Friday Forecast

66 Comments

7:21AM

DAYS 1-5 (DECEMBER 20-24)
And now for some “in-between” time as southeastern New England sits between 2 jet streams – polar near the US / Canada border and subtropical far to the south. This is a fairly quiet pattern, with changes not containing much fanfare. We start out under the influence of a very cold high pressure area that will move across the region through Saturday then off to the south after that. A weak upper disturbance brings the only shot at any precipitation during this 5-day stretch, and that would only be a few flakes of snow Saturday night if it occurred at all. A milder westerly air flow arrives Sunday into Monday, then a cold front drops out of Canada with slightly colder air by Christmas Eve.
Forecast details…
TODAY: Sunny. Highs 22-29. Wind NW 5-15 MPH.
TONIGHT: Clear. Lows 0-5 interior valleys, 5-10 elsewhere except 10-15 urban centers. Wind light variable.
SATURDAY: Partly sunny. Highs 30-37. Wind light variable.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. A few snow showers possible. Lows 20-27. Wind light variable.
SUNDAY: Partly sunny. Highs 34-41. Wind light variable.
SUNDAY NIGHT: Clear. Lows 24-31. Wind W up to 10 MPH.
MONDAY: Sunny morning. Partly cloudy afternoon. Highs 35-42. Wind W 5-15 MPH.
MONDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Lows 20-27. Wind W 5-15 MPH.
TUESDAY: Partly cloudy. Highs 30-37. Wind N 5-15 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (DECEMBER 25-29)
Weak low pressure from the west brings clouds and possibly a bit of light mix/snow December 25 with lingering snow showers early December 26 before fair and colder weather is in place through December 27. A temperature moderation follows and there may be a minor precipitation event by the end of the period, pending the track of an approaching low pressure area.

DAYS 11-15 (DECEMBER 30-JANUARY 3)
Precipitation threat early in the period, pending the track of low pressure passing through the Northeast. Mostly fair, colder weather to end 2019 and start 2020 as the polar jet stream dips down into the region with a mainly west to northwest air flow.

66 thoughts on “Friday Forecast”

  3. Thanks TK.

    JPD: Did you see the updated Logan snowfall data in the previous blog?

    Every 0.1 inch counts. 😉

    11.5” to date.

    2. No, I did not. Which date was that? Did they catch a bit of the snow showers/squalls from Wednesday? As I did not for sure.
      Mark, did you get any snow from the snow squalls?

      1. It had to have been Wednesday with the squalls. I was in Brookline and all I saw was a few fleeting flakes. This may be the winter that Logan actually “overachieves” relatively speaking in this case.

          1. In addition, I do seem to recall watching one of the tv mets put the radar in motion and I did notice a sudden “blue blob” appear right over the harbor then vanish as suddenly. I didn’t think a thing about it at the time.

            Energy (Arctic front) combined with warm harbor?

  5. This is a great pattern to be in,it’s safer under foot and saves the municipality’s allocated snow removal budgets.

    1. Many municipalities have blown through 1/4 to 1/3 of their seasonal snow budgets already! It has been a very interesting start to the season with a couple long duration events.

      Sure beats a couple of the recent Decembers where we received almost no snow!

  6. Thanks, TK…

    Last school wake-up and commute of the decade!
    Woo-Hoo!!!!
    A nice 12-day school break coming up at 1:50 pm.
    I am sure Tom will share in my anticipation!

    14 degrees this morning’s low, two ticks greater than yesterday morning.

    Enjoy this beautiful last full day of autumn, y’all!!!!

      1. I feel your pain, amigo.
        I am keeping the kids working today…Light work.
        Although they will never admit it, if you stay busy and not watch “The Polar Express” for the 500th time, time will go by faster.
        I tell them that I am not the Grinch incarnate! 🙂

    2. Back in my day, we only had 9 days off. Kids are sooo spoiled today. 😉

      Dec. 24 – Jan. 1

      Have a good break to all of you teachers here! 🙂

      1. Normally, yes, Philip. December 24-January 1. It’s just that Christmas is on a Wednesday, this year, and they are not going to open the schools on Monday, December 23 for one day.

        2. Yep…economically it’s the prudent thing to do. Same thing happens on the reverse end iirc. If Christmas falls on a Thursday then schools stay closed on Friday January 2nd. Happened when I was in school back in the 60s and early 70s.

          2. Since New Year’s is on a Wednesday, back in my day we would have been right back in session for Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd. As long as there was 2 or more days available, you were hitting the books once again.
            SSK’s son is VERY lucky by the old standards. January 2 was just as much of a school day as February 2, unless it fell on a Friday or a weekend day.

