Call me crazy but I still think the Lehigh Valley gets an advisory level event while warning level snow approaches Philly. I’ve seen these types of storms come 50 miles north in the last day or two too many times before. It feels like a matter of when it’ll happen, not if.
I would be very surprised if this storm trended down to just flurries and snow showers for us. In the Poconos, sure, but I’m confident accumulating snow will get to the Lehigh Valley.
12z models so far (NAM, RGEM, ICON) aren’t horrible for us. They all get accumulating snow into pretty much the entire Mt. Holly CWA, except maybe Sussex County NJ. But another tick south and I will start to get very worried.
With that new lobe of confluence showing up and pressing down into Quebec and Maine, we need this storm to buck the trend of slowing down and speed up again. If it’s too slow then that lobe comes crashing in and squashes the whole thing towards DC.
Happened somewhat in Jan. 2016 too. 4-5 days out a lot of the models started to shift south and some even missed the Philly area. Then 2-3 days out the slow north trend began again and it ended up being a historic storm for all of us.
Euro starts off fine but ends up positively tilting the trough as it approaches the Mid-Atlantic, as opposed to the GFS which amps it up and keeps it closed off. Pretty ugly run.
I’ve seen the UKMET do this before. In February 2021 it showed snow completely missing eastern PA 4 days out. I ended up getting 2 1/2 feet.
Edit: found it lol