How Will One Episode Of Atmospheric Bombogenesis Will Influence The Next Storm Behind It?

DISCUSSION: There is an old phrase that the atmosphere is completely interconnected and everything that forms and evolves will ultimately affect everything else at some point in time. This phrase completely applies to situation which will be evolving across coastal and semi-coastal parts of the Northeastern United States over the next 48 to 72 hours or so. There is a currently a system developing in the Southeastern United States which will soon be moving towards the East Coast of the United States and as this occurs, there will quickly be a transition to secondary low-pressure system development just offshore.

As this secondary development occurs and then blossoms, a high-pressure system will begin to build in from southeastern Canada which will help the filter in much colder air into a good portion of the Northeast United States. This situation as defined by much colder air “setting up shop” over the Northeastern United States will set the stage for the next winter weather event which will happen by Thursday night and Friday of this week. The reason for why the “high on the heels of the low” is such an important factor in this equation because the southeastern Canadian high-pressure system has a pivotal role by acting to provide the cold air which is critical to sustain snow sleet and/or freezing rain during a given winter weather event. Thus, the high-pressure system coming in behind the exiting massive low-pressure system as captured in the brief numerical model simulation attached above (courtesy of Weather Channel Research Meteorologist Stu Ostro) will act as a “stepping stone” to the next weather event which will far greater impacts as we get later into this week.

This situation is a classic example for why the atmosphere is truly a dynamically-fluid and a very much interconnected web of smaller-scale to larger-scale interactions which collectively can have massive global impacts when the right factors come together in the right combination and at the right time. Thus, even as one system departs a region, do not ever let your guard down since the next system may not be all that far behind the first one.

To learn more about other high-impact weather events occurring across the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, be sure to click here!

© 2018 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz