October to Start Chilly

October is a month of transition here in SNE. We can start off the month with nearly summery conditions with temperatures into the 80’s, with the all-time record high at Boston’s Logan Airport at 90 degrees. It can also see winter like cold with the record low in the 10’s in suburbia to 20’s in the city of Boston. This is also the month where many see their first flakes as well. Actually, we usually see accumulating snowfall about one every three to four winters outside of the city, with the last accumulating October snowfall on October 29, 2005. That day featured a forecast for morning snow showers to rain that quickly grew intense and in the end, some towns in metro Boston picked up a thick coating to a couple of inches of water logged snowfall. October snowfalls don’t mean that you will have a blockbuster year, however. In October of 2001, Boston recorded its earliest flakes on record, October 8th, and Boston only saw about 17” of snow for the entire winter that year, with the majority of it falling overnight on December 8th, when a general 5-8” snowstorm blanketed SNE with heavy wet snow.

That said, our forecast is cooling down as we head into the weekend. Tomorrow will be a near normal day, maybe even slightly above normal with temperatures in the upper 60’s to around 70 degrees tomorrow. The sun will also make an appearance tomorrow after today’s storms around Boston. After six straight cloudy days, we could use some sun. Temperatures continue to decline going into Friday and Saturday with only highs in the low 60’s Friday, and around 60 on Saturday. We continue to drop in the temperature department on Sunday with a frosty morning out in suburbia, with lows getting down to the low and mid 30’s in places like Norwood, MA and Bedford, MA. That will lead to a day of temperatures maxing out in the upper 50’s. We continue the downward trend on Monday with highs likely staying in the lower 50’s in Worcester County and SW NH, with mid 50’s closer to the coast. Morning lows will be very cold as well with temperatures likely going below freezing for some time in suburbia and likely around 40-44 degrees in the city of Boston. Monday will be our coolest day of the next bunch with moderating temperatures later next week, getting back into the mid 60’s by midweek. Early call on Columbus Day weekend and its way too early to be speculating on this, but right now it looks like a mainly dry weekend with seasonably cool temperatures. If you had to peg me with numbers, I would say low 60’s in SNE with cooler temperatures in the mountains. Likely highs in the 50’s and lows in the 20’s and 30’s up North, with peaking color in Central and ‘northern’ SNE. The North Country will likely be past peak at this time with massive leaf drop at this time at the highest elevations. Still, its way too early to be looking out this far, so we will have to wait and see as we head into next week.

That is all for now, I will try to post more regularly as we head into the most fun part of the year, wintertime. Enjoy October, it's one of the best months of the year.