Murky Weekend / What Lies Beyond?

175 Comments

9:41AM

The weather is in a lazy mood. Not just this weekend’s weather, but the overall pattern impacting southern New England. What potentially could have been a windy and record warm weekend with sun and clouds will instead be a mainly overcast, foggy, and at times drizzly weekend (though Sunday will still improve a little over today), as we bring the warmest air up over some stubborn cooler marine air stuck near the ground. Again, the worst of that will be today as we will finally start to break out of it during the day Sunday, but just in time for the arrival of a cold front from the west.

How will the cold front, which will mark the start of a new weather pattern, be lazy? Well, the front will barely get itself by us before running out of steam offshore. The jet stream is not helping, as it will be slow to change its configuration as an area of low pressure in the upper levels coming out of Canada will be pushing against a strong high pressure ridge holding on over the western Atlantic. So the front will have to wait for reinforcing pushes later in the week, and even this will get done somewhat lazily as the polar vortex (or strong low pressure area in the upper levels with lots of cold air reflected at the surface) never really makes a hard push southeastward into the USA but rather elongates across southeastern Canada. When this happens, the coldest air doesn’t come in as hard as it may under another pattern. So yes, it is going to get colder, perhaps very cold at times, but the coming cold snap which has been prematurely (in my opinion) advertised as a possible record arctic outbreak, will probably not turn out to be all too memorable when we look back on it.

A memorable Arctic outbreak will be remembered as one that set numerous record low temperatures, and record low-high temperatures, during its run. Such an outbreak occurred in 2 shots in January 1982 (“The Ten Days That Rewrote The Weather Record Books”), with another memorable one in January 1994. I’m not so sure what is coming up, at least initially, will fall into the same category that these events did. If things come together just right, down the road a bit at the end of January or sometime in February, we may be talking about something more substantial in terms of cold. Big snow, in my opinion, is now going to be even harder to come by, since it seems like the PNA/NAO do not want to work together to set things up just right. It’ll be like trying to roll dice several times and only see a major snowstorm if you roll a double-six. Welcome to Weather Vegas!

It will be interesting to see how this all works itself out in the atmosphere in the coming days and weeks. One thing that has been sure, other than the bump in the road slightly wetter than normal December, we remain in an overall dry pattern and regardless of whether you love or hate snow and cold, we may be setting up for some drought issues down the road if we enter Spring/Summer in the same dry regime we are in now.

In the much shorter term, we also have to look out for some coastal flooding issues at high tide times midday and late tonight due to astronomically very high tides. Thankfully, no major storm condition exists with onshore winds or we’d be seeing more serious problems. Minor flooding is indeed possible along the East Coast from Plymouth County northward.

The updated forecast for eastern MA, RI, and southern NH…

TODAY: Overcast. Areas of fog and drizzle. Highs in the 40s. Wind light variable.

TONIGHT: Cloudy. Areas of fog and drizzle. Lows around 40. Wind light variable.

SUNDAY: Mostly cloudy. Areas of fog and drizzle still possible in the morning. Breaks of sun possible in the afternoon. Highs push into the 50s. Wind light and variable eventually becoming SW 5-15 MPH.

MONDAY: Mostly cloudy. Rain showers likely. Low 40. High 49.

TUESDAY: Variably cloudy. Snow showers possible. Low 25. High 40.

WEDNESDAY: Partly sunny. Low 20. High 35.

THURSDAY: Partly cloudy. Low 16. High 32.

FRIDAY: Mostly sunny. Low 10. High 29.

175 thoughts on “Murky Weekend / What Lies Beyond?”

    1. Thanks Tom but there is a grammatical error: “It’s” instead of “its” – fixing it now. 🙂

  2. I’m just glad they didn’t salt when it was 35 degrees out when it was raining, I thought for sure they would have to just say we salted for cautiousness but we all know it wasn’t getting below freezing, I’m happy about that, have a good day everyone, on our way to Patriot Place To eat and go to the pro shop

  6. Thank you, TK. Your explanations are superb. I’ve learned more from your jargon-free descriptions and forecasts of weather than I did reading books for weather buffs.

