I'm Dreaming of a White... February??

Unless you've had no access to the news over the past week or so, you know exactly what's been going on in the Washington/Baltimore area with snow. These cities that have not seen more than a simple dusting over the past few years, now have been bombarded with snow snow snow!

Snow began to fall on February 5th. The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for the Washington Baltimore area on this day. Snow had continued to fall over these areas even as recently as yesterday (Feb 11th).
....So what exactly is going on with these storms?

The Northeast Quadrant at Blogger reported that the atmosphere has developed the perfect conditions for Nor'easters (a large cyclonic storm created by an extreme low pressure system). These storms got the name Nor'easter because of the fact that they mainly are formed toward the East Coast of the United States. Low-pressure systems have a counterclockwise "flow" and are associated with rising air parcels. High-pressure systems however, produce sinking air with a clockwise "flow". In order for a Nor-easter to form, the two, opposite pressure systems collide, and the genesis of a Nor'easter begins. The storm gradually starts to spin and move northward/northeastward along the coast (the storm usually follows the leading path generated by the upper level jet stream). All of this, along with shockingly low surface temperatures, are the cause of what seems like endless snowfall events.

If you would like to see some interesting coverage of the events from the snowstorms (since Plymouth, NH has not seen any interesting activity lately) weather.com is the place to go!