Straight from Mid-Winter to Early June

Yesterday, much of SNE just missed out on what would have been a big snowstorm. The storm headed north last minute and gave SNH the heavy snow as we here in SNE got a rainy, snowy mix, accumulating no more than a coating to an inch or two. Parts of SNH came in with between 6-8" of heavy wet springtime snow. Today is a frigid mid-winter day with highs only getting to between 32-37 degrees this afternoon with a biting NW wind bringing down some flurries and wind chills down into the low 20's all day. We will wake up to a frigid morning tomorrow morning with many suburbs falling to between the lower and middle 10's, while urban centers stay in the low 20's. With less wind tomorrow, the mid 40's will feel a whole lot warmer than what the thermometer reads. Then we have a transition day on Monday with afternoon showers before the floodgates open Tuesday and we break in some sun and highs respond well into the 60's and even low 70's here in SNE. Winds will be screaming out of the SW to clear out coastal sections and keep away any cooling seabreeze, so I could see Boston being the hot spot with highs coming to between 70-75 degrees, believe it or not!! Talk about going from mid January to early June in only the matter of a couple of days!

We cool off later next week, but the damage will be done and all the snow will melt that had fallen yesterday. The warm temperatures on Tuesday should let more flowers and buds start to show on the trees come out and make it feel more like spring. What a way to welcome in April. More on this forecast tomorrow.

Winter's Last Hurrah

Didn't have time to make my own snowfall map, but here is the one from newscenter five, as they have done a nice job outlining the threat for tomorrow morning through late evening. Rain and snow will develop overnight tonight and when you wake up tomorrow, there could be moderate snow falling north of Route 2 and a snowy mix south of there with marginal temperatures in the 34-36 degree range. South of Route 2, I think roads will stay all wet through the entire day. North of Route 2 is a different story where some plows may have to come out. The Boston corridor and metrowest will likely see 1-2" of sloppy wet snow that sticks to the grass. More like 2-3" in Worcester County in the highest elevations. Once you get to northern ORH Co. and southern New Hampshire where there is a WINTER STORM WARNING at this time, more like 4-5" of snow will fall with some 6-7" lollies in the SW part of NH and highest elevations.

After this snow, we have a frigid Saturday with highs in the mid 30's with biting winds, making it feel more like the mid 20's all day. But we should warm up later next week and I think we could be pushing 60 degrees by midweek next week and we may be pushing 70 degrees by next weekend. Details to be determined. We always have to be weary of backdoor cold fronts and sea breezes this time of year.

A Quiet Week for Once

After getting days and days of stormy, windy weather here in SNE, it looks like we will finally be rewarded a break this week with some fair weather. I do not see any extremely windy or wet days in the next several. Tomorrow, Easter, will start off mighty frigid with temperatures in the upper 10's in suburbia and 20's in the cities. Temperatures will respond to the strong late March sun, into the mid 40's. The sunny conditions will remain into Monday with a tad cooler day, mainly in the low 40's after chilly morning temperatures in the 10's and 20's. Then we start off dry on Tuesday and may get a few showers in here after dark overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday morning here in SNE. They will be very light showers, generally under a quarter of an inch of liquid. It may be cold enough overnight in NNE for a couple inches of snow overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday morning with the passage of this clipper system. That will clear out early Wednesday and then we will return to fair weather for the rest of the week.

Thursday and Friday will be dry days with mostly sunny skies and moderating temperatures. The good news this week is that there will not be any extreme wind events like we have had to endure for the past several days, causing scattered intense damage to trees and power lines. None of that this week thankfully. Just a quiet regime, for now. More later this week.

Wednesday Morning Snow/Mix

Here is a quick first call on the snow that will come down late late tomorrow night and early Wednesday morning before any kind of change to rainfall. Most of Mass north of the Pike will see some accumulating snowfall early Wednesday morning before the changeover with the hills of Worcester Co. and SNH that fare the best with snowfall. Even there it will not be all that heavy, but it will come down at the worst possible time, right at the beginning of the morning commute. Most of the snow will have fallen by 7-9AM and will be turning to a cold rain by this time. In the green, it could start as a few wet flakes and pellets of sleet before switching over to rain quickly with no accumulation, but once you move into the blue area is where you could pick up a quick coating to one inch of snow. I would bet that Boston sees some big wet flakes accumulate to a coating on grassy surfaces early Wednesday morning. The suburbs could pick up closer to an inch before his is washed away with the suburbs of Worcester picking up perhaps closer to 2" of snowfall with any heavier amounts reserved for Keene, NH and on to Concord and once you get up to North Conway, up to 2-5" of snowfall will accumulate before the switch to rain/IP and then you may switch back to snow for an additional light (1-3") accumulation later tomorrow night. Thats all for now. More later.

