAY: Lingering lake-effect rain and snow showers, with a few lingering snow showers in the Appalachian Mountains, parts of northern New England. Otherwise, persistent winds from the north to the northwest in the northeast.

(CARDS: 7-day U.S. rain and snow forecast)

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First snowfall

The best chances for accumulating wet snow will be in the hills and mountains of the interior Northeast and some locations in the Great Lakes Snow Belt, including:

• The Green and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire
• The Berkshires of Western Massachusetts
• The Adirondacks and Catskills of Upstate New York
• The Appalachian Mountains from West Virginia to western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee
• Parts of western upper Michigan, especially away from the immediate lakeshore

We also can’t rule out at least a few flakes of wet snow, at times, in other Great Lakes snow belts as far south as northern Indiana, northeast Ohio, and southwest New York, and in parts of the Ohio Valley under brief showers.

In many of these areas, this would be the first snow of the season.

If you are traveling in these areas from Thursday to Saturday, be alert for any accumulation of slush on the roads, especially at night. Winds will also be quite strong, reaching 30 mph possible. Slow down and leave extra distance between you and the vehicle in front of you.

(MORE: Lake Effect Snow and El Niño | When does the first snow usually fall?)

First frosts, freezes

Colder air will be pulled southward, not only across the Midwest and Northeast, but also deep into the Southeast beginning Thursday.

By this weekend, the first frost of the season could occur as far south as much of the Carolinas, north and central Georgia and north and central Alabama.

If you have sensitive potted plants outdoors in these southeastern areas, you may want to bring them indoors before this weekend.

Daytime highs will remain stuck in the 40s across much of the Midwest and Northeast Friday through the weekend, while most of the Carolinas and Tennessee Valley won’t see highs rise above the 50s.

This stubborn cold area is expected to persist in the East until early next week.

(CARDS: U.S. 10-Day Highs and Lows Forecast)

The northeast

A nor’easter is simply an area of ​​low pressure off the East Coast that produces winds from the northeast – that’s it.

Northeast holidays can occur throughout much of the year and do not necessarily bring heavy snowfall. They are more common during the winter months, and when the air is cold enough, snow falls more widely.

(MORE: What is a nor’easter?)

In this case, this nor’easter is not It is expected to be a high impact storm.

Indeed, the low pressure area should not be as strong and the pressure difference between it and the high pressure over Canada is not large.

For these reasons, precipitation near the coast and along parts of the Interstate 95 corridor is not likely to produce widespread flash flooding. And any coastal flooding from onshore winds along the northeast coast is expected to be mostly minor at high tide.

Rob Shackelford is a meteorologist and climatologist at Weather.com. He earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Georgia, where he studied meteorology and experimented with alternative hurricane forecasting tools.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at Weather.com and has covered national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather conditions are his favorite topics. Contact him on Blue sky, X (formerly Twitter) And Facebook.