Afternoon all, another very cold day across the GTA and Southern Ontario. Overnight we received the 4cm or so of snow forecast leaving a nice dusting on the ground. Further to our West in places like London & Windsor, significant lake-effect accumulations in the inches as well as 4-6" of snow that fell on the Niagara Penninsula in association with a squall that also blanketed Buffalo, NY again.

It's currently -8c/-15c dewpoint and a cold weather alert has once again been issued for Hamilton & Toronto. Light snow falling at YHM this hour, more significant snow falling north of here from Brampton, Mississauga to the shoreline of Ontario this squall intensifying during the morning and prompting a rare snowsquall warning for Toronto itself to be issued by EC. Snowfall rates of upto 3" an hour  in this band. The snowsquall however never quite made it to the city itself and thus the warning has been downgraded for now to a watch.

Staying bitterly cold over the weekend with further flurry activity, winter is certainly here now!

Have a great weekend folks

Could do with some of that weather here instead of the unseasonable mild stuff we are getting here. 

Springling of snow this morning in Richmond, VA.

Not too unusual but so far been quite mild over here.

Looks as though the setup in North America is going into Noreaster mode over the next week or so - first one on Saturday:

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/major-snowstorm-may-hit-i95-ne/40971682

Could be another on Monday and ECM is going for a third on the 1st Feb (though it's too far out currently!)

California Drought Worsening During Height of Rainy Season

http://classic.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2901

I'm presently in San Jose, about 40 miles SSE of San Francisco. Back in November when I was here before the whole area was burnt brown and parched. The difference now is that all the surrounding hills are green after the December rains, but that greenness is visibly fading with each dry day that passes.

Superficially the drought is less obvious, but those pictures from the link posted above show the reality, and there is no sign of any significant rain in the outlook. I leave on Sunday, but not before the potential record max for San Francisco is breached!

Yet some very mild weather over the western Prairies:

http://www.cbc.ca/calgary/weather/s0000047.html

Expect a high of +9c today in Calgary, +14c tomorrow in Calgary and a high of +20c on Monday. - Just remarkable!

Yeah major nor'easter on tap for the states, giving totals of 2ft + according to most forecasts in one or two favoured spots. The big I-95 cities look like taking a big hit from this with no doubt the associated power outages, road and flight chaos. Going to be a big newsmaker and more so on the back of a significant winter storm which hit the same areas yesterday.

The difference with this nor'easter will be it's colder generally and it'll strike during the work week.

For us in Ontario, it's a watching brief, some snow flurries for the GTA and cold temps but on this occasion we are missing out on the real mega fun!

Take Care

Might be worth posting the Boston webcam (annoying adverts before it starts streaming )

http://www.earthcam.com/usa/massachusetts/boston/?cam=boston_hd

Currently 5 inches lying in Boston, crazy to think by Tuesday evening it could be up to 30 inches or more! The charts are seriously impressive for Boston and coastal Massachusetts over the next 48 hours, with strong gales creating fierce blizzards I'd have thought.  

Could be a little snow off Lake Ontario for a while by the looks of it Stewart? Or are 850s not low enough?

Yet just look out to the west it's currently 18c in some major Canadian Prairie cities like Calgary, Red Deer etc:

http://www.cbc.ca/calgary/weather/s0000047.html

Must be a record breaker would you say Doc?

I think this warning sums up how it may be a record breaker for Gotham.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/new-york-ny/10007/weather-warnings-1309043/349727

The ten biggest snowstorms in recent recorded history in NYC.

http://pix11.com/2015/01/25/a-look-at-the-top-10-biggest-snowstorms-on-record-in-nyc/

Oh, to get conditions like that here in Blighty

http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/timessquare/?cam=tstwo_hd

Time to get the NYC streaming cams up now it's started! Quite a good selection of central locations/views from Earthcam for NYC...

They are so jolly fortunate on the eastern seaboard of the US. Our cold snaps (when they occur) are a complete joke by comparison.

The one benefit of events such as this are the increased appearances by Maria Molina on Fox News.

ECM forecasting 30-40 inches for some spots, crazy. Would love to experience that. Have to go back to the 70s and 80s since we had anything similar here.