    A glimmer of hope … The cold outbreak in Western Europe (mostly in the form of sun and cold), which is in full swing (even London will have a few days in which the mercury barely climbs above 32 – and it is finally going to be sunny there for a few days after weeks on end of the grays), may break down sooner than originally thought. In fact, the Dutch weather website suggests a 70% chance that the southwesterly (which really means the invasion of Atlantic lows) takes over by Thursday with a retreating Scandinavian high. Without knowing why there is this inverted pattern of weather, I can tell you for sure that there is one. A sunny cold day in Amsterdam (like today) usually means it’s cloudy here and relatively mild. The reverse will likely happen by Thursday or Friday and into next weekend, according to the mets in the low countries. How long this will last is anyone’s guess, as TK alluded to.

    1. Thank you Joshua. I have always thought that, despite all the fancy maps and tech, that a lower-tech spot and straightforward talk would benefit most people when it comes to learning about weather, and if you are a reader that already knows weather than it would benefit you on at least understanding my opinion on the weather. I can get long-winded and complicated when I want to, but I reserve it for in-person discussions most of the time. 🙂 Well maybe not the long-winded part.. HAHAHA

      At some point down the road I’ll be having a site with everything accessible, but there will always be an area to chat no nonsense about the weather. Hope you enjoy the blog for a long time to come!

      1. TK you are accomplishing exactly what you have stated. I think the majority of people who love weather are not as well versed as those here so high tech discussions would be lost. And those here who understand the high tech discussion already get it. So its a win-win. Sorry. Heading out and typing quickly so hope that makes sense. Bottom line. Joshua’s comment is right on the mark

  7. I realize some of the TV guys had upper 10s for Friday on their 7-days. They have to put #’s obviously. We all know how much Harvey LOVES the 7-day. 😛 … I’m staying conservative on my # for now based on the discussion above. I’m just not sure it hits full force this time. In fact, I’m almost sure it doesn’t.

      1. I saw that. I would verify if the PV lobe was more directly over us, but I’m not sure that’s going to be the case.

  8. My pats take. And it’s all mine. I’ve been listening to sports channel which should terrify everyone……a little knowledge….well you know

    Baltimore beats up Denver a bit but Denver wins. Next week i hope for Brady and Manning game. And as was already said on here it would be more exciting than SB. But with Denver beat up a bit today hopefully……….can’t say it. I’m too superstitious. 😉

    1. We still have spots that have 1 or 2 inches on the ground, but the vast majority of ground here in Woburn is now bare or patchy, so I guess we would be considered a “trace” of snowcover if you took an average of all untouched ground.

      That’s fine. It may be murky, but this weekend as my chance to get all the outside lights, cords, and decorations down and hanging in the garage where they will be reorganized, labeled, and stored properly by the Spring (long ongoing project to take over what my father used to do with this property). I’m in control now – look out… MUHAHAHAHA!

  10. Go Pats indeed. I am confident about tomorrow (10 point victory). Not so confident about next week’s opponent (Baltimore or Denver).

    For what it’s worth, I think Denver ekes out a close win against Baltimore in a cold mile-high stadium.

    I’m going with SF against GB, and Seattle will upset Atlanta.

    Unfortunately, if my predictions hold, the remaining teams (Denver, SF, and Seattle) are really tough opponents for the Patriots. In fact, the Pats don’t match up well against them. Playing Denver in Denver has never been fun for the Patriots. And Seattle and SF have tough defenses and unorthodox styles. They would do much better against, say, an Atlanta or GB.

  11. Looking at the GFS this morning is pretty boring. Your “cold and dry and kiss ’em goodbye” is looking pretty good TK.

  12. Thanks TK. How do you feel about any more big storms this winter? My Mom swears by the Almanac and apparently it called for a storm end of month and a blizzard in mid-February.

    1. Barry Burbank and I were in general agreement (and we confirmed this in person during a meeting last month) that even though we could not be completely certain, our odds of a “big one” would likely be higher during the 2nd half of winter, i.e., February into March, this season.

  13. The Almanac has been off this winter. It did nail the storm at the end of December which was a lucky guess and it will be interesting to see if the heavy snow around Martin Luther King Day, the mid February blizzard, or end of March Noreaster happen. If one of those happened I would be shocked.

  14. There are a lot of people I know swear by it. I don’t and find it humorous how Farmers’ think they could predict the weather using a formula several months in advance. They do get some things right but its not the 85% accurracy they claim. Its more like 20%.

