Welcome to December!

Welcome to meteorlogical winter folks. You wouldn't know it by the temperatures out there this afternoon. Highs across much of SNE this afternoon are in the upper 50s to low 60s with abundant sunshine. The mild weather is going to stick around for the next few days, but we will not be as warm we are today. How about upper 40s to around 50 degrees with sunshine both tomorrow and Wednesday. Then we notch up those temperatures some more on Thursday with highs getting back into the mid 50s, but the tradeoff will be some rainfall. I am not expecting a washout Thursday by any means, but there may be a few scattered light rain showers later in the afternoon and evening here in SNE. These showers will usher in some real cold air for later in the week. By Friday we will only have highs in the mid 30s and by Saturday we will be struggling to get out of the upper 20s for highs in Worcester, and struggling to reach 32 degrees in the city of Boston. Snow chances still look minimal, but yesterday many of us saw the first flakes so we do not need to worry about being shut out going into the first and second weeks of December.

So what can we expect during the month of December? The average December brings Boston an average of 6.6" of snowfall. Last winter Boston nearly broke the December snowfall record with 26.9" of snow for the month of December alone. You do not need to go back too far to see a rather unimpressive December as in 2006, Boston only recorded a measely 0.4" of snow. In '98 and '99, Boston did not even record more than a trace of snow. Most winters will feature snowfall in the 4-7" range. Boston's NW suburbs do better, likely 6-10" on average. Temperatures average in the mid 40s early on in the month, dropping into the mid 30s by the end of the month. This December looks to be colder than normal (-3 to -5 dept) with equal chances of precipitation. Overall, I think Boston will see average snowfall for this month, but all it takes it one good storm and we are well above normal. That is why long range snowfall forecasting is so unprofessional, in my opinion. That's all for now. Enjoy the April like weather we have this afternoon.