Monday January 16 2023 Forecast (6:45AM)

91 Comments

DAYS 1-5 (JANUARY 16-20)

A lobe of snow and some sleet will move quickly north to south this morning across the region on the back side of a complex ocean storm to our south and east. Some lingering rain and snow showers may be near coastal areas into this afternoon as well. The entire conglomeration moves more seaward away from New England later today onward, losing its grip on this region, but making way for another low pressure area approaching via the Midwest by later on Tuesday. This system, feeling the effects of the larger offshore circulation, will begin to yield to it and weaken, but its weakening precipitation shield will cross our region Tuesday evening, but not before we sneak in a few hours of nice weather to start the day on Tuesday. Behind this system a small area of high pressure builds in with fair weather Wednesday, but it will be on the mild side – definitely the pick of the week for combined dry and mild weather. Thursday also starts out nice, but clouds move in ahead of the next low pressure system heading our way from the Midwest and Ohio Valley. This is another system that originated in the active Pacific jet stream pattern. For us it will come along with mild enough air so that despite some mix/snow potential at the start, it will likely end up as mostly a rain event. But as the surface storm starts to move out on Friday we’ll still have to deal with upper level low pressure and somewhat cooler to colder air, so precipitation will probably go over to mix/snow showers as we remain unsettled that day, continuing the overall pattern we’ve seen so far this first month of 2023 which lacks sun and doesn’t lack low pressure moving through the region.

TODAY: Cloudy start with a period of snow and sleet moving north to south across the region, may be heavy for a brief time, then lots of clouds with occasional snow and rain showers favoring eastern areas, tapering off later in the day. Highs 35-42. Wind N to NW 10-20 MPH, higher gusts especially coastal areas.

TONIGHT: Clearing. Lows 25-32. Wind NW to W diminishing to under 10 MPH.

TUESDAY: Early sun, then clouds return. Highs 38-45. Wind variable up to 10 MPH.

TUESDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Spotty light rain/mix possible. Lows 33-40. Wind S up to 10 MPH.

WEDNESDAY: Partly sunny. Highs 45-52. Wind W up to 10 MPH.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 23-30. Wind variable under 10 MPH.

THURSDAY: Sun followed by clouds. Late-day snow/mix/rain possible. Highs 40-47. Wind variable to E up to 10 MPH.

THURSDAY NIGHT: Cloudy with rain/mix/snow likely. Lows 32-39. Wind E 10-20 MPH.

FRIDAY: Mostly cloudy with mix/snow showers lingering. Highs 35-42. Wind N 10-20 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (JANUARY 21-25)

Storm signal around January 23 (late 1-22 to early 1-24) – the last in the long-running Pacific parade. Too soon for details. Dry weather either side. Temperatures near to above normal.

DAYS 11-15 (JANUARY 26-30)

Overall drier, cooler trend but no signal for major cold at this point. Still will see a couple disturbances coming by but the origin is a little different than previously – systems translating across the country that have come into North America a little further north and with less moisture than we saw in the previous pattern. A couple of those bring precipitation opportunities for this region sometime during the final week of the month. Overall cooling trend in temperature but still no signal for major cold in this region.

91 thoughts on “Monday January 16 2023 Forecast (6:45AM)”

    1. Definitely heavier looking on radar than what’s going on at the surface. I was ready for something more than what’s falling, which is fine since I have to drive several miles in about 1/2 hour. 🙂

  3. Thanks, TK.
    We have about 1, maybe 2 inches of snow in Sudbury. Missed the sunset yesterday – thanks to all who sent in beautiful pictures. It started to snow here sometime after dark. Heard some sleet mixed in around 5 a.m. Nice to see some snow around here.

  4. Thanks TK. Looks like about 1-2 inches at most here in JP. Sounds liked some sleet mixed in as it was pinging the windows.

  6. Thanks TK.

    Snowing moderately now.

    Boston finally received its first “official” 1”+ of snow yesterday (1.6”).

    Worcester 8.2”, Boston 3.0” (Will update again later).

