Wednesday Forecast

95 Comments

2:21AM

DAYS 1-5 (DECEMBER 21-25)
The Winter Solstice occurs this morning at 5:44AM. Winter officially begins at that time.
Boston’s average high temperature on Christmas Day is 39. The last 4 years have shown us an even split with 2012 and 2013 showing below normal temperatures with highs of 35 and 28, respectively, while the last 2 were anomalously warm at 59 in 2014 and 62 in 2015 following an incredibly warm Christmas Eve. It’s most rare to end up with a Christmas of near normal temperatures. This will be one of those years. But before we get to that, we have some weather changes to go through, although none of them will be particularly dramatic, just typical of a moderating temperature regime and fast flowing jet stream taking energy mainly north of the region, with associated fronts moving through the region Thursday and Saturday, bringing minor precipitation at best.
TODAY: Sunshine. Highs 37-44. Wind W 5-15 MPH gusting to 20 MPH.
TONIGHT: Increasing clouds. Lows 22-30. Wind SW 5-15 MPH.
THURSDAY: Mostly cloudy through early afternoon with scattered light snow to mix morning from central MA into southern NH, scattered light snow/rain southeastern NH, eastern MA, and northern RI later morning to early afternoon, and scattered light rain southeastern MA and southern RI early to mid afternoon. Decreasing clouds from west late. Highs 38-45. Wind SW 10-20 MPH shifting to W late with higher gusts.
THURSDAY NIGHT: Clearing. Lows 22-30. Wind W 5-15 MPH.
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 36-43. Wind W 10-20 MPH.
SATURDAY – CHRISTMAS EVE: Variably cloudy. Isolated rain showers through early afternoon. Lows 22-30. Highs 38-45.
SUNDAY – CHRISTMAS DAY: Partly cloudy. Lows 20-28. Highs 38-45.

DAYS 6-10 (DECEMBER 26-30)
Current timing brings low pressure areas north of the region late December 26 to early December 27, and again around December 29. Temperatures fluctuate, average above normal overall, though brief cold shots follow the passage of fronts early December 27 and later December 29.

DAYS 11-15 (DECEMBER 31-JANUARY 4)
The same general pattern is expected with an overall milder than average regime and short-lived light to moderate precipitation events, favoring rain, a couple times.

95 thoughts on “Wednesday Forecast”

  4. Thanks Tk. Glad the doctors went well . I am absolutely loving this pattern let’s keep it locked in for as long as possible please .

  5. Thanks, TK. So glad to hear the great news from the doctor! And thank you again for all the work you do for this blog.

  8. Good morning and thank you TK.

    This pattern looks stuck like glue. Right now, I don’t see any significant changes through January 6th. We shall see beyond that. Will keep looking.

    The only hope for snow is some lucky event that catches us with one of the short lived
    cold shots in place. Other than that, FUGGETABOUTIT.

  11. Thanks TK! Glad to hear you’re getting closer to 100%!

    Not a whole lot of exciting weather to talk about. Only big question for me right now is how a big a deal will the Saturday system be. It didn’t even show up on the models a day or so ago and now we’ve got the 12z NAM showing a good portion of the day washed out.

  13. Looking for any signs of winter out there posting those tweets.
    This tweet from NY NJ PA weather. This is good in my opinion.
    There is growing indication that the mild pattern on the way will be cut short.

  14. The day 10 cool shot- should it even occur, as it is a bit early to be crowning a champion on a day 10 forecast- would be transient in nature. Absolutely no escaping an above to well above normal temperature regime for the next 20-30 days. I think TK has captured it well in his forecast. What we’re doing is going from a pattern of “cold with a few warm days” (the past couple weeks) to “warm with a few cold days” (the next few weeks).

    1. The habit of verifying model forecasts days and even weeks before the “event” is a very bad one in the meteorological community these days.

  17. Unfortunately if we do get some snow tomorrow it won’t last until Christmas with the increase in rain for Saturday. But will be fun to watch this unfold.

  19. Thursday: Scattered coatings mainly west & north of Boston.
    Saturday: Models over-forecasting precipitation.
    Sunday: Many people pre-verified this as a warm Christmas based on model forecasts. Mets should know better. Reality is this day will end up only slightly above average.

