Wednesday, January 17, 2007

WINTER STORM FRIDAY

A nice little snowstorm is on the way for SNE. As always, we will have to be watching the rain/snow line with this one. This line will be mighty important because just to the west and north of it, that is where the heaviest snowfall totals may be. Right now I have a good swath of 2-4" of snow for western New England. The "jackpot with this storm will be to the north and west of Boston by about 15 to 20 miles. A solid accumulation of 4-7" of heavy wet snow looks likely. The pink area is the wild card. The rain/snow line will be dancing around this region. We could see widely varying amounts of total snow. I will start as snow and then may transition to rain and then back to a heavy thumping snow on the backside of this system. Possible. For this area, I did not put an accumulation because we could wind up with nearly nothing or wind up with over a half a foot of wet snow. Its too close to call. SE of there, including Boston, it will be a brief period of snow, accumulating very lightly. Then it will transition to rain with temperatures in the mid - upper 30's at Logan and lower 40's on the Cape. Friday night we may see a flash freeze in areas that warm up enough to get some melting and rain during the storm. Temperatures will drop like a rock into the single digits and teens Friday night when the storm pulls into the Gulf of Maine where the northern part of that state will have blizzard conditions with 6-12"+ of powder.

More details on this storm later.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good map.

Anonymous said...

ERIC- I saw Henry Margasity's forecast and he had his axis of heaviest snow in SNE much further west into the Berkshires, with 3-6" through the White Mts and then 6"+ for northern interior Maine. You agree with him there.

Are his too far west or are yours too far east? Joel, you've been quiet this whole time, whats your take on this storm.

E.H. Boston said...

Thanks. I was a little hesitant with that rain/snow line cutting right up into BOS. As we saw with the last storm, it can be 40 one hour and then the next with a shift of the wind from SE to N, it drops below freezing like that. Also, on the NAM and GFS, the 0 degree C line makes it up to BOS and then juts offshore quickly. I think cold air may get fused into this rapidly intensifying storm. For now, I am the one playing conservative because usually I am not and get a bust.

4-7" outside Rt. 128 and especially 495 looks like a good bet. Whether that pink area turns "blue" or "green" is yet to be decided.

And Eric, I saw Henry M's forecast. Obviously I am going to say that his forecast is a little too far west. He has his accumulating snow line all the way past ORH. That will not happen. We will all see accumulating snow out of this. Question is how much before a turnover and who gets the turnover.

I think anyone N&W of BOS, Natick, and PVD is fair game for a fairly significant snowstorm out of this one, which will likely catch many by surprise on the FRI AM commute because if this bombs out, 4-7" may be a little low. SE winds are always tricky though. I haven't seen any real alluding to this on the news yet. We'll see.

The way this winter has gone, it'll probably be 75 to 80 with sun. Just kidding.

E.H. Boston said...

A side note...no ice with this one. It will be either RAIN or SNOW.

No FRZ Rain to contend with.

Joel, I can't wait to see your thoughts. Hopefully they aren't as divergent as the last storm which we both busted. (Me more so than you)

E.H. Boston said...

A lot more so.

E.H. Boston said...

18z NAM coming in, this is getting exciting...

Anonymous said...

ERIC- 18z NAM is much farther east.

Good QPF for eastern SNE though. Further east = snow, right. Push that 4-7" band over Woburn, please.

Anonymous said...

Still up in the air. I'll have time later to update.

E.H. Boston said...

Hate to do it, but I will be updating these numbers again. 0z and 06z still have the storm more east. I will be making an updated and possibly downgraded map for some then.

Until then, stay tuned...