  15. About 1.5 inches in Natick—going to attempt to take my son sledding at Walnut Hill—-hopefully enough is on the ground

  19. I see another lobe of snow dropping down from just South of Portland, Me. Trajectory looks to get Eastern MA, but I suppose it could slide just East. We shall see.

  20. IMO that low center to the south is borderline hybrid/tropical now. Still no mention from NHC.

    2. I just measured what I could a while ago. I didn’t measure very 6 hours or whatever the “official procedure” is, so I am sure
      we accumulated very close to the same. 🙂

  25. I think Boston is up to 4.6 inches for the season. Maybe they will get to double digits this winter. I believe BDL has the most snow with 7.8 inches for the reporting stations in SNE.

  27. This may be is the type of rare snow event where Logan is the jackpot compared to the neighborhoods. 🙂

    It’s too bad though that Worcester got in on this ocean effect as well. Hopefully it was a minimal amount.

    1. The real jackpot is in Southeastern Massachusetts and parts of the Cape. Looks like they may get another batch of snow – 1-2 inches in places – in the coming hours.

      By the way, I don’t think what we got this morning was ocean effect. I could be wrong. I believe this was the outer band of moisture circulating around the now very large area of low pressure that is well offshore.

      1. I concur. I don’t believe that was ocean effect either.
        Most of what Boston got was NOT, imho. South Shore, I do believe got some OE.

    1. I’ve heard that even today under the right conditions that the sweet smell of molasses still exists in the North End. I imagine wind direction and temperature?

  31. Sharing an email from a colleague regarding the low NHC is ignoring…

    I don’t know if any links in here will work but reading it will just give you an idea.

    ”
    NHC has not even acknowledged the system several hundred mi SE of
    Cape Cod in a special outlook (edit: they just did – see next email), and
    even FNMOC does not show an INVEST, which is I find quite odd since
    they are very proactive and first to jump on starting INVESTs often well
    before a system even starts to organize. Site here:
    https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/tcweb/cgi-bin/tc_home.cgi

    And the models have been showing this evolution for days now, so it is
    not a surprise. So you have to wonder, what’s going on here?

    Not being classified at SAB. I just finished a stretch over overnights
    the Tropical Desk Sun AM. If I was working last night, I would have started it
    at as TS at 0530z!

    Not a reach at all here calling this a TS. I’ve seen a lot lamer looking-systems
    NHC named. This particular situation, from strictly a met analysis objective
    standpoint, it is clear what it is, no question. It has long since deeply occluded,
    has small wind field, is warm core (phase diagram clearly shows this), plenty of
    mdtly-deep convection almost completely closing off an “eye”, has an isolated
    small pool of high PWATs, over SSTs of 20 C, and satellite presentation is impressive
    overall which has persisted. Look at all the attachments I provided to support
    these claims. And the excuse, “it still has fronts attached to it” falls flat. You
    look at the 925 mb and sfc temps on the 06z GFS analysis, no temp gradient at all.
    NHC declared TS Bill off the NC in June 2021, and that clearly still had fronts
    attached to it (frontal wave with deep convection). Later it did shed its fronts
    and become legit TS, but you can’t have it both ways here. Consistency!

    Wanda in Nov 2021 evolved from an ET low and looked exactly like this. And
    we classified it (attached IR sat image of it). We need to be consistent here
    but w/o compromised the science. I agree NHC was going too far on the other
    end 2020 and 2021 but it seems they have flipped back in the other direction?
    Can’t there just be a balance here? I had heard through the grapevine late
    last year NHC was trying to get away from excessive naming, and this
    seems to confirm it?

    Maybe they will include it as an “unnamed TS” postseason. That’s what they
    typically did before going crazy with naming things real-time. As long as
    that’s done, that’s fine with me. Climo is important.”

  32. These lobes of snow are intense at times. It’s heavy snow right now and I think we’ve picked up another 1/4 to 1/2 inch in the last 15 minutes or so.

  35. Interesting that NS is all rain and even much of northern Maine is mixed frozen precipitation. I just noticed it on radar.

    This has become a fascinating storm to watch!

