Saturday February 27 2021 Forecast (8:35AM)

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DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 27 – MARCH 3)

The final weekend of February. Not a stellar weekend, weather-wise, but it could be worse too. We have 2 minor low pressure systems to contend with. The first one’s center will actually pass north of our area this evening but before it does that it sends precipitation into lingering cold enough air to start as snow from the Boston area north and west, with rain to the south except pockets of sleet & snow mixed in where it falls a bit more heavily. The milder air flips everything that is snow over to rain by late morning after a minor accumulation, and the rest of the day features periodic rain. As the low pulls away tonight, it dries out, but a partial clearing of the sky will allow temperatures to drop to near or slightly below freezing in some locations, so watch for black ice formation on untreated surfaces! Sunday, another area of unsettled weather makes a run at the region. This particular system will be a little more disjointed, with a main low passing across southern Canada while another low tries to organizes as it passes by to the south later Sunday and Sunday night. The greatest precipitation threat will be near the South Coast later in the day Sunday, and anything that occurs there will be rain as it will be far too mild to support any snow. The remnants of this system may send a little light rainfall further northward later in the evening before it departs to the east overnight. Monday, the first day of March, will be an interesting day – one that starts mild with a rain shower threat from a cold front, sees falling temperatures during the day and ends at night with the passage of an arctic cold front, possible snow squalls, and a sharp drop in temperature to what would be colder than normal even for mid winter. This arctic air will be around for a brief visit on Tuesday, which despite being a bright day, will feature plenty of wind and air that feels like January. A milder westerly flow will take over by Wednesday and we’ll see a significant temperature recovery…

TODAY: Cloudy with a coating to 1 inch of snow from the Boston area north and west before changing to periods of rain, and periods of rain elsewhere except possibly briefly mixed with sleet in parts of southeastern MA. Highs 40-47. Wind variable up to 10 MPH becoming S 5-15 MPH.

TONIGHT: Cloudy with a chance of rain early, then becoming partly cloudy. Patchy fog forming. Areas of black ice forming on untreated surfaces. Lows 30-37. Wind shifting to W and diminishing to under 10 MPH.

SUNDAY: Partly sunny to mostly cloudy. Chance of rain mainly South Coast afternoon. Highs 45-52. Wind W 5-15 MPH becoming variable to SE.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Chance of light rain. Lows 38-45. Wind variable up to 10 MPH.

MONDAY: Variably cloudy with a chance of rain showers in the morning. Partly sunny in the afternoon. Highs 45-52 by early afternoon then turning cooler by late-day. Wind SW 5-15 MPH shifting to W 10-20 MPH.

MONDAY NIGHT: Variably cloudy. Snow showers/squalls possible. Lows 5-12. Wind W 15-25 MPH with higher gusts shifting to NW. Wind chill falling below 0.

TUESDAY: Sun and passing clouds. Highs 25-32. Wind NW 15-25 MPH, higher gusts. Wind chill often below 15.

TUESDAY NIGHT: Clear. Lows 13-20 evening, rising into the 20s overnight. Wind NW 5-15 MPH evening, shifting to W overnight.

WEDNESDAY: Partly cloudy. Highs 38-45. Wind W 5-15 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (MARCH 4-8)

Fair weather is expected March 4 & 5 but a cold front slips through quietly with a downward trend in temperature Watching for a potential storm system over the March 6-7 weekend that may linger into March 8 with the potential for snow/mix/rain.

DAYS 11-15 (MARCH 9-13)

Uncertainty in this period as we may see the evolution of another blocking pattern leaving this area vulnerable to disturbances along a temperature battle zone. There will be a lot to sort out in the days ahead.

66 thoughts on “Saturday February 27 2021 Forecast (8:35AM)”

  2. We may have a very interesting set-up for the first weekend of March…. Something to monitor.

      1. As far as a week in advance goes, there are some pretty strong signs of the pattern that can result in a winter storm of some kind…

  3. Thanks TK
    My comments from Previous Blog
    If Logan records 0.2 they will be tied with NY anything greater they are in the lead.
    Now I would love to see this trend closer on the 0z EURO and have that one game snow event between BOS and NY decided this.
    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=ecmwf_full&p=prateptype_cat_ecmwf&rh=2021022700&fh=204&r=conus&dpdt=&mc=

    TK Comment on Previous Blog
    The Euro is probably too fast and too far SE with that system.

    1. My out-on-a-limb prediction: Boston will surge ahead of NY after the first week of March is over. 🙂

  4. So BOS will get hot at the right time while NY goes into a slump at the wrong time. Will see if the baseball teams give us this much drama in the final weeks of the regular season battling for the AL East.

  8. https://www.weather.gov/media/notification/scn_21-20_gfsv16.0_aaa_update.pdf
    Information on the GFS upgrade for around March 17th.
    They are saying the following things will be improved on this update.
    – Improved 500-hPa height anomaly correlation scores and synoptic
    patterns in the medium range, including better position of relevant
    frontal boundaries.
    – Mitigation of the low-level cold bias seen in GFS.v15 during the cool
    season.
    – Increased identification of tropical cyclone threats with higher
    success ratio and longer lead times.
    – Improved QPF Equitable Threat Scores (ETS) and bias in the medium
    range.
    – Improved snowfall location and amounts with longer lead times.
    – Improved ability to capture the temperature profile in shallow, cold
    air masses.
    – Improved forecasts of stratospheric temperature, circulation, ozone
    and water vapor.

