Monday Forecast

153 Comments

7:50AM

DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 13-17)
Storm departs today with lingering backlash snow northeastern MA and southeastern NH this morning to about midday with wind picking up, again strongest along the coast. Dry and cold interlude for Tuesday. Next system comes through Wednesday with some snow/mix, but not a major storm as it will be a weaker system and not phase up with other energy until beyond the region. This allows dry weather to return late week.
TODAY: Snow with additional minor accumulation morning-midday northeastern MA and southeastern NH otherwise overcast, breaking and thinning with time with some sun possible later. Highs 28-35. Wind NW increasing to 15-25 MPH inland, 25-35 MPH coast, with gusts as high as 45-60 MPH strongest along the coast.
TONIGHT: Clearing. Lows 15-22. Wind NW 15-25 MPH with higher gusts, diminishing overnight.
TUESDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 28-35. Wind NW 5-15 MPH shifting to W.
TUESDAY NIGHT: Increasing clouds. Chance of snow before dawn. Lows 18-25. Wind light SW.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy. A few periods of snow/sleet/rain. Highs 35-42. Wind SW 10-20 MPH shifting to NW late.
THURSDAY: Partly cloudy. Lows 18-25. Highs 35-42.
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny. Lows 8-15. Highs 25-32.

DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 18-22)
A warming trend with mainly dry weather then a risk of unsettled weather returning at the very end of the period.

DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 23-27)
Unsettled weather early to mid period favoring rain/mix as pattern will be milder.

153 thoughts on “Monday Forecast”

    2. I am in Methuen right on the NH border, and we have about 10 inches and still snowing faintly. I mean we fit into the projected 10-16 amount, but in my opinion the snow being heavier brought the ratios lower than expected. Just my 2 cents, and that and a bologna sandwich will get you a cold lunch.

  3. Good Morning and thank you TK.

    I guess some areas achieved the low end adjusted totals.

    But overall, still a major disappointment in my book for my area anyway.

    I just think that many of the broadcast mets and especially the NWS look really bad.
    You guys here were right on it all along. 😀

  4. Thanks, TK!
    Middleborough Public Schools…no delay, no cancellation!
    Students are grumbly (is that a word?) this morning, but will be happy come June 20!

  5. Thanks TK. Another snow day here in Plymouth, NH… feels like I’ve had more of those than actual class days this semester 😛

    We knew this would be a tough forecast, and it was. Still, if you look back at TK’s and SAK’s numbers from yesterday, most places did manage to at least squeak into the bottom of the ranges, and that’s why we have the ranges. A few missed low; in particular Boston metro was a challenge and areas south of the Pike really struggled to accumulate. I was never crazy about this storm for SNE. The Euro was too aggressive, and the GFS, while predictably too warm, had a better overall idea of how this would play out.

    On we go… we’re really missing out on a potential biggie midweek. Northern and southern streams simply not phasing in time. And then it’s onto the pattern change after our brief but respectable foray into real winter. Significant, widespread warmth on the way for much, or probably all, of the remainder of the month beyond 2/20. A warm end to what will go down as a warm meteorological winter.

  6. I have to laugh…

    The public nitpicks snow forecasts down to the 10th of an inch.
    Why don’t they nitpick our rain forecasts down to the 100th of an inch?

    IT’S THE SAME DAMN THING!
    Think about it!

      1. Certainly that’s part of it.
        Aside from a few puddles, unless there is a deluge, you really don’t see rain. With snow, it screws up everything and you can see it
        and see how much there is. If the forecast was for a foot and you
        only see a few inches, well, it’s noticed.

        If the forecast for rain was 1 inch and you got 1/4 inch do you notice? I might, but would everyone? NOPE, they just know it rained as expected.

    2. I agree it is the inconvenience factor. People do not like to have their routine lives interfered with in any manner. As I think about your excellent question, TK, snow may be one of the best life lessons we have. Life changes and nothing can stop it. Rather than viewing the change as being a bad thing, to me, the focus should be on the difference and the beauty and the adventure and, maybe more important, about appreciating what we have. On the scale of things, snow isn’t even close to being as devastating as what others face around the country and the world. So even if you don’t care for it, heaven knows that it does not come close to being the worst thing you will experience in your life. It truly is an event of nature that is beautiful if one takes the time to just enjoy it.

