THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 13, 1995 TAG: 9511130047
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Winter is officially more than a month away, but the season's first major northeaster - threatening with beach-eating winds along the coast and heavy snowfall inland - is on the way, forecasters warned Sunday.
``It's shaping up to be a humdinger of a low,'' said Bill Keneely of The Weather Channel in Atlanta.
Fellow forecaster Declann Cannon said the storm is expected to begin forming today, finally coming together off the Carolina coast by Tuesday. ``It will slowly chug its way up the Eastern Seaboard,'' he said, ``and I cannot emphasize it enough: There will be a lot of beach erosion. And snowfall? Inland, they are going to get it, and it could be a lot.''
Rain, possibly heavy, will be the rule in eastern Virginia and eastern North Carolina, and forecasters expect very cold air to the west to turn all that moisture into a major snowfall.
``This is an amazingly cold air mass and somebody is going to get a big-time snow storm. It may even be a crippling snowfall in the mountains of the Appalachians,'' Kneeley said. ``It could bring maybe a foot (of snow) before it is all said and done from the Great Lakes to the mountains of North Carolina.''
The snow is expected to begin this morning in West Virginia and spread from there.
``Substantial snow will continue Monday night, Tuesday and Wednesday,'' the National Weather Service said. ``Tuesday and Wednesday are apt to become quite windy, drifting the deepening snow. Temperatures will remain unusually cold for this time of year.''
The Weather Service is calling for up to 5 inches of snow in western sections of Virginia and the rain-snow line could reach as far east as Charlottesville and the Washington area.
The curtain-raiser to the northeaster's formation was Saturday's strong cold front that swept east, producing stormy weather as it pushed aside the warm air the Southeast had enjoyed in recent days.
Behind the front, cold Canadian air is surging deep into the South. It's pouring into a pocket created by the jet stream, a river of fast-moving air in the upper atmosphere that often shapes weather patterns.
The jet stream is expected to follow a classic course for bringing winter weather to the Southeast, dipping almost due south through the midwest before turning at the Gulf of Mexico and then steering northeast along the coast.
Meanwhile, a low-pressure center that was forming over the southern Plains states on Sunday is forecast to move to the South Carolina coast by Tuesday morning. Its counter-clockwise circulation will steer moist ocean air into the Middle Atlantic states.
That, combined with the clockwise circulation of a high pressure system expected to form over New England, will channel strong winds into the coastline, causing beach erosion.
KEYWORDS: WEATHER by CNB