First Forecast Of Fifteen

121 Comments

5:39PM

A new year is here, and it is now January. The weather will be behaving in an expected way for the month we have entered, with some cold air and a couple of storms passing through.

First, some cloudiness tonight caused by warming air aloft will keep temperatures from dropping too low, and a little less cold is expected on Friday compared to the last 2 days. It will be a bright day as high pressure continues to have influence on the weather here in southeastern New England. Low pressure moving across the southern US will turn northeastward through the Midwest and head into the Great Lakes by Saturday and Saturday night. Its warm front will provide overrunning for increasing clouds and then mix/snow breaking out during Saturday evening from south to north across the area. Enough cold air will be in place for some accumulating snow to start out, with the least chance over Cape Cod. Warm air will be coming in aloft rather quickly, so expect a change to sleet, rain, and freezing rain fairly quickly. At this time the expectation is that areas from the Boston area northwestward will accumulate 1 to 4 inches of snow, least southeast and most to the northwest, before the changeover. Temperatures should warm enough for sleet going to rain in the coastal plain and across southeastern MA into southern RI, but enough cold air may allow sleet and especially freezing rain to occur for much of the night from northern RI through interior eastern MA into southern NH with the exception of the Seacoast area which will also likely change to plain rain. There is a good chance of some icy conditions impacting travel where temperatures remain cold enough to support freezing rain. By later Sunday morning to midday Sunday, enough warm air should be in place in all areas so that the precipitation winds up as plain rain. Toward the end of Sunday, the cold front from the low pressure area will sweep eastward into the region with rain showers to start, some possible snow showers at night, and a colder/drier trend getting underway. A stronger northwesterly flow on Monday will transport cold air into southeastern New England along with dry weather. At this time it still appears that a clipper low pressure system will come from south central Canada across the Great Lakes and then across the Northeast later Tuesday through early Wednesday with some risk of snow/mix. Though at this stage it does not look like a big storm, we should monitor it as there will be some potential travel impacts. Expect a shot of wind and very cold air, the coldest for the season so far, by the middle of next week.

SOUTHEASTERN NEW ENGLAND FORECAST…
TONIGHT: Variably cloudy. Lows in the 20s. Wind SW 5-15 MPH, gusting around 20 MPH.
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 35-40. Wind W 10-20 MPH, gusting around 25 MPH.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 15-20 inland, 20-25 coast. Wind W 5-15 MPH, diminishing late.
SATURDAY: Increasing clouds. Light snow or mix possible by late day southern MA and RI. Highs around 30 interior MA and southern NH, 30s elsewhere. Wind light variable.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Overcast. Mix to rain Cape Cod and Islands, snow to sleet then rain southern RI and east coastal MA, snow to sleet and freezing rain interior MA, northern RI, and southern NH except sleet to rain Seacoast region. Snow accumulation less than 1 inch immediate coastal areas, 1-2 inches from central and northern RI through most of eastern MA, 2-4 inches Merrimack Valley through north central MA into most of southern NH. Temperatures 25-30 interior valleys, 30s elsewhere, rising to around 40 coastal areas at night. Wind NE to N under 10 MPH interior MA and southern NH, NE to E 5-15 MPH increasing to 10-20 MPH elsewhere.
SUNDAY: Mostly cloudy. Ice to rain north central MA and southern NH, rain elsewhere, all tapering off midday from southwest to northeast. An additional passing rain shower possible west to east afternoon. Highs in the 40s. Wind E to SE 10-20 MPH briefly shifting to S over southeastern MA, then shifting to SW all areas 15-25 MPH with higher gusts during the afternoon.
MONDAY: Mostly sunny and windy. Low 20. High 35.
TUESDAY: Increasing clouds. PM snow. Low 15. High 30.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy with snow showers AM. Sun and clouds PM. Low 20. High 30.
THURSDAY: Mostly sunny. Low 10. High 20.