    1. No, but some untreated surfaces will be icy. A flash freeze requires a rapid temperature drop / freeze-up. Neither will be the case.

    2. A bit late to the party they are.
      Usually I am conservative on stuff like this.
      But this one I had to call it like I saw it.

  40. It looks to me that another batch is going to make its way down here from Maine later this PM or early evening.

  41. Thanks TK.

    “Invest 90L” is clearly a subtropical storm and has been for some time. No doubter. The only question is whether the depth of its warm core is great enough for a purely tropical designation, which is harder to say but I think possible.

    Obviously the SSTs are much below the “norm” for a tropical cyclone, but any meteorologist, let alone one working for the NHC, should know that isn’t a hard threshold. The storm bears a strong resemblance to 2016’s Hurricane Alex, which formed in, you guessed it, January. If anything this one might be better organized.

    In terms of the NHC’s handling, it’s likely they were asleep at the wheel and now are trying to save face by not designating it. We’ll see what they do in the postseason. Not really an “impacts” concern in the present, but doesn’t make one feel great about the state of that agency…

    1. Thank you!
      Yes I talked about thresholds. Very few hard thresholds exist in meteorology. Most of them are transition zones. I suspected it was at least a hybrid. I also think subtropical, hybrid, and even tropicals have formed in the Atlantic basin in the winter at various times throughout history. We just see EVERYTHING now. We didn’t have the tech to do it so easily, even just a couple decades ago, when things would be missed. They are obviously rare, but they are there. In a larger basin like the NW PAC, when I forecast in the 1990s to early there regularly there were plenty of “winter” tropical storms and even some typhoons. Yes it’s a larger basin and much more easily able to have a storm over warm enough water, but that doesn’t mean that conditions in a smaller basin such as the Atlantic can’t come together for it now and then.

  42. The Pacific pattern change is nearly complete. Time for the West Coast to finally dry out.

    I’m gonna be interested to see how the pattern in the East evolves over the next month or so. TK is probably onto something with the trend to a drier pattern after the Pacific parade ends, with some “messy” systems in the meantime leading up to that drier shift. But if I had to guess longer term, say over the next 4 to 6 weeks, I’d wager near to below normal temps and above normal snow for most of New England…

    1. With you on that. Thanks WxW!
      Basically the opposite of my original winter forecast. Go figure. But I’m not complaining – since we just got that window project in with very little difficulty – there were 2 unsettled days but of little consequence since the day with the most unsettled weather only required a couple hours’ work to finish the final couple things. 🙂 Lucked out.

      1. HAH HAH HAH HAAAA!

        For some of those people it ended before it started.

        I saw a post BEFORE THANKSGIVING saying “this winter sucks so far!” ……………………… sure.

    1. I believe that came from a weather watcher so it will be unofficial. The highest official amount (so far) is 3.7 from Kingston. We’ll see if NWS issues another update.

      1. We got over 3 for sure , it was snowing pretty good & there was a lot of snow on my truck this morning I had to clean for work .

    1. I can guarantee you Boston did not get as much as here , I’m sure Tom can verify that , not that you said that Philip.

      2. That’s the seasonal total, not this storm. Boston had 3.4 inches and have 4.9 for the season.

  45. Meanwhile it’s 50-60 F in Ushuaia. Humidity not sure reported at 50 %. Winds are unrelenting. >25 mph.

    The Drake registered an 8 on the Beaufort scale yesterday. Leaving for the Drake tomorrow night.

    It seems I am going to have to educate myself on Katabatic winds. I sort of get it but mostly don’t!

  46. TK – my post yesterday was not a criticism of your forecast, just a report of the conditions down here. Frankly, I absolutely loved the weather this whole weekend so I welcomed it with open arms 🙂

    1. I had to go look. I loved seeing you post but hadn’t seen any follow up. Not your style; but explains a few things. Tension on the blog was a bit high yesterday.

    2. I know. I was just teasing / joking. I didn’t mean for it to seem like I was upset. 🙂 … I was disappointed in my forecast though. Not one of my best.

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