Mother nature is finally re-paying us for the abominable January blowtorch!! After a period of light drizzle/flurries through most of the day, everything switched over to snow about an hour and a half ago as colder air finally made it into the region. You will not see any accumulation on the roadways/pre-treated sidewalks until after 6 or 7 tonight. However, after that, all heck breaks loose as low pressure currently situated in Georgia explodes as it emerges over the Atlantic Ocean.

The heaviest and steadiest precipitation (snow) will move into the region between 11PM and 6AM tomorrow morning as the low really gets cranking over the benchmark (40N, 70W--winter storms that pass over this area are often the most dubious snowfall producers for the East Coast).

Below is an image from a forecasting product known as BUFKIT, (BUffalo's forecasting toolKIT; developed by meteorologists in Buffalo, NY) which lets forecasters objectively analyze atmospheric forecasts from various models, like the GFS and NAM. Notice the high vertical velocities (the rate of upward or downward motion of a particle ) on the right side of the screen. When these areas of high VV's intersect the area of maximum snow growth, (yellow lines), forecaster's can anticipate locally intense snowfall.

Given current model forecasts, analysis, etc. I have upped the snowfall totals across the entire region. A large swatch of 6-10 inches is a good bet encompassing the major cities. I think 12 inches is the absolute maximum snowfall anyone will see around the region, but totals in excess of 12 inches will be possible further up the road in New Jersey and Manhattan.