121 thoughts on “First Forecast Of Fifteen”

    1. Yay. Thank you TK

      Question. Nws said evening. TK, OS? Anyone? What time do you consider evening? If it is getting slippery early my concern is as much with Mac walking as driving. Plan Bs are never a problem for me but it helps to plan ahead

      Thank you

      1. These systems sometimes slide in faster than the guidance says, so I’d say anytime after sunset is vulnerable.

        1. Thanks TK. That was exactly what I was looking for. You were 100% on timing for us a couple of weeks ago and I’m not thinking twice this time

  3. TK curious about your final comment in the last blog…how do clouds at night prevent temps from going too low? Thanks.

    1. Also how do we fare with snow this weekend in Woburn? A guess…I know you don’t give concrete amounts this early.

  4. you think we have a better chance of seeing more snow with the mid week clipper system than saturday night or do you think mid week system is to weak

    1. I think some areas have a better shot midweek, but the problem with that system may be the speed of it. It may be more of a glorified snow shower.

  6. Thanks TK.
    I made my bold weather predictions on the previous blog. TK and others I would love to read yours and see if any of our predictions happen when looking back at this on December 31st.
    Boston will have 2 double digit snowfalls before the winter is out
    Spring will be mild and I do think there will be some great stretches of weather during spring
    First 90 degree day will come in Mid May
    Summer will be warmer than normal with a lot more heat than last summer. I am thinking Boston will have 19 90 degree days.
    More thunderstorm days than last summer with 2 weak tornado touchdowns somewhere in SNE.
    Tropics will be quiet and no landfalls here in New England or on the East Coast.
    Fall will be mild
    First widespread snowfall for SNE will come in Mid December although I think parts of SNE will see there first snowfall in late November prior to Thanksgiving.
    White Christmas for the interior
    TK and others I can’t wait to hear your bold weather predictions for 2015 and will see on December 31st if any of our predictions happened!!!

    1. I’ll add some partly scientific, partly blind guess predictions this evening as I listen to a 30 year old recording of the Top 103 songs from 1984 that I taped off the radio on 1-1-1985 (a cloudy, damp, drizzly, rainy New Year’s Day in a Winter that had VERY little snow).

  7. TK’s Not-Completely-Science-Based 2015 Predictions

    Some of these are based completely on the regime I believe we will be in. A few of them are just wild guesses. You can figure out which are which and then put odds on how likely they are…

    During this year…
    – There will be 3 or 4 snowfalls of greater than 6 inches in Boston between January 24 and March 8.
    – Spring will come in quickly and break Winter’s back by the 2nd week of March.
    – Drought returns slowly the first half of the year and builds the second half.
    – Thunderstorms will be fewer than normal, however during one storm, a bolt of lightning will strike the Citgo sign during a rain delay in a Red Sox game.
    – New England tornadoes will be below normal with 1 or 2 occurring versus the average of 7.
    – Around 25 days of 90+ between late May and mid September. Boston hits 100 once in June, once in July, and once in August, for the first time ever.
    – No-show Hurricane season despite a Summer and early Autumn pattern that would bring them up the East Coast.
    – Boston will have a wind gust of 70 MPH or greater once during the year, and 60 MPH or greater at least 2 times.
    – The first measurable snow of the season will occur, at least inland, in October, despite a warmer than normal and dry Autumn.
    – A no-snow-November.
    – December will introduce a nearly snowless Winter of 2015-2016 with the only snow coming in snow showers as a series of Arctic cold fronts interrupt an otherwise mild and very dry month.

    That was fun. 🙂

    2. TK. Love it and if I may…I think the lightening will strike the citgo sign on July 5….a fitting date as the sign is in the appropriate location. 🙂

  8. Thanks for the forecast TK. Looking into your crystal ball, should those of us in central/northern Worcester County be concerned over ice accumulation? Will we be looking more at sleet or freezing rain? After the ’08 ice storm, my antenna always start twitching over a prolonged period of icing. Thanks, and happy New Year!

    1. There could be several hours of icing. Sleet would be better since it just bounces to the ground and doesn’t glaze everything. I am pretty confident that the surface will warm to just above freezing overnight so icing should diminish. But those little details are still a bit up in the air.