          1. Just not on the 29th (party) and not the 30th as I have to go to work and I do not want to be told I have to stay.(have plants that night :D)

  25. The 12z ECMWF snow totals that were shown above are so far out of their mind compared to low placement and path that they are comprehension boggling. That snow map displays a pretty serious error in the snow total algorithm that is used by that particular data provider.

    First clue -Westfield MA and Chicopee MA 12 miles apart and approximately at the same elevation, have a 9 inch differential in accumulated snowfall.

    I don’t know the ultimate placement of the low 12/29, but I can tell you the low placement correlating snowfall accumulation are not plausible. Maybe we do end up with significant snows, but not as depicted there and I would use any snowfall map as provided by that service with caution.

    1. Met’s point out the issues with this “king of models” all the time but they seem to be forgotten rather quickly.

      1. There are too many mets’ and non-mets pretending to be mets on the web who rip and read the ECMWF and in particular its snow tool output, with no regard for the potential illegitimate nature of its portrayed solution.

  28. Though the rest of the year seems to be quiet, I still think we get a decent hit in mid Jan though late Feb. Don’t just sit on -NAO, because remember a couple years ago the NAO was positive and we got crushed. A lot of other factors come into play that are unknown at this exact point in time.

  30. http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters/90S/imagery/rbtop-animated.gif

    This was a tropical system, I believe a tropical storm, about 4 or 5 days ago in the ocean northwest of Australia.

    Since then, it has moved ashore. I have posted a few examples of these during past winters and I believe TK has commented on them. Tropical systems that seem to spin endlessly, even after landfall, on the northwesternmost part of Australia. A neat phenomenon in that part of the world. Must be tremendous rain producers …..

    2. Yes, that is rather common in northwestern Australia for some of the stronger landfalling cyclones. The flat land, type of soil/sand, and heat can keep them going longer than you would see when moving over a landmass in most other locations.

      I’ve even seen a couple briefly strengthen after landfall.

      1. Wow. Thanks Tom. I had to study it for a bit to figure it out but thanks to your expkanation was able to. Yikes

      1. Nice to see someone around. Must be the season?

        If doesn’t get here soon, I fear raindrops as well.

        Heard a forecast on the radio: Steady rain this morning with
        highs near 40, “some snow could mix in”.

        1. I am sure folks are crazy busy with last minute shopping. If only we could throw in a little snow to brighten the Christmas spirit. It is the only thing I wanted to for Christmas and once again I am left empty handed.

  33. 0Z Euro has abandoned its delusional snow dreams and replaced it with a more
    realistic 2-5 inches across the area for the 29th. Clearly a time frame to watch. 😀

  34. Just checked my mobile app and holding at 34 at my house in JP, so For now,
    I still expect it to at least start out as snow. Whether it changes over or not is another
    question. it could, but perhaps the intensity will be enough to keep it snow.

    So far, it looks fairly impressive on radar and not wimpy at all.

  35. I’m here also. Hi JPDave, Sue and Tom. Sue, are you feeling better?????

    It is quite dark here. Always a good reason to turn Christmas lights on!!

    The street looked wet so I had to stick my hand outside to see if it is raining. It is not.

    28 with a 24 DP.

    2. Hi Vicki!!! I am feeling a bit better today and hoping I have turned the corner. Way too much to do and need a lot more energy to get it done!

      2. GREAT news, Sue. I hope you tried that remedy I sent you the recipe for. Works wonders. However, I’m never sure if it makes my colds feel better or whether it just makes it so I no longer care 😉

  37. Watched one of our favorite movies last night: “Love Actually”

    Absolutely adore that movie. It is so good on oh so many levels.

    1. Ohhhhhhh – thank you, Dave. I love Christmas movies but am in need of another type. I will plan to watch that tonight.

  38. It looks like a HOLE is developing on radar and the hole is about to envelop
    Boston with snow to the North, West and South, but nothing here……

          1. Very true my friend. And if we survived that then we can survive anything! Even the great “can it snow in May” debate!!!

  41. Here is the 0Z Euro Surface chart and 24 hour snow totals for 12/29.
    This looks oh so much more real than what was depicted yesterday. This at least
    has some “potential”. Could be snowier, but also could be more wet as it is still
    7 days out.

    http://imgur.com/a/HtCSz

  47. Just had a short burst of snow here.

    Updating now. This is going to be short today. We can babble about details in comments…

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