So close, yet so far away

Extreme temperature gradient-- Common in late winter-- especially in La Nina winters.

I've been watching a storm for about a week that is another two part event. Part one is underway-- from MN to NY a big swath of snow with some sleet and ice. Max snow will be over a foot in some places. This is riding along an arctic front that is sliding DUE north to DUE south. A second piece of energy rides along and some of the latest data pushes snow ALL the way down to Charlottesville-- maybe a couple inches, while at the same time NO layer of atmosphere here is even below freezing.

I'm not sold yet on the extreme far south, but if you recall this photo--- if that 500MB low is a little SW, this is very plausible.

I'm glad I'm not forecasting from DC to PHILLY-- some places in that region have a shot of 6-8 inches of snow and some may get none. The model data is split..but the ECMWF has consistently been south. As a result, I'd bet that much of the DC metro region gets 2-5 inches of snow with someone making a run at 8 inches. (Maybe Leesburg??) This is not set in stone and some fluctuation in the data is likely.