Saturday Forecast

76 Comments

9:22AM

DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 9-13)
Dry and cold is the theme of the weekend, and we have quite the wind event in progress, one that I underforecast somewhat. Mount Washington, NH, as of the writing of this blog, recorded a peak wind gust of 148 MPH this morning, their strongest gust in over 10 years. The wind is being caused by the difference in pressure between a departing storm in eastern Canada and a strong area of high pressure approaching from the west. Although the center of the high will pass south of New England late Sunday, it will be close enough to help winds relax, beginning tonight, leading to more tranquil conditions Sunday. We have been eyeing for several days now the period of February 11-13 for potential unsettled weather and now that it is fully within the this 5-day forecast section a little more detail will be attempted. First, an initial wave of low pressure will pass south of the region and the air will be too dry over New England for a snow area extending fairly far north of it to make it into New England without largely drying up, so Monday will probably be a filtered sunshine or patchy cloud cover kind of day, but dry and fairly chilly. A larger storm center will travel northeastward through the Great Lakes, a favored track this winter, on Tuesday before moving into eastern Canada during Wednesday. While many models have been forecasting a stronger secondary low forming closer to southern New England, I believe this feature will remain weaker until it passes the region, and the primary low will remain dominant. This would mean that precipitation would arrive Tuesday, probably as snow, with some accumulation, but we would avoid both a major snowfall as well as a significant icing situation as the circulation should allow it to warm up significantly both aloft and at the surface to change the precipitation to rain across the forecast area. Now keep in mind that all along I have been warning of model performance being very poor beyond 3 days, and I’ve taken that into account here, letting the overall known and fairly persistent pattern to be my main reasoning for leaning strongly in the direction I am going with this forecast. But as always, things can change and I will keep a close eye on the evolution of the upcoming storm threat. I do believe the progression of this system will be quick enough that we dry out before Wednesday is over, regardless of its details. And speaking of details…
TODAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 28-35. Wind NW 15-30 MPH with gusts 35-50 MPH. Wind chill often below 20.
TONIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 11-18. Wind NW 10-25 MPH with gusts 30-40 MPH early, gradually diminishing. Wind chill near 0 at times.
SUNDAY: Partly cloudy. Highs 30-37. Wind W 5-15 MPH.
SUNDAY NIGHT: Variably cloudy. Lows 15-22. Wind light W.
MONDAY: Partly sunny. Highs 28-35. Wind NW up to 10 MPH.
TUESDAY: Overcast. Snow develops during the day then transitions to sleet/ice/rain at night. Lows in the 20s. Highs in the 30s.
WEDNESDAY: Cloudy start with rain showers likely. Partly sunny and windy thereafter. Temperatures rise to 40s then fall to 30s.

DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 14-18)
Dry, seasonably chilly to start the period. Next storm threat in the February 15-16 window looks at this time like a Great Lakes cutter, but plenty of time to adjust and refine. Dry and cold follows this but we may need to look for a low pressure wave to the south (low confidence on this chance).

DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 19-23)
The long-shot potential threat of a colder system to the south close enough to bring snow exists early in the period but with very low confidence in this outlook for now. Overall pattern trends a little drier and is variable in temperature.

76 thoughts on “Saturday Forecast”

  3. 27F with a peak 27mph gust in Sutton. Wind is constant and sounds like a freight train moving through the woods surrounding the neighborhood. It was strong enough to rattle the house a bit in the night and whistle as it went by. Needless to say, I am enjoying every second.

    1. Here is the NAM 10:1 snow map as a comparison. You will note it counts
      all of the sleet qpf as 10:1 snow. ha ha ha when it is actually something in the
      order of 1.5:1 or 2:1 or so depending on size/shape of ice pellets and how much air is between each one.

    2. I have a hunch today’s model will end up being junk & not the final outcome. Timing will be critical to see some front end snow than to mix & finally straight rain

      1. We all agree snow to mix to rain. It is a question of timing and how long it snows before change. Not looking like it snows
        for very long.

      2. Today’s models have a better handle because the energy is over land and we are within the 3-day window of better model performance. It is highly likely the model runs before this were full of shit (and too much frozen stuff). 🙂

    1. Oh about 1 hour or so. 😀 😀 😀

      Just kidding, but not all that long.

