Nor'easter Continues To Facilitate Wrap-Around Lake-Enhanced Snowfall (credit: WeatherTap)

DISCUSSION: As the Northeast continued to clean up from from the latest nor'easter, there was no debate that a decent percentage of people living across much of New England (and interior sections of the Northeastern United States (U.S.)) are probably getting a little worn out from all of the recent snowfall.  This is a result of the fact that there have now been 3 nor'easters impacting the Northeastern U.S. over the span of just 11 days.  What makes things even more impressive is that even as we head deeper into mid-March, there still remains a slight possibility for the development of 4th nor'easter during the early part of next week due to a fairly locked up storm track.  This locked up storm track is predominantly due to the presence of what is most commonly referred to as a persistent Greenland blocking high.  Blocking high-pressure systems most often have a larger-scale impact observed as a slowing down the forward progression of weather systems (including but certainly not limited to) extra-tropical low-pressure systems.  

Hence, in the case of 2 of these most recent 3 nor'easters, the rate of their forward progression was slowed somewhat by the blocking high-pressure system positioned over much of Greenland during this period of time.  It is worth noting that these blocking high-pressure systems which often are given the nickname "Greenland blocks," often are seen in concert with prolific snowstorms since blocking highs will prevent a given storm from advancing at a routine pace.  Thus, allowing a given snowstorms to dump more snowfall over a given period of time.

However, the main focus of this story happens to be that even as this nor'easter now makes its way across the Canadian Maritimes and further along towards its final stage of gradual decay, it is still creating problems across the Northeastern U.S.  More specifically, in the wake of the return flow on the back-side of this nor'easter, there has been an ideal northwest wind flow.  This northwesterly flow coming across the Finger Lakes and Lake Ontario across central and northwestern New York State have helped to facilitate a combination of lake-induced and lake-enhanced snowfall.  In fact, during the day on Wednesday this lake-enhanced snowfall got so intense that moisture downwind of these regions helped to produce very light additional accumulations across western New England and a little less across portions of Central New York and the Southern Tier region of New York.  Therefore, this goes to show that even many hours after the worst impacts from a nor'easter have passed, its impacts can still be felt long after the heaviest snowfall and strongest winds subside.

To learn more about other high-impact weather events occurring across North America, be sure to click on the following link: https://www.globalweatherclimatecenter.com/north-america!

© 2018 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz