Colder storms are coming in December that could bring snow to the Northeast

While the lake effect will produce wild dumps of snow in some places from Michigan to New York through early December, various colder storms may spread some flakes and perhaps even some accumulated snow to other locations in the Midwest and East. For the first time this season, it will be in the will come for the first time in the coming days, AccuWeather meteorologists say.

A continued southward decline in the jet stream will not only direct waves of cold air from central Canada through the Midwest and eastern United States through the first half of December, but will also help direct some storms into these regions.

Most of these storms will have difficulty absorbing moisture. However, there will be some exceptions where snow could accumulate outside the mountains and just downwind of the Great Lakes.

Major travel problems will continue into the first week downwind of the Great Lakes as heavy snow builds up that can close roads and bring motorists to a standstill.

There is a potentially larger and slightly stronger storm coming from Canada that AccuWeather meteorologists will be monitoring this week.

This clipper-style storm will move from Canada to near Lake Superior Monday through Tuesday. From Tuesday to Wednesday, the storm will then turn eastward across the Great Lakes and near the St. Lawrence Valley.

While this track will bring much of the Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic and southern New England to the warm side of the storm, the air may still be cool enough to allow pockets of snow all the way from the Midwest to the Atlantic Coast. The amount and exact locations of this snow will depend on the track and intensity of the low-moisture storm.

There will be some snow or rain in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit Tuesday through Wednesday. Cold showers or possibly wet snow mixed with rain may occur near the Ohio River.

The same storm will then bring possibly some snow, snow showers or mixed rain and snow showers to the area from New York City to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, DC Wednesday through Thursday. During this time, there will likely be extended periods without rain or snow because the storm has so many dry areas.

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“It’s fairly rare for a storm track of this type from southern New England to the Mid-Atlantic to accumulate a lot of snow along the northeast coast, but areas farther north (and west) have a better chance of accumulating some snow,” said Joe Lundberg, senior long-range meteorologist at AccuWeather.

Looking further ahead, AccuWeather meteorologists are monitoring the possibility of a major snowstorm around mid-December.

“There continue to be indications that a storm will move from the Southern Plains or lower Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic Coast during December 9-11,” Lundberg said.

With a storm this far away, there are many possibilities as to the track, the intensity, and the amount of snow it could bring, but such a track usually allows the storm to bring in much more moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, which may be the case then dump heavier rainfall.

Options for the storm as it approaches the coast range from developing into a strong nor’easter with significant travel disruption to a weaker storm that simply races out to sea with minimal travel issues.

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