          1. I try to keep my political thoughts to myself here but I don’t mind having a little fun at Al’s expense. 😉

            I still love how he travels the world and seems to be followed by record cold blasts and snowstorms, especially during the last 3 years.

              1. I will say the guys a bafoon but he’s like Donald trump, they keep reinventing themselves and he just sold a tv station and made record amount of money, in america unfortunatly that makes u headline news mostly in a positive way, again I’m in agreement he’s a guy that thinks he knows everything and goes over his boundaries at times hence why he’s into trouble at times,, Go Patriots!!

      2. Al gore speaks out of both sides of his mouth. Unfortunately because what he does flies in the face of what he says people use it as an argument against global warming.

  15. I have to laugh sometimes at the wording that gets used on the NWS point forecasts (which are very much automated). “The drizzle may be heavy at times”. Though by definition this is very accurately worded and very possible, it’s just funny to hear (or read).

      1. It might actually depend on the size of the raindrops that are currently falling…not totally sure about that.

  19. A murky day like today would actually be beautiful if the temps were about 10-15+ degrees colder with a nice deep snowcover. We actually had days like this during the 2010-11 winter. 😀

    MLK weekends have been known for storms (snow/ice/rain) in the past, but my bet is this time around it will probably be just cold and dry…and maybe not all that cold either, relatively speaking. We will see I guess.

    +NAO + (+PNA) = UGH!! 🙁

  21. Thru natick Wellesley wayland and a corner of Weston about 20% snow last nights rain did it in. As with TK I’d conservately say a trace.

  22. I see there were football predictions made earlier.
    I am going with the Broncos, Pats, Packers, and Falcons. The Denver Baltimore game will be the coldest game of the NFL season to date with highs only in the teens.

  23. We were supposed to spend the weekend in Harvard square. Sadly Mac had to work. As it turns out not such a nice weekend to be strolling the Yard.

  26. Peeking at the 12z EURO and in this version, the true very cold air arrives after not until next Sunday. Ahead of that arctic front, looks like 0 to 2C at 850mb, so maybe not so cold all of MLK Jr. Holiday weekend.

    Was in Plymouth for a bit and some mist and fog was settling in. Notice dewpoints are near or just over 40F regionwide and wind seems light S in Marshfield. Sure is going to be one mild January night !

        1. Hahaha. Are you laughing because I’m ….shall we say…..vocal enough…….that everyone knows where I am ;).

  29. Well that was a lousy call for Baltimore. Two QB would call a 4th and 1. They so stand in a class of their own dont they

  30. snow depth
    1 . bare ground no snow
    2 bare with patches of snow up to 2 inches ( charlie line) less than 50%
    3 bare spots with 50-70% snow cover
    4 mainly snow covered with maybe some bare spots in the woods 70-90%
    5 snow covered 90% to 100%

    billerica is at a 2

      2. I think most north and west of boston inside of 495 is around 2 with areas in interior southeast mass seeing a battle between 1 and 2.

  31. im really not sure who to route for in the denver game. One we lost against baltimore this year and baltimore had a tough regular season schedual while denver we won but denver had an easy schedual after thier bye hint when they went on a winning streak. On i do not like the fact of mile high but i also do not like the ravens.an other part of me says brady/peyton match up. I rather see the pats in but i know i rather see peyton and Eli any day how i hate ELI!!!!!!and i hope greenbay moves on and not seattle

          1. But Brady is one of the two most hated QBs (Payton the other) so its just my nature to give Payton the credit I’d like others to give Brady.

            1. both are great Qbs i rather have Payton have 2 super bowl rings than his brother ELI…. and why do so many people hate because they win 😉

                2. I sure hope we don’t have a game like this. I can enjoy this one but think is need oxygen if it were the Pats

  32. Denver Coach potentially just blew the game by NOT letting Manning pass on
    3rd down! I can’t believe that Flacco could make that play!!

        1. Agreed, but I always felt Peyton Manning’s receivers in Indy always got calls against opposing defenses and never could you hit Manning or it was always a late hit and 15 yards, so ……. I dont feel bad if Baltimore is getting a few breaks.

          1. The NFL is a business and like any other, they want to make money. A Pats-Broncos matchup would be a ratings bonzana and that is what will happen.

