A snowstorm is coming, but its impacts to the East Coast still remain highly uncertain just a few days before the event.
"An East Coast storm could develop as soon as Sunday Feb. 22, but the track of this potential nor'easter isn't yet determined, leaving impacts such as snow, rain, wind and coastal flooding uncertain from New England to the mid-Atlantic states," said Weather.com meteorologist Jonathan Erdman in an online forecast.
Another forecaster, AccuWeather meteorologist Jon Porter, told USA TODAY Feb. 19 that "there's going to be a big storm, but it could be just off the Atlantic coast." He said a slight shift to the west will result in higher snow totals, but a slight shift to the east means lower snow totals.
Porter said this level of uncertainty just a few days before a storm isn't unusual. "This is a pretty typical snow threat for the eastern U.S."
One reason for the uncertainty, he said, is that part of the energy that will fuel the storm is still off the California coast. He said once that energy comes onshore in the next day or so, it will be better sampled by the National Weather Service's balloon network. This will give better data for the computer weather models to digest.