            I guess I am clearly BEHIND the times. 😉

            1. It goes back to the 180 days of classes rule.
              If you don’t want to be in school on the last day of June, you have to attend classes either ends of vacations, holy days, start before Labor Day.
              Labor Day is late in 2020. We are starting the year on Wednesday, September 2. September 1 is a state primary election day and the town uses the high school as a polling place.

            3. Sutton and most schools out here return on the second.

              No matter how many days off, we still went the same number of hours and days. I’m afraid I will disagree that kids are spoiled. Kids are pushed far too hard and are allowed very little time to just be kids. Not to mention the pressures on teachers.

  9. Thanks TK.

    Dave, we did have a brief squall in Coventry on Wed. PM. I was at work in Manchester at the time (didn’t do much here) but my son said it snowed pretty good at home for 10-15 min. There was a coating when I got home. Hard to measure with the wind but call it 0.3″.

    1. Eric Fisher response:

      @ericfisher
      19h

      For those who see all those long range snowstorm maps on Twitter/Facebook, this is a good thread to go through.

      Basically, the idea is don’t ever bother worrying about anything more than 5-7 days out. Waste of mental energy/stress.

  15. Teleconnections still looking good today for end of the month and beginning 2020…

    -NAO
    -AO
    +PNA

    Not much agreements amongst the models on the MJO but most have it largely neutral for the next couple weeks.

  18. I just checked the Boston Public Schools calendar and the students go back January 6 as well. However, teachers do have to return on January 2.

    When I went to BPS back in the day… 😉

      1. I understand all that. It’s just that I’m sort of envious I guess because I used to get bummed out knowing that I had to return to school the very day after New Year’s Day most years. Not that I moped around or anything like that. Times were just “different” than today is all. 🙂

        1. I just did a sampling of calendars around the state I found one other…Halifax…that has second and third off. All others I checked go back on the second. Including Cambridge and Worcester. I don’t see times any different today other than I think we push our kids way too hard

            2. Massachusetts child abuse system. Even though I got advance and could go to any state school tuition free because of it I feel any standardize test be it mcas or a state run test, SAT or GREs are stupid and do not measure future success once so ever. What it does is weed out those that are not good test takers

  20. Just catching up. I have been out since mid morning taking my mom and son out to brunch, then taking mom on some pre-holiday errands and a visit to my work since she knows some of the people there.

    School Vacations: I have no issue with how the towns / districts choose to do it. Maybe it seems silly to go just one day on Monday .. maybe not. It depends on your personal preference, but whatever the calendar is, it is. It seems the same people that would complain about having a “1-day-week” just once would be the same ones upset that the last day of school was June 20 instead of June 19. Sorry, but you can’t have the light on and off at the same time. 😉 Just roll with it!

    Weather: Regarding Judah’s observation of the CFS. I had noticed that myself, and that model has been halfway decent at the pattern of late, so I’d not be surprised if January comes in a little colder than I have in my winter outlook. I was thinking that pattern would be more for late January / February. Who knows. It still may be. 😉 I still feel snowfall runs around average for the start of 2020 but trends lighter as we get deeper into winter. As we get into January, our snow may come from clippers, while the occasional Pacific origin storms are cutters but lower than average rain-producers. Bottom line: Trend is dry/cold in the longer term.

  21. 12z Euro looking much more wintery after Xmas.

    This run showing a light snow event around 12/27:

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=ecmwf_full&p=prateptype_cat_ecmwf&rh=2019122012&fh=174&r=conus&dpdt=&mc=

    And then a significant winter storm for 12/30 with an approaching low from the west spawning coastal redevelopment south of New England courtesy of a block over eastern Canada. This one would be mostly a snow event for us verbatim..

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=ecmwf_full&p=prateptype_cat_ecmwf&rh=2019122012&fh=234&r=conus&dpdt=&mc=

    Euro run total for SNE:

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?rh=2019122012&fh=240&dpdt=&mc=&r=us_ne&p=sn10_acc&m=ecmwf_full

    1. I think a series of systems end up south of here. The other pattern I was talking about comes a bit later.

      We should achieve near normal snowfall in January with a lot of it coming the first half of the month.

        1. Somewhere between the South Coast and the Gulf Coast. How’s that for narrowing it down? 😉

      2. You still liking that mix event Wednesday night Tk wankum mentioned it doesn’t seem to think much of it

        1. I’m not counting out a little more than a tiny but and I’m also not counting out the event being here more quickly. Still over 5 days away though…

    1. Fight it with Christmas lights. 🙂

      It’s awesome what we can measure now that we couldn’t do as well before. 🙂

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