    1. I hope that all works out, because what I have seen is that the current GFS has been sniffing things out very well of late. It had the magnitude of Tuesday’s arctic air (initially over-forecast but then in the right ballpark) at least 2 days sooner than the GFS parallel as well as the Euro and at least 1 day sooner than the Canadian (which has been surprisingly good on our winter weather events recently).

      1. I think since the 3rd week of January and for the balance of February the current GFS has performed better at diagnosing sensible weather outcomes for SNE than its counterparts. Particularly from the perspective of the mid to longer range.

        1. The 00 / 12 GFS/ECMWF(blended with the control run) and the two NAMs is pretty much all I have looked at during this period. A very little HRRR within 24 hours here and there.

          I know TK, you have been high on the CMC / GEM, but I just can’t bring myself ….

          1. Eh..not super high on it. I’ve just noticed it nailed a couple things (it did the same thing a couple winters ago too). I just wanted to give it a little pat on the head. 😉

            1. Winter of 2010 – 2011 it was really good in SNE. I road the GEM/GEM ENS all winter. It did a great job picking up the differences between Boston Providence Worcester Hartford and valley vs elevation.

              Then it was so bad the next year, I pretty much disowned it forever…

  10. Thank you, TK. Love the March 4 look ahead.

    Two grands here decided to west their bathing suits out to play in snow this am. They didn’t last long but sure had me laughing out loud

    1. Euro model was advertising some fictional event for a while around March 3 into March 4. I had an idea that something may brew offshore and a little upper disturbance may come through around March 4 and that may still be the case but it will be hardly noticeable. What will be noticeable is the colder air filtering in later in the week after a quick rebound Wednesday after our very cold Tuesday. A lot of temp roller coaster coming up, some sharp grades, others more gradual.

  11. For anybody who would like a nostalgic musical trip, this YouTube playlist (on my YouTube channel taken from a series of posts by someone else on their channel) strings together 27 songs used by The Weather Channel most recently on their Weatherscan channel before it was taken down forever…

    The songs originally had voice-overs on them (which I didn’t care for that much), but the guy who uploaded them recorded each song several times so he could then edit them in such a way that the entire song could appear without any voice over interrupting the music, so what you get here is the straight songs with no interruptions.

    Tracks 5, 9, 15, 21, 27, and 31 are omitted because those were composed by my Facebook friend, Trammell Starks, who actually wrote 39 or 40 songs for TWC. Those 6 tracks and the rest of his others are available on CD. I got the set from him several years ago. But here are the others….most of these are production tracks by uncredited writers / musicians, however they are quite brilliant. The track numbered 32 (the next-to-late song on this playlist) is a song called “Follow” by Jack Mascari. My favorite tracks are labeled 22 & 33, but I love them all. Track 22 is one of my all-time favorite instrumental pieces – dynamic & dramatic, excellently written & performed!

    It takes about 1 hour and 35 minutes to listen to this entire playlist. 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxP_26W5YRO4VQ2__fSd2udL6LDBXBGzz

    1. I doubt more than a Trace, but I’ll know for certain later today. Maybe 0.1” at best? NY should still be in the lead for at least one more week.

    1. No strong blocking – wouldn’t surprise me if it trended northwest with subsequent model corrections.

    1. That is general was a pretty wintry run with near to below normal temps through mid March and an additional storm passing south of us with a wintry weather threat later in the period.

    1. Those are model runs showing a PNA spike later next week which should drive a trough down into the eastern US and support coastal storm development.

  19. The snow was coming down quite decently early this morning at work . It was actually the kind I like , the kind that does not stick lol .

    1. The idea here is that the waters of the North Atlantic are warming significantly. Could have implications on our weather such as stronger storms/more amped nor’easters in the winter, potentially higher humidity in the summer, etc

      1. Vicki……I mentioned “Virgin River” to my wife. Turns out she has been watching and loving it.

        She apparently doesn’t tell me everything lol

            1. Heart of Dixie is 2011. Robyn Carr was very farsighted. The question is was heart of Dixie based on virgin river. FWIW the Netflix series is not close to as good as the books. It also takes quite a bit of liberty with the actual story.

                1. 21+ Books. I’m on second read of all of them. Oldest and I read all 20ish years ago.

                  Netflix as I said is good. Books are far better

            2. I thought Virgin River was a Netflix original with first season in 2019? Did Netflix even exist in 2007? Hart of Dixie was originally on the WB starting in 2011

  22. The change in the North Atlantic circulation has already been partially responsible for the higher incidence of high pressure in eastern Canada during the warm season in the last decade or so.

    1. He’s extremely fortunate to be alive. Perhaps Tiger can contribute to the sport of golf in other ways other than on the course itself.

    1. Always a possibility. We’ve had some pretty big snowstorms in March in recent years. And there’s always the legend of 1956 … After that winter my father vowed to never put away his shovel until after Patriot’s Day. I wasn’t born in 1956, but my father never tired in telling me about it. It was his initiation into Boston’s weather surprises in late winter/early spring. Growing up he had lived in Baltimore and North Carolina.

        1. What would you like to hear?

          I know there were 3 storms And one of them was on the 1st day of Spring. I was 9 at the time and remember having to go on an errand to town to pick up something for my Mom.
          The snow was up to my waist, but I trudged through. I loved it!!!

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