  10. I like the “arctic” blue background. Please keep it throughout the rest of the winter TK. 🙂

    TK – Will I get to use my shovel at all this month (like next Tuesday) or will I have to wait a little longer until February? I know it is a bit out of your normal forecast range but do you have any very early thoughts on weather conditions for the Pats playoff game next Saturday?

  11. Should I be concerned about driving Saturday night between Salem and Quincy? This would be along route 1a, so very coastal. Hoping to take some elderly relatives out for an early dinner Saturday in Salem and then head home to Quincy. I’m mostly concerned about any icing risk. Thanks!

    1. Not TK, but yes depending on when you will be traveling I would be concerned.
      One good thing, along the coast, once it flips from snow to rain, that’s it.
      There won’t be much if any icing at all on the immediate coast.

      BUT please check in with TK. This is just my opinion and I am not a Met.

  12. Waiting on 12Z NAM, but what I can say about the 06 RUN re: Saturday night
    The NAM wants to POP a coastal much SOONER than the other models, keeping
    the SNOW in longer in North Central and NorthEast MA almost down to Boston.
    Shows 4-6 inch amounts. Now, the 06Z GFS does NOT have this. In fact has virtually NO snow for Boston.

    Additionally, the mid-week system gets more interesting still.
    Looks to track farther SOUTH and sport a coastal just SE of MA coast.
    Much better position for snow.
    Latest runs show 4-5 inches across the area. So we shall see.

    1. Even though its the 6Z GFS, my money is on that scenario. Makes more sense given the set-up. The NAM has been nothing short of garbage so far this winter season. The mid-week system i hope will continue to show more and more snow for our area and will end up being the first 3+” “storm” for Boston

      2. Yup I agree!! Lots of rain Saturday night and Sunday, but the 1st meaningful snow event is on its way for Tue into Wed. A general 1-3,2-4 inch snow event is on its way, it’s not much and going to be moisture starved, but it’s something.
        Sunrise: 7:11:57 Sunset 4:25:02
        Good day 🙂

  13. TK what does Tim Kelly mean here?

    Tim Kelley NECN ‏@SurfSkiWxMan 7m7 minutes ago
    Last couple runs GFS right out of @WBAnalytics long range forecast playbook. Analog Nov/Dec 1977 & January 1978. Look out Below!

    Only thing I can say is that was a quiet Winter until mid-late January.
    Had 1 decent snow/sleet and one Monster snow in Jan and then of course
    Feb brought the blizzard.

    Thoughts? Comments?

        1. I’ve never been a fan of Tim Kelley but this isnt a comment on him. If i had a dollar for each time a met or anyone has made references or analogs to the blizzard of 78 winter AND nothing ever came of it, id be a very rich man

    2. Analogs are so so. This year they are not great at all. Don’t give the statement any weight.

  15. Level 1 snowfall (4 inches or less) for tomorrow which will be washed away. Be careful to anyone traveling tomorrow evening and night as it does not take much snow or ice to make things slippery.

  16. My couple of “bold” predictions about the next few weeks:

    * Most places get less than an inch of rain from this next storm. I heard at least one TV met yesterday say up to two inches of rain. No way. Also very little front end snow.
    * The midweek clipper looks very interesting to me. I may have to eat my words about no widespread 4″+ snowfall through mid January. It won’t be a major storm but I could see a few inches out of it.
    * Warm mid-January with little snow.
    * Potential major pattern shift to a colder/snowier pattern late January and February as the teleconnections and MJO start to align favorably.

    1. The last forecast I saw was for up to an inch of rain most areas. Not likely to exceed that amount.

  18. Right now, the forecast for Saturday afternoon’s Pats playoff game looks rather ordinary. No precip of any kind with temps around 30 at game time dropping into the 20’s during the game.

    2. It’s just an image of where the winter storm watches have been posted for MA northward into VT and NH

    3. Jimmy…Winter Storm Watch for central and parts of western MA until Sunday 10:00 am according to map.

    1. The latest NWS snowfall map is quite generous with 1-2″ for not just Boston but for a good part of SE MA. No way will that verify for those latter locations especially.