Quiet Tuesday, Wild Wednesday

The weather and temperatures will be doing ups and downs this week. Today we are on the downside of the roller coaster, but we will be back up tomorrow with afternoon highs in the upper 40's. However, clouds will thicken tomorrow night and we will see some snow move in after midnight for the entire region, even down to the Cape. The snow will quickly transition to sleet and then sleet and rain to all rain by early morning on Wednesday, maybe allowing for a slick, icy Wednesday morning commute from Worcester points east into Boston. The warm air will be slowest to erode in the eastern areas, but it will eventually. There may even be a small snow accumulation above 500 feet, on the order of an inch and once you get above 1000' and especially 2000', you will see snowfall on the order of 1-3" in SNE. Parts of NNE will fair better snow wise with a snow to rain to snow situation and some spots will receive over six inches of snow. In SNE we will start as a mix change to rain and then have drying NW winds clear us out to have a nice, yet windy, Thursday with highs in the upper 40's to around 50 leading into the long weekend for many.

This weekend will feature mainly quiet conditions for the six state region, but it will be very chilly on both Saturday and Easter Sunday. Early morning services on Sunday will be mighty cold with temperatures in the 20's. Bundle up. Storm threats look minimal past Wednesday's storm, however. Dry and cold to round off the workweek and head into the weekend.

A Short Work Week with Lots of Weather

There are no real warm temperatures on the offing for our area as we officially end winter this year. Temperatures will not be really cold, but just cool enough to make outside baseball practices a little miserable. That's March baseball in New England though. Tomorrow is the kickoff to the spring sports season here in the greater Boston area and lots of practices and tryouts will be taking place outside tomorrow afternoon after school. Tomorrow will feature cool conditions with highs generally in the low to mid 40's, but will be under the sun, so as long as you stay in the sun, it will feel quasi warm outside. The only thing that will put a spring bite to the air will be the biting NW winds associated with the monster ocean storm that we just missed today. Winds will be in the 20 to 30 mph range, making temperatures in the low 40's, feel more like 30 degrees. Tuesday will be another day where the sports teams will be able to get outside on the fields and with less wind and abundant sun in the afternoon, it won't be all that bad. Highs should get to between 45-50 degrees across the SNE area and with the sunshine and little wind, it will feel some 10 degrees warmer.

Then we will have to deal with the rain. In fact, as clouds thicken on Tuesday afternoon and lower Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, it may actually start as a brief period (2-4 hours) of snow that mixes with some sleet and gradually changes to rainfall in the BOS metro area by midmorning Wednesday. I don't think there will be any accumulation in the lower elevations, but I would not throw out the possibility that up to 1-2" of snowfall falls in the elevated areas of Northern Worcester County up through the Manadnocks in SW NH. Further north in the White Mountains and NW Maine, I wouldn't be surprised if 2-6" fell before any kind of changeover. After the changeover in the BOS metro area, we will see heavy rain through the mid afternoon hours. All said and done, I would expect 0.75" to 1.50" of RF through the entire event that comes to an end on Wednesday night in SNE. The rain may actually change back to snow in extreme northern VT and NH and NW ME as they get some upslope snows as the low departs through the GOM. An additional 2-5" of snow is possible after the change to rain. I would not be surprised if some come close to 6-10" of accumulative snowfall in the highest mountains once this comes to an end up there in NNE.

Then we welcome in Spring here at 1:48 AM with breaking clouds and mild temperatures with a gusty NW wind. Highs should get into the upper 40's to around 50 on Thurdsay before we start to see the cold air in Canada move back into the New England region and we cool down dramatically to end off the workweek, or start the weekend, on Good Friday. Highs on Saturday will struggle to get out of the 30's and we continue to stay chilly right on into Easter Sunday. Highs look to only be around 40 degrees for early Easter dinners and will be in the upper 20's to low 30's for early morning services. The egg hunt may be a little chilly as well. You may want to move it inside this year. That's what happens when we have early Easters in March.