  10. Thanks TK
    We broke curse of accumulating snow in October and a below normal snowfall for the winter. With the 5.1 inches from this storm BDL now is above normal in the snowfall department with a total so far of 41.4 inches. Normal snowfall for season is 40.5 inches.

  11. Ended up with about 10.5 inches in groveland…not too shabby, certainly would have liked more….I know there is a lot of talk about warmth on the way but I wonder with the deep snowpack in maine and nh if we don’t see a backdoor cold front or two that limits the impact in the northeast

  14. It’s been snowing here for little while now, about 15 minutes or so, but it is too
    light to accomplish anything.

  17. Flurries downtown.

    I think there will be a 23rd / 24th event maybe rain/snow/mix. In fact, it’s a sure thing … how could it could possibly change in 10 days? 🙂

    2. I do wish the general public could see these. They truly illustrate how hard that backlash is to predict. I would never know that term if it were not for this blog.

  20. Looking at my road …..

    I see a sheet of ice, partially covered with areas of snow and then, there’s a thin film of powdery snow whisking by in the increasing wind.

  21. Thousands of people asked to evacuate in california, not due to forest fires but due to dam issues. Some dams could fail

  22. The Taunton snow map is easy to access ….

    1) once on the Taunton NWS site, click latest snow and ice forecast.

    2) scroll down on the page until you come to reported snow/ice totals. (It will be on the right)

      1. Just seeing light snow …..

        If that energy had caught that storm an instant sooner, that offshore band would be sitting over the eastern third of mass.

  27. Thank you, TK.

    I’m not entirely disappointed with the winter thus far. My only complaint is the oscillations. I’d love to have a 3 week stretch of consistent cold with some snow. Nevertheless, as I mentioned last week the volatility makes NE weather interesting.

    At least we’ve had some tastes of winter. Morsels perhaps, but a few really good ones, including the unexpected snowfall on the 16th/17th of December and last Thursday’s blizzard. Overall it’s been mild and uneventful, but I do feel it’s winter and that’s really all one can ask for. I didn’t get that feeling at all in 2011-2012.

    1. Generally, I am in agreement with that.
      I am a little more pissey about the lack of Winter this year, but I am
      fussy and living 100 miles too far South. 😀

  28. Just shoveled out and clear the car of 3 inches of solid CRUD!!
    Difficult to determine how much we got in total, but I would venture a solid 5 inches. I wouldn’t know where to begin to make an accurate measurement. This is one
    where a measurement every 1-3 hours would have been necessary.

      1. I did say above that you were right on target. No complaints there.
        My complaint is with the NWS and some of the TV outlets.

        I can’t get out of my mind Pamela Gardner saying that we would see snowfall rates of 2-4 inches per hour. She didn’t know what she was talking about and I think she was just mirroring the NWS technical discussion.

        1. im looking at it as she meant to say we would see snowfall rates of 2-4 inches per hour in Maine which was totally possible.

  29. Bands seem to be intensifying mostly just off shore, but clipping parts of the South Shore. How’s it look Tom?

    https://radblast.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/radar/WUNIDS_map?station=BOX&brand=wui&num=10&delay=15&type=N0R&frame=0&scale=0.5456521739130434&noclutter=0&showstorms=0&mapx=400&mapy=240&centerx=307.45019920318725&centery=314.2231075697211&transx=-92.54980079681275&transy=74.2231075697211&showlabels=1&severe=0&rainsnow=0&lightning=Hide&smooth=0&rand=24783387&lat=0&lon=0&label=you

    1. Light snow, sometimes even just flurries. Sun occasionally visible.

      Cape cod from Hyannis east looks to be doing well.

    1. Sorry man! I gave up which was hard for me to do…always been insanely anal about snow removal but this is the first year I physically can’t shovel it anymore. I knew this before the season and hired a snowblowing guy who took last week and this week off.

          1. Ended up getting my landscaper guy to come over and plow. Still lots of shoveling to do though. Looks like a fairly major repair for the snowblower. Only 3 years old. Oh well, that’s life. Glad to see Thursday is going to