SNOW is coming NY, NE, MI, & more Great Lakes areas

WHOA it's SNOW!!

It looks like January 20th will bring a heap of snowfall and accumulation to the areas around the Great Lakes, especially New York, Pennsylvania, New England, and Michigan.
According to The Weather Channel website there is a weather watch developing for the Great Lake and New England states. There should be heavy snow accumulation due to the cold air and low temperatures in those areas.

Picture source: Weather.com

Here is an exert from The Weather Channel website:

- Great Lakes

Strong, compact, fast-moving Clipper brings a round of snowfall and very strong winds from the Great Lakes to northern New England as it races across the northern part of the U.S. Sunday.  A quick burst of 2 to 4 inches of general snowfall is likely.
In its wake an extended period of very cold air crosses the Great Lakes to set up a significant round of lake-effect snow Sunday through Thursday.  

The most likely areas for significant snowfall will be The U.P of Michigan, western Lower Michigan, northeast Ohio, northwest Pennsylvania through southwest New York. Wind direction determines exact location of heaviest snow bands, but the extended period of cold air under northwest to west winds ensures localized snowfall totals well over a foot for many areas.  Brisk winds will greatly reduce visibility and make travel hazardous, especially since conditions vary so much in and out of these narrow bands.  Temperatures may not get out of the single numbers for daytime highs through mid-week and will go well below zero at night.

(MORE: Coldest Air of Season Arriving)

- Southeast New England
Coastal low is expected to develop and spread snowfall back across Southeast new England Monday night and Tuesday.  Areas from eastern Massachusetts through Connecticut, eastern Long Island and Rhode Island will see as much as 5 to 8 inches of snowfall.  This will include the cities of Hartfordand Boston, since there is already going to be sufficient cold air in place to produce all snow even to the coast. Models solutions are still not in total agreement on the snowfall from this system. However, at this point I feel we will see significant snowfall across Southeast New England in the Monday night through Tuesday time frame to cause significant travel impacts, especially Tuesday morning.   

Technical Discussion
The clipper is one of the stronger systems of this type I have seen in awhile.  As it races eastward a 1050mb High from The Yukon spills south into the U.S. and brings the coldest air in likely the past 4 years or so to many areas of the North-Central U.S. and Great Lakes through mid-week, then another massive blast of cold air is expected as we go into next weekend.  The surface Low and associated inverted trough that is shown on the model solutions across the Great Lakes through mid-week likely has two sources to thank for its existence.  

There is some association with the deep upper level trough and associated short wave energy rotating around that trough to promote the surface pressure field.  However, much of the credit is likely due to the Great Lakes "conglomerate" of a huge area of warmer water overspread by arctic air.  The thermal trough that sets up as a result is directed roughly parallel to the winds aloft down the longest fetch of the open waters of the conglomerate from Lake Superior through the northern part of Lake Huron then downwind across Lakes Erie and Ontario.  This set-up will have some impacts on the wind direction which is a main ingredient in determining where snow bands set up.

In addition, this trough extends across Southeast New England out to the Atlantic and in that area is often referred to as a Norlun trough.  It can serve as a focus point for snowfall and will likely be responsible for a quick burst of moderate to heavy snow across Southeast New England Monday night into Tuesday.  Since there is so much cold air that will already be in place, I expect snowfall right out to the Cape, including metro Boston.  (Source: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/winter-weather-watch-2012-2013)