That is all for now. After Wednesday's storm, it looks quiet going into Easter weekend, but weather likes to change quickly around here, so stay tuned for more updates and a snowfall map for the Wednesday storm that should be posted sometime tomorrow or Tuesday. (NNE)

"Grazed"

FINAL CALL 3/15 @ 4PM: The "on again, off again" storm is partially on again. We will by no means see a direct hit, as the storm will go well south of the area, but will throw some snow/rain into the southeastern part of the region. Here to the right is the worst case, snowiest scenario and its not that snowy. Worst case scenario is that we see some morning snow showers in the Boston metro and Worcester metro areas that could make it up to Nashua, NH. You will need to travel south of Brockton to see some snow accumulate. We will see coatings of snow that melt away once it stops, quite common in the darker blue region, but in the absolute worst case scenario, up to 1-2" of snow, wet gloppy snow (mashed potatoes) could accumulate. This region includes Providence, Warwick, Attleboro, Taunton, Plymouth, and down to the Bourne Bridge. Boston and northwest will be lucky to see a trace to a skim coating on the grass. It will be a borderline situation as temperatures will generally be in the 33-36 degree range for the duration, so getting this to accumulate on the roads will be all but impossible. That is all for now.

Weekend Storm a Miss; Bring on Spring!

The models have put another spin on things and now we aren't looking at a good sized storm for later this weekend. In fact, there won't even be a storm for the Mid Atlantic. It looks like the blocking that would have kept this storm from heading harmlessly out to sea is not going to set up in time and we will not see the storm ride up the coast and give New England a wind plastering snowfall. Yesterday at this time, I would have gone with a moderate to heavy snowstorm, but today, I think we will just see some gusty winds and partly sunny skies. Obviously, any slight change in the track and we are right back in the game, but it doesn't look good for the storm ATTM. Sunday will be the cool day with highs in the 30's, but looking towards next week, we warm up to the mid 40's on St. Patrick's Day and are surging into the mid 50's for Tuesday and that will be good news for all the baseball and softball coaches who want to get their teams onto the fields. It looks like the fields should be dry enough to go right out next week.

Stormy Weekend?

I have been watching the potential of a storm around these parts for later this weekend, right before St. Patrick's Day. The computer models have been pretty much all over the place. I really do not think that we will have a good grip on this storm until maybe 24-36 hours from now as all the elements start to come into the lower 48 and we can see how this thing wants to work out. For now the GFS and several other models that are very reliable are showing a storm affecting our area later this weekend, namely Sunday. Now this graphic from Accuweather shows the storm as it streaks across the country and they do a great job at showing this storm at the worst. It will be a fairly sizable storm system that could blow up as it nears the East Coast. This graphic shows an ominous picture of what could possibly happen. I am not going to go out on a limb with this one, because there are just too many variables right now. I don't think these variables will start to work themselves out until Thursday or even Friday afternoon.

Lastly, I should say that a few flakes will be falling from the sky. Expect some light snow falling in western Mass spreading east as it deposits a quick coating to 1/2" in some elevated areas of Worcester County. Closer to home, in eastern Mass, we will see some wet flakes to begin and then see the flakes switch to drops that will barely be enough to wet the pavement. By tomorrow afternoon, highs will be in the 40's, so no worries.

FLOOD WATCH

More flooding rains are in the forecast for SNE. We have ourselves quite the storm coming at us tonight that will arrive tomorrow night and early Saturday. This storm has brought Dallas/Ft. Worth a 3-6" snowstorm this Thursday and its heading through Arkansas and the southern Ohio Valley with snowfall of 6-12" before we get to Cleveland and into Ontario where 12-24" of snow is forecast. Don't worry about snow here in SNE. We will be on the warm side of the storm, so all we have to worry about is rain. Here in SNE we will see a good 2-4" of liquid, rainfall through Saturday. Just with that we will see flooding of streets and small streams. The rain will come in two batches. The first batch will be associated with the first low pressure system tomorrow night that will feature rainy conditions with temperatures in the middle 30's overnight tomorrow. Temperatures will shoot up into the upper 40's on Saturday morning before the second knockout punch hits us late morning Saturday and early Saturday afternoon with temperatures in the 50's with heavy rain, winds, and thunderstorms rumbling through. This batch will give rain even to CNE, where 3-5" of rain is in the snowpack, so that could flood the rivers heading into the great Merrimack. Something we will have to watch.

Overall, I think catastrophic flooding will remain low because the North will likely start out as snow and wintery mix on Friday night-Saturday AM, before transitioning to rain late AM, before switching back to accumulating snow later. Portions north of North Conway-Burlington-Bangor will likely see a net gain of snowfall this weekend with accumulations likely in the 6-10" range, with snow to ice to rain to snow; a nasty layer cake that will wreak havoc on roofs and backs shoveling. The disaster will be postponed to a later date.