  22. Harvey Leonard ‏@HarveyWCVB 2m2 minutes ago
    Expect slippery travel Sat. Evening due to a combination of snow & sleet #wcvb

  23. Mayor Marty Walsh ‏@marty_walsh 2m2 minutes ago
    Boston is leader in healthy environments. We will convene a regional climate preparedness summit in the spring of 2015. #THIBos

    Shall we ALL attend?

  24. I93 crash In NH. Portions of I93 closed

    Matt Noyes ‏@MattNoyesNECN 1m1 minute ago
    Our @NECN newsroom following reports of dozens of cars in pileup on I-93 NH incident in snow squalls at mile 76.

    Matt Noyes retweeted
    nh dot i93 ‏@nhdoti93 32m32 minutes ago
    CRASH UPDATE: Ashland I-93 NB closed north of Exit 24, motorist are advised to detour before Exit 24.

    Jeremy Reiner retweeted
    Michael Page ‏@MichaelPageWx 4m4 minutes ago
    Update: I-93 crash involves dozens of vehicles

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6Wwl-sIEAAyZkC.png

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6WwmHfIUAEEaT7.png

    1. Wow, that’s wild. I’m very familiar with that area, Plymouth State is exit 25. That’s just crazy, there’s usually very few vehicles in the area to begin with. Must have been an absolutely blinding squall.

  26. Goes to show it does not take much snow to make things slippery.
    I have not seen any snow showers today as they are missing me to the north. These snow showers and squalls coming from Great Lakes region.

  29. Some flakes here too. I almost took a picture but they were fleeting….like Bigfoot….

    For those who have forgotten..

    -they are white
    -appear to be well engineered structures
    -and I think they’re cold. (I was in the car and didn’t get to touch one)

  31. Thanks TK and Happy New Year to all! I haven’t been on much as I have been enjoying a relaxing vacation week with the kids. Tonight we will celebrate my son’s 7th birthday. Can’t believe how fast the time goes! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

          1. That is pretty cool. We lived across the street from the Cambridge reservoir in Belmont when I was a kid. It was a raised resi and the back side of it had a double hill. We spent hours sliding down in summer on cardboard. These would have been great!!

  32. 12Z GFS and 12Z Euro paint something like 2-5 or 3-5 inches across area
    for mid-week clipper like system.

    2. Are we looking borderline as far as temps go for that system or are we looking at potential fluff factor? I know clippers are usually colder but with this winter so far i cant assume anything

          1. It’s the water content of the snow, not the temperature on the ground. So it depends upon
            what’s going on where the flakes form.

            My guess is with this system there WILL be a fluff factor of some degree or another.

            1. Thanks OS. Makes sense. Even though it might be a little moisture starved I could see 3″ of snow Boston with just 0.2″ QP

            2. It’s nearly ALL about where the snow forms. If the water content of the snow is such that the ratio is 20:1, and it falls into 32 degree air at the surface, the ratio is STILL 20:1. The surface temp may make the snow wetter as it is near the melting point, but it’s still low water-content snow.

  34. Playing around with the forecast for tomorrow right now.

    I am working through some issues with the NAM output. In August the NAM was upgraded to correct some of its convective feedback issues and its tendency to hold on to precip too long and it is the fastest in moving the precip out of the area and it is not way overblown on precip, a matter of fact it is lightest on QPF. The problem with it is its cool bias is even more pronounced since the upgrade, particularly during precip events, and its surface winds have been way underdone at times. Thus the reason NCEP had to beef up the GFS’s sampling a few weeks back to strengthen its short term output and we had also those crazy swings in its mid and long term ouput. The NAM has a real significant icing signal at ORH with a 0.5 of sleet and fzra with no change over to rain at all.

    The GFS is showing a pretty strong signal of enchanced precip along the east facing hills of Worcester County and Berkshire County, but also pretty much a rain to snow with little mixing in between.

