Major storm on Groundhog day?

It is not always happen to have meteorologists so confident about their forecasts, so it's rather refreshing to see this news item from the Accuweather:

AccuWeather.com Meteorologists are confident a major storm will affect the eastern part of the nation Monday (Groundhog Day) into Tuesday of the coming week.

O-Oh! A major storm three days from now.

The storm will be large in size, encompassing over 2 million square miles. The system will grab copious amounts of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico with potential to unleash 1 to 2 inches of rain or 1 to 2 feet of snow on some areas. The storm will also intensify as it moves on a nearly south-to-north heading. Warm air south and east of the storm will lead to damaging thunderstorms.

The exact track of the storm will determine the nature of the beast that will pummel an area from the entire, immediate Atlantic coast to nearly as far west as the Mississippi River.

There is a multitude of tracks the storm could take, ranging from just off of the Atlantic coast to a track just to the west of the Appalachians. Over the coming days, computer models will get more in line to one track, and our meteorologists will home in on the details. For now, we want you to be aware of the consequences of the different tracks the storm could take.

And here are some graphics:
It's really going to cover nearly half of the country, including northern Flordia and at least eastern part of the Great Lakes area -- that's my neck of the woods. For the people going down to Tampa Bay for the Super Bowl, their return trip may not be very smooth regardless who wins!

Anyway here's a summary of their forecast and warning;

A large, dangerous storm will take shape in the eastern third of the nation early next week, spreading a swath of snow, rain, damaging thunderstorms, flooding and high winds northward from the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, still being in the new year period of the year of the Ox, I wish the best of luck for everybody, but I hope the Accuweather forecasters may over stated their predictions!


Update Feb. 3, 2009

Gorundhog Day came by peacefully. The large, dangerous storm did not seem to have materialized. This is the kind of occasions that people will be happy when forecasters turned out to be wrong.