Thereafter, we cool down and as soon as we get temperatures cold enough for some snow, there goes the storm every other day pattern and we go sunny dry and quiet with temperatures eventually moderating. We start off awfully chilly next week with highs in the 30's for Monday, but by midweek, we are already pushing 50 once again with a storm that looks to be stalling and heading to our west by late week, which should flood the East with warm air and rain once again by next weekend? You know the pattern by now.

Flooding Rains on the Way...

More rain and more rain is on the way for New England. This morning was wild with wind swept rain with a few rumbles of thunder around 7:30 AM in the Boston metro area. However, that has cleared out and in its wake we have temperatures falling from around 60F this afternoon into the 30's overnight with large puddles in our lawns. Tomorrow will be a day with light winds, but still warm with highs in the 50's. Then we look for our next storm coming in on Friday afternoon and this one will be a wet storm as well with lots of water to boot. This could be a wet storm all the way into CNE and NNE. Snowpack as close a Concord, NH is around 20" and in North Conway, we have a snowpack exceeding 50"! Water equivalencies in this astounding snowpack is over 10" of water! Once we get this to melt, there is going to be MAJOR problems to life and property. Its a disaster in the making, basically. It may not unfold this weekend, but we will just be delaying the inevitable. This weekend's storm will have between 2-4" of RAIN associated with it. Most of this rain will be absorbed into the deep snowpack up north, but its getting to the point where measures will be needed to be taken to insure life and property. Thereafter we cool down back into the 30's heading into the second full week of March and the last full week of winter.

Melting Snow

March came in with a bang yesterday with snow and wind, but today the sun is out and the wind is blowing, but it doesn't feel that bad and hey the sun doesn't go down until after half past 5. That ain't too bad. We had some melting snow today with highs getting around 40, but we will start to have bare spots in SNE tomorrow, especially eastern SNE as highs will rocket to the lower 50's, under partly cloudy skies. Then we need to talk about some rainfall. We see the rain move in Tuesday afternoon. The residual snow will stop the warm front from making it past NYC Tuesday afternoon, so most of the day will be in the upper 30's in interior SNE, while the south coast and Cape will see temperatures shoot up into the 50's by late evening. That warm air will erode the fog with a southerly wind Tuesday night in the Boston metro area and this will lead us to a warm and wet Wednesday with highs in the 50's, and mid 50's at that. Rainfall will come down very heavily for the first part of the day on Wednesday and when all is said and done, about 1-3" of rainfall will fall, totally obliterating the snowpack here in SNE. We will postpone the inevitable in NNE as there it will be a very cold rain that gets absorbed into the snowpack or it will be more snow added to the 'fire.' We'll save the problem for another day.

That storm passes through on Wednesday night and we return to seasonable weather on Thursday with highs in the mid 40's. We shoot up to the 50's for a one day stand on Friday with a clipper heading to our NW, which will allow for downsloping winds on Friday, which will shoot SNE into the 50's, while far NNE will see a couple inches of snow. Then we cool again by Saturday.

A Bust for Many Last Night

Well, that forecast did not really work out for eastern Massachusetts last night and this morning. That pesky coastal front left all the good snow and lift out in Worcester County, leaving eastern parts warmer and with less QPF. Generally in eastern Mass we saw between 2-3" of snow with a few 4" amounts north of Wilmington. Out in Worcester we had many reports of 6-8" of snowfall, where it was colder and had more precipitation. Now it is wrapping up with a few snow showers going through the area with temperatures in the mid 30's, so there will be no sticking. Now we look to tomorrow and the rest of the upcoming week. Tomorrow will feature breezy conditions with winds gusting over 30 mph, but temperatures will rebound into the low 40's with a high March sun angle, it will feel warm. We warm up even more on Monday, with partly cloudy skies and temperatures getting up to 50 degrees.

A storm will cut to our west and we will see a rainstorm with very mild temperatures on Tuesday with rain moving into the area in the afternoon and becoming heavy later in the evening and nighttime. We could see areas pick up between 2-3" of rainfall in SNE, while the northern mountains of Maine will see over a foot of snow. Like they need it. Many spots in NNE picked up 8-14" with this last storm that busted in SNE this morning. Temperatures on Tuesday will push in the mid to perhaps upper 50's with maybe somebody nudging 60 degrees.

We will cool off on Wednesday, back into the 40's, but the damage will have already been done here in SNE and all the snow will be all but gone in our backyards. Later in the week, we have to watch a storm to our south that could come up the coast, but latest indicationns are that it will head just out to sea, barely grazing the South Coast. This will have to be monitored, but doesn't look like a major threat ATTM.