    ECWMF has the most snow with generally up to 2″ south of the pike 2-4″ north of the pike and up to 5″ north of RT 2. The snow thing is tricky, as the atmosphere is warming, not cooling and there is not a lot of cold air to pull down, just cold surface temps to erode. By 7pm the 540 line is into Southern VT and Southern NH with 850 temps just below freezing, then critical thickness levels approach 560 over SNE during the following 12 hours.

    However, going with an earlier onset starting during the mid to late afternoon, I think we do pick up some snow in most areas and feel comfortable with a general 2″ snowfall in most areas of SNE from this system with the exception of the south coast where little will fall, with up to 4″ in some localized areas to the NW. Generally in most urban areas of metro Boston, I think the mixing signal is weak and we get no more than a 2-3 of hours sleet and freezing rain and then most of what does accumulate will be washed away in a general 0.5″ of rain that falls into late Sunday morning. Exception to the quick transition out of the mixed precip might be some sheltered low lying areas in the CT RVR Valley and MRMCK Valley.

    GFS/ECMWF are pretty uniform with ~.15 QPF west to east, Springfield to Boston on Wednesday. It all depends where the snow forms and if maybe in its wake we could pick up some ocean enhancement along the coast to add some dry fluffy accumulation there.

      1. But you will do it much more coherently than me, mine was just a stream of jumbled thoughts I posted as my tool to figure out my own cohesive forecast.

        2. Only in that I will explain it for people who have no idea what to make of a model will understand. I basically leave that for the comments section. 🙂

          But your analysis is basically the same as mine today.

  37. Pretty BIG pileup on 93 inNH. Not sure how many cars were involved and I am not sure if it is weather related. I’ve been reading 50-100 cars for a couple of hours.

  39. Balhooey!!!!!!

    18Z GFS (yes I am well aware that it is the 18Z run) BACKS OFF on the mid-week
    system. System looked good and then it turned over Illinois and moved over
    the lakes well into ONTARIO before trying to still develop a coastal, as per usual,
    TOO LITTLE TOO LATE off the MA coast.

    It NEEDED to track more to the South to get that coastal in PRIME position.
    Doesn’t look to happen at this point.

    Here are the snow totals. Read em and WEEP.

    http://www.instantweathermaps.com/GFS-php/showmap-conussfc.php?run=2015010218&time=48&var=ASNOWI&hour=117

      1. I love the background as well. I will call it “arctic” blue. Please keep it the rest of the winter TK. 🙂

  42. TK…When you get a chance I have a couple of questions that I posted above this morning:

    1. Will I get to use my shovel for the Tuesday-early Wednesday event or will I have to wait until February? Approx. how many snow opportunities for January in general?

    2. What are your early thoughts regarding the Patriots playoff game next Saturday weatherwise? I suspect very cold temps but any snow??

    Thanks in advance. 🙂

    1. Sorry for missing the stuff earlier. Sometimes I don’t scroll back far enough, though I usually attempt to.

      1. You may need the shovel for late Tuesday but so far it looks like a minor, fast-moving system. I am watching for the possibility of this thing looking promising as it approaches but then almost “hopping over us” and redeveloping offshore. Will be watching for that. As far as the rest of January, I’m more concerned with some big temp swings in the coming week than I am snow, but as we go through the month we’ll have a few more opportunities beyond the one next week. Can’t pin-point this far out, but with another Arctic air mass nearby in about 12 days we’ll have to be on guard.

      2. EARLY thoughts on the game for January 10 is dry and cold.

      1. Thanks TK. I will prepare myself to be disappointed yet again come Tuesday. I have to remember that only rain events always come as advertised while snow events likely will go wrong at the last minute. East Coast Meteorology 101? 😉

        As for the Pats playoff game, Indy looks to be the best opponent since they play indoors. Regardless, hopefully the offensive line improves DRAMATICALLY. 😀

        1. In addition, Barry on air said that another arctic outbreak will arrive one week from next Thursday!

          I suspect there will be a lot of “wasted” cold air for most of this month with mild air arriving briefly just in time for snow to rain/rain events like this weekend. 🙁

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