      NAM shows something like 3-5 hours before sleet and another 3 hours or so of sleet before rain. None of the intensity appears to be all that great with the NAM
      anyway.

      1. I probably should have asked as to how many “flakes” before the changeover, the way this winter has been so far. 😉

    1. I think this is a function of the preceding airmass over New England.

      The primary low track and the late and close by secondary development may give depressing optics, but the front 1/3rd of the system, I think, can definitely have a wintry side to it.

  11. Just spoke with one of Macs cousins whose son and family live in Lake Tahoe area. They had four feet of snow on their deck from a recent storm. Another cousin who lives in Seattle called last night and had just managed to escape to their AZ home before today’s storm. I asked both to please make arrangements for snow to be sent here

  13. Philip, your comment on numbers of flakes is actually spot on. It really does seem like we’ve been able to count the numbers of flakes that have fallen from the sky this winter. Each increment (0.1 of an inch and sometimes a whopping 0.4 of an inch) is pitiful.

  14. I feel like while we get the heaviest of the precip we are snowing/sleet, but it will become lighter or end before it gets to warm at least for those of us that are west of I95. Precipitation ends earlier than what models are showing. Of course if secondary low pressure is more defined and furthern SE then totally different outcome.

  15. Given the high to the north, I expect a lot of frozen precip with the coming storm. However, probably more sleet than snow for all of SNE. Surface cold is stubborn, but cold air aloft is easy to get rid of in a case like this.

  17. First storm, sleet/snow
    second storm
    sleet/rain, probably all rain.
    third storm
    coldest of the storms?????
    the first or third system down the pipe line will be colder than the one on Friday.

        1. my phone sucks, yes Southeast, I did not have my computer with me at the time of typing my morning stuff, If you go back to my post on yesterdays blog, it says frozen Grandpa when it should of said Frozen Glandular………

  23. Mike Waunkum has 2-4” for Boston. He showed the Euro (5”) and NAM (7”) and decided to split the difference but leaning towards the Euro for now.

    Chs. 4, 7 have no snow maps at this time.

    Accuweather.com has 2-4” for Boston as well…fwiw.

    1. 2-4 would be perfect & more than enough to get my all nighter in . I’m very excited !! We shall see how it unfolds I think still early for numbers in my opinion only .

  24. If we take all the model runs today, clearly the first part of the Tuesday system is frozen precip.

    Additionally, a real warm sector event is possible next weekend, as that system projected very mild to warm today.

    1. ….
      and I saw recently that the southern tip of South America hit 90F after not hitting that mark for a long, long time.

    1. Thanks for sharing Vicki. That second song I don’t recognize, and not one of their best songs imo. Maybe for teen girls I suppose. 😉

      At that time, I hadn’t all that long turned three years old and still 9 months from the age of four. I may have watched but have no memory whatsoever. I hope it brought wonderful memories for you Vicki. 🙂

      1. It did bring back memories although I was never a screamer?

        Do you mean Till There Was You? It was one of my favorites. But I was really disappointed that my parents knew the song since of course everything the Beatles did was original

        The song was from music man years before as I recall

  27. There are 2 things this winter is solidifying in my mind…

    1) The models REALLY fail at snowfall forecasts until about 24 hours before an event arrives.

    2) I hate the phrase “front end thump”. 😀

    1. Haven’t you used that term in your discussions here TK? Ok, then what would you call a few hours burst of heavy snow? 🙂

        1. One of the new Ch. 7 mets used that term “plowable”. We will see what happens. Still a good 3 days away.

    2. And that alone stinks for media Mets. They sure as heck can’t wait until 24 hours out to start discussing. It would be remarkably irresponsible. Although the major local Mets are very good at pointing out potential

    3. I’m going to give you a front end thump if you discuss how bad the models ability to forecast outside of 24 hours is again.

  30. FTR: I don’t care if y’all use the phrase. I just dislike it. I have used it in the past. I developed a dislike for it this season after hearing it about just about every system and it only actually occurring once. 😉

Comments are closed.