  36. Drizzle, fog … Overnight temps and dewpoints near 40F and maybe rising towards morning, that Charlie snow line is going to charge northwestward and northward tonight.

  38. A right whale and calf were spotted in Plymouth Its amazing the affect a few deg ocean temp makes. I have a neighbor who fishes most of summer He has Been saying for years that they are seeing species a short distance off shore that have never been here before

  39. Tom you say Manning gets all the calls ? You have a QB here that also gets all the calls. As soon as he complains about a play a flag appears.

  40. 54, 54, 40, 39, 38, 36

    The brand new BZ forecast this evening for high temps tomorrow thru next Saturday…… Bahahahahahahahahahahahahaha , I guess thats arctic cold compared to tomorrow and Monday.

  41. Thanks TK! Great discussion on what’s ahead, although not too promising for what I’d hope for in terms of real winter weather.

  42. I just set up a weather widget with the forecast for Naples, Florida, which is where my across the street neighbor lives in the Winter. Highs 82-83, lows 61-64. It sounds just about perfect… too bad it’s so hot in the summer!

    1. And buggy. When my inlaws were alive (sniff) and living in charleston SC, they left for summer. And it’s not as bad there as FL.

  44. good denver game i just do not want a double over time game here in new england. it would be to stressful. im getting the pepsi, popcorn, candy ready as well as the grill 😀

  45. Good evening, spent the past week down in the Research Triangle in North Carolina, weather was fairly blah there as well, just milder by 20 degrees or so. A lot of grey/overcast stuff. That said, pretty area and an easy airport (RDU) to get in/out.

    Next week I am off to Dallas for most of the week where with a predominate north wind the weather will closely mirror Boston (hi/low) for most of the period. I will miss the ease of RDU as DFW is a game show.

    My hope is we are looking at forecasting weather for an AFC Conference Championship game within 24 hours. Let’s refrain from any discussion on that unless we take care of business tomorrow, there is never a free lunch in the NFL playoffs.

    1. Maybe it will turn out that the 49ers-Pats monday night game earlier this season was a Super Bowl preview.

  47. I know it wont, but I’d love to see today’s high temps if the sun could come out……. its 42.6F atop Mt. Washington.

  48. Very interesting field left for the Patriots in terms of redemption factor:

    BAL – lost to in regular season
    SEA – lost to in regular season
    SF – lost to in regular season
    ATL – dnp

    1. That said, I have major concerns about Houston being a repeat of the Jets loss we suffered in the playoffs after blowing them out in the regular season.

  49. Fog is clearing somewhat in Sudbury – skies brightening a little. Very damp and raw outside – just some snowbanks in our yard and area. Haven’t been out yet to see if any more has melted around town or elsewhere.

    Have a good day everyone and Go Pats!

  50. Boy the GFS looks cold and a couple shots of snow throughout the 00z run. The euro also looks plenty cold.

  51. More snow melted in framingham yesterday than in most of last week

    And I’m watching the enthusiasm of youth. My SIL is putting his skating rink together. So maybe we will freeze soon????

  52. Ravens are in. My wife knew that they would win. She wanted to see Pats-Ravens.
    Reason: she loved the movie “The Blind Side” and thus she wants to see Michael Oher
    get a chance to play for the championship. Of course she wants the Pats to win!

    I still think that Denver blew that game. 2 reasons:

    1. The conservative coach would not let Manning throw on 3rd down on their drive
    to kill the clock.
    2. Denver NEVER should never have let the Ravens receiver get by them for that tying score. Never. The Safety should have been way back there to prevent this.

    In short, it should have been Denver, but it wasn’t. Such is life.

    GO PATS

    PS they “should” take care of business today.
    Reply

    2. The Ravens effectively pulled off what Tebow did to the Steelers last year, though it was in OT I believe – strange for Denver to be on both sides of the same type of play in back to back years. In both cases, it was the lesser of the two QBs (skill wise) that executed the play (though Flacco > Tebow). Makes me think in both cases the defense was not giving the QB enough respect.

  53. Our snowman in Sherborn was attacked overnight, his head was shrunk from the size of basketball down to a grapefruit. Hat and scarf are comically still there, but his face is scattered at his base.

