Crippling winter storm midday Friday into Saturday.

Final call: 20-30″ of snow for the weekend “punisher” storm, with 30″+ possible if we get under a heavy snow band. It will be tough to forecast where these bands set up, very complex storm system. A general 20-30″ is a good estimate as of now. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for 20-30″ of snow with snow in excess of 30″ possible, the warning is in effect from 10 AM Friday to 10 PM Saturday. A winter storm warning means that a significant weather hazard is imminent or occurring.

The slew of sunny days will once again be short-lived. Most of the snow that fell overnight should be melted by the time tomorrow rolls around. A strong southern jet disturbance is now organizing over Texas and is spreading a tremendous amount of rain to the lone star state of Texas. Texas may receive 1-3″ or more of rain state wide!!! The cold air will be in place for this major storm on Friday night into Saturday with the moisture riding up the eastern seaboard late Friday evening. As these air masses clash, heavy snow will likely break out for Friday evening and throughout the day Saturday. Wind gusts could be 35 mph or greater making blizzard conditions likely Saturday. Get ready and do your shopping or what you need to do on Friday before the storm. Please see figure above for the graphical illustration of this storm.

Story based version with some humor:

Once upon a time, there was a big storm traveling along the southern jet stream. A little boy called the El Nino provided for the big storm and fed it some food, that food was moisture in the form of fuel. At the height of the big storm it exploded along the Mid-Atlantic coast and it said, “Party time, everybody dance now.”

Please postpone your Friday night activities, unless you would like guests to try to come in blizzard like conditions. Winter wonderland for DC, one for the record books here we come.

So is everyone ready for “THE punisher storm”? It will easily dump 15+” of snow in the DC metro area… We will be in a state of emergency on Saturday, hands down.

On the modified Grendel monstrosity scale this storm for the weekend would be rated a five for its severity and high impacts to the DC metro area. A five on this scale is the highest ranking. Please watch out for down power lines, and significant accumulations.

Share your experiences below.

The punisher has come!!!