Good evening,
I figured a little analysis would be interesting since this coming snowstorm is one of much vehemence. Goodness.
As I'm sure many of you are aware of by now, a terrible low pressure system is tracking its way Northward from the United States, and this massive storm could deliver crippling amounts of snow to many highly populated areas in Eastern North America, including in and around our region. I've been tracking this system for several days now (even before our recent snowfall) since the storm was in its infancy, but now it has matured itself quite a bit since then and now has its eye set on Eastern Canada as it takes a ride on that jetstream leading it here.
With regards to Montreal, Southwestern/Eastern Quebec and Eastern Ontario, 40-50 cm (a minimum of close to a foot) is very possible in these regions, making this particular storm the king of all snowstorms we've encountered since last November. However, it's not just the snow, but also the gusty winds that will accompany it, which in fact could be in excess of 70-80 km/h from the North/Northeast tomorrow afternoon into the evening - this will create strong lashing, blowing and drifting snow. As it tracks Northward, the pressure gradient between the storm and the high pressure further to the North of Quebec will become gradually steeper, creating eventually stronger winds.
In the extreme Southern portion of New Brunswick, this looks to be an all rain event, as is the case for the majority of Nova Scotia. Central New Brunswick, this can be a persistent wave of freezing rain and ice pellets, but Northern New Brunswick, it's all snow. States' side there have been reports of copious amounts of snow in many parts of the midwest - it's all snow on the back end of the low, but South of it, it's rain, such as in Southern New York and in part why it's going to rain in Nova Scotia. Further South into Florida and Georgia, this system has been responsible for several tornado outbreaks in and North of Tallahassee, though thankfully no one was hurt there. And it's snowing as far South as Jackson, Mississippi. Quite a complex system!
For us, the snow will commence rather soon and persist until early to mid Sunday before it slows down into light flurries. There are two waves associated with this storm (think of it as the small and big asteroid from that movie "Deep Impact" lol) - the first wave will deliver anywhere from 10-15 cm of snow by tomorrow morning before the major secondary component of the storm moves later on tomorrow - this could bring us a fast additional 20-30 cm by the end of early Sunday. The center of the low is currently North of Georgia, but is slowly migrating this way to Eastern Canada, just in time for later tomorrow afternoon. Once the first wave moves out, you may notice the snow subsiding to some extent tomorrow morning, but don't let that fool you - the bigger secondary wave of precipitation is well on the way following that little episode. For the most part between both waves, the snow will be persistent, though just perhaps lighter in nature before it picks up increasingly again. There's a slight chance that we could encounter some ice pellets mixing in tomorrow afternoon, but that's much more pronounced for the Eastern Townships East of here.
Now, that's how the storm will work until the first half of Sunday (that entirely depends on how fast the system moves out, of course). This storm, given its strength, has the potential of breaking the record set back on March 4th, 1971 for
the most snow that ever fell in a single day. On March 4th, 1971, 43.2 cm fell in Montreal, so if we get at least 43.3 cm from this coming system within a 24 hour period, then it's a new record. Similarly, to date, we have precisely 317 cm of snow since November. The record set back for the time period of 1970-1971, from November to mid April, was a grand total of 382.7 cm (or ~383). Assuming we get at least 30 cm from this storm, that'll bring us up to 347 cm, making us liable to pick up about 36.1-37 cm. From this last recent storm, we acquired exactly 19.2 cm, but expect possibly more than double that from this monstrosity of a storm. Ottawa, too, could see record-breaking accumulations (their record is about 437 cm by mid April in 1971). Either way, this is easily the second snowiest Winter on record. That same storm from 1971 was additionally responsible for 17 deaths alone in Montreal, so I'm hoping that we won't see a repeat of that.
In closing, if there's any last minute things anyone needs to do, best do it now. I'm expecting the snow to start slowly anytime now (probably already did) as the first light bands of precip on radar are slowly pushing this way in from Cornwall. I'll have final accumulations likely by Sunday-Monday. And yes, TRae, I'll prepare myself well.

This is quite devastating given the MASSIVE heights of those snowbanks already seen out there. We're actually really lucky since a lot of the snow had melted during the January thaw in the first week of the month, or else we'd be even worse off. Either way, we're so buried...the snow is already almost as tall as my fence!
On a side note, don't forget to advance your clocks one hour forward this Sunday (there's some nice news that I wanted to save for ya).

And yeah, another possible system could be here in time for mid week next week, but I'll keep an eye on that.
If anybody is interested in taking pictures and posting them here, feel free to do so - after all, it is, at the moment, the biggest storm this season!
Edit: I honestly don't mind beating the record, considering that we've suffered and endured so much this Winter already! Might as well! Go for it, Winter 07-08!
In any case, take care and stay safe,
Trav.