  54. Weatherwise = Ho Hum
    Boring……………. zzzzzzzz

    Still not convinced that we get a full blown arctic attack. Still thinking a series of
    “glancing” bows where it will certainly turn colder, but not that cold, only to have warmth return. We’ll see. Some hints of something in 10 days or so. I’ll believe it when I see it. 😀

      1. Not convinced even normal. I’ll bet temps average above normal for January and we’ll see about February. 😀

      1. Don’t hold your breath Vicki…even 50 may be hard to achieve in some interior locals like yours. 😉

          1. Nothing even close to sun here in Dorchester. My bet is no real sun anywhere today. As long as Patriots win, that’s all that counts. 🙂

  56. If its going to be mild in the winter have wall to wall sunshine otherwise have it be cold and snowy! UGH meter remains at a 10 all week long with no snowstorms in sight.

    2. Enough of a western USA ridge to have a trof in the east, but the positive NAO doesnt bode well for the positioning of the trof to be snow producing for us and I dont think its deep enough for our area to be excessively cold.

      That is a deepening storm appearing in the Great Lakes 996mb, I think and it has deepened more when its over downeast Maine, 971mb ??? as it crosses New England. I’ll buy into an energizing clipper type storm on an arctic surge, but I think it results in a windy SW breeze with 40s that whips a strong cold front through and gives us a few days in the 20s next week. I’m typing this without looking, but I think its in the 168-192 hr time frame on the 12z EURO.

  58. The way this winter is going I would not be surprised if we beat last year in terms of getting less snow fall. Winter weather does not want to set up over NE. May be the reason is the Atlantic is just so warm. But who know I am just some dummy who like to talk about the weather.

  59. Italo posted a reminder on the WBZ blog yesterday that the 35th anniversary of the Blizzard of ’78 is this year! 😀

    Hard to believe it has been this many years now…I don’t believe any snow has fallen on the dates 2/6 or 2/7 since.

    1. I’m sure the local stations will have a nice special look back and Chronicle will probably do a full program on it. All footage that we’ve already seen but we’ll tune in again anyway. 🙂

      1. I came across an old newspaper I’d saved the other day. I know it was a difficult time but I have only good memories. I am certain many do not share my nice memories.

  60. I am working on a very long blog update piece by piece while I do other work in-house today. So it may be at least a few hours before this blog is posted.

    A few highlights…

    Colder this coming week – but not severely so. Below normal precipitation, again proving that CPC has been in error trying to forecast wetter than normal weather again in what is a dry regime.

    Arctic plunge the following week. Cold enough to challenge a few records but probably not a “top 10” outbreak. The big question is: snow with it? The answer: yes…. and not really. More on that later.

    1. Thanks TK…Barry hinted on his blog today that there may be a storm that tries to develop with the incoming arctic air late next weekend.

      Any early thoughts on that?

        1. From Barry:

          I am becoming more and more convinced that a couple of episodes of frigid arctic air is in the works. The first parcel could be introduced by some sort of developing storm near the area later on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It is too premature to be highly confident but I do see signs that some of the coldest air in several years could be charging into this nation including New England.

      2. The fact that it shows up on the Euro has me concerned, slightly. But it is also a northern stream arctic wave. In a flow that is not likely to sharpen up too fast, it would probably move right along. It may be a nice intro to the deep freeze.

        My mom wants to defrost her stand up freezer and clean it out. In order to do this she needs about 36 hours of very cold to frigid weather (lower 20s or below) outside in a protected area we store the food in. We may get that in the January 21-25 period.

  64. Good thing I didn’t discount the chance of sunny breaks this afternoon. Some areas got them.

    The lengthy new blog has been posted! See you there!

    Go Pats!

    1. Has anyone invites italod here? I see he was mentioned above. I see him a lot on the blogs. Sometimes we agree. Sometimes not but he seems very polite and interested in weather. However I don’t go to BZ weather so you would know better

      1. I have seen him invited several times in the past. It may be that he is reading and choosing not to post.

        1. Great. Thanks TK. If he is reading I know he understand we’d all welcome him. That goes for all who are reading of course

  65. Did anyone see the newtown PD honored at the start of the game and two children from newtown at the coin toss? Somehow we missed it so are not sure they showed it or if we were watching the Seattle Atlanta game

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