Calm before the Storm

Today will be a very nice day with highs getting back to over 50 degrees across SNE this afternoon. Boston is already starting off in the right direction with their 8AM temperature in the low-mid 40's. We will easily see highs come up to between 48-53 degrees this afternoon, warmest in the immediate suburbs of Boston away from the water. You would not know that a huge monster storm was on its way if you just judged by today. Oh, but there is a monster on the way to most of the Northeast from Philadelphia to Downeast Maine and everyone in between. Tomorrow the storm will be in its infant stages off the SC coast, gathering steam. We will already begin to see high cloudiness later tomorrow morning and the clouds will thicken to a dark overcast by later in the afternoon. The winds will be eriely calm tomorrow as well, before all is let loose on Monday as a raging Nor'easter gets cranking over our area.

Monday will just be a bad day pretty much from start to finish, by the way it looks right now. Heavy snow should have swept into much of SNE during the predawn hours of Monday and the heaviest snow with this storm looks to be from 8AM to 2PM. Here is where I think we will experience our heaviest rates, between 1-2"/hr, maybe a little bit more if some impressive banding develops with this storm, then we could be seeing 3"+/hr snowfall rates with thunder and lightning. Winds will be very strong out of the NE with perhaps wind gusts as high as 50-60 mph, especially along the coast. The Cape is the wild card ATTM, where I think they will spend a large duration of the storm as wet snow/rain. However, I think if this storm gets cranking strong enough, I would say the inner Cape has a chance of seeing heavy accumulating snowfall. The Islands and the outer Cape may have a tough time accumulating more than a couple inches. Nonetheless, I think this all should start to wind down sometime before the afternoon commute, if there is one because I know a lot of people will stay home with this one and that is the smart thing to do.

As for snowfall accumulations, I pretty much like my map from yesterday. I think that area in dark blue will have the heaviest accumulations, but there will be a narrow band setting up with this storm that will dump closer to 14-18" of snow and that could set up right around Boston and its surrounding suburbs. Even up into SE NH could see easily over a foot with this storm system. I'm going to hold off on making my second call until after I see the 12z suite, but thereafter, I will start planning out my second guess. This one could be a doozy.

Later next week, we stay seasonable, mid 30's, before our next chance of a wintery mix. Right now I would favor a mostly rain solution from the Friday storm with snow confined to western and northern New England, ATTM. Things can change that far out.