If you live along New Jersey’s southern coast, you need to pay close attention to this coastal storm. Further north, it’ll be another minor snowstorm - if that.

Coastal Snow Storm 20170106
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Setup

As of this writing, a storm system is digging through the southeastern United States. The low will eject off the coast of the Carolinas late Friday night, before paralleling the Atlantic seaboard on Saturday. And so, New Jersey will receive a glancing blow from this system. With temperatures holding below freezing all weekend long (highs in the mid 20s), we've got another round of snow on our hands - especially for South Jersey and along the Jersey Shore.

Confidence

In Friday morning's weather blog post, I opined over the need to imprecise in order to maintain forecast accuracy. In other words, I had to provide larger-than-usual potential snowfall ranges to cover two main scenarios: one which keeps the coastal low further out to sea, and one that carries heavier snow bands over the Garden State.

Confidence is still admittedly shaky. But this afternoon's models have come into better agreement, showing a healthy snowfall solution along the southern coast. The NAM shows the lightest snowfall, with only 3 to 4 inches in South Jersey - that possibility can't be ignored. Meanwhile, the GFS and Euro are in pretty good agreement about higher totals around Atlantic and Cape May counties. (The higher resolution 4km NAM model continues to show off the chart double-digit snowfall in South Jersey - I'm still throwing it out as an extreme outlier that doesn't have much factual justification to back it up.)

Bottom line... please continue to pay close attention to both the lower and upper bounds of my forecast.

Timing

First flakes will push into Cape May County in the early morning hours. Through Saturday morning, the snow will continue pushing northward and will become steadier. The heaviest snow will occur from mid-morning through mid-afternoon. Snowfall will taper off quickly from late afternoon to early evening.

Warning/Advisory

A Winter Storm Warning will be in effect from 1 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday for Cape May County.

A Winter Storm Warning will be in effect from 3 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday for Ocean, southeastern Burlington, Atlantic, and Cumberland counties.

A lesser Winter Weather Advisory has been issued from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday for Monmouth, northwestern Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem counties.

These notices from the National Weather Service are meant to make your ears perk up and pay attention. Low visibility during periods of moderate snow, and snowy/icy roads may make travel quite hazardous for a time on Saturday in the warning/advisory area.

Who Gets Moderate-Heavy Snow?

3 to 7 inches are forecast to accumulate across far southern Ocean, southeastern Burlington, coastal Atlantic, and Cape May counties (most of the warning area)

Who Gets Light-Moderate Snow?

2 to 4 inches of fresh snow are expected for the rest of Ocean County, southern and eastern Monmouth County, and the corridor from northwestern Burlington to Camden to Gloucester to Salem counties (most of the advisory area)

Who Gets Light Snow?

1 to 3 inches will be possible for northwestern Monmouth, Mercer, and Middlesex counties

Who Gets Hardly Any Snow?

Hardly any new snow is anticipated north and west of the Route 1 corridor. This looks like a non-event for North Jersey and part of Central Jersey.

Coverage Plan

Given the continuing uncertainty, and the potential for a pretty big storm for part of the state, it's going to be very important to keep up-to-date with current conditions and the short-term forecast.

I'm providing live forecast updates on-air Friday evening, and I'll be back in front of the microphone Saturday morning (at least).

I'll have at least one weather blog update early Saturday morning too.

And social media is always a good bet - you'll find a constant feed of the latest info on Facebook and Twitter (both mine and the station's). We appreciate your snow totals and photos too!

As always, I remind you to be smart and be safe when the weather turns yucky.

Dan Zarrow is Chief Meteorologist for Townsquare Media New Jersey. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter for the latest forecast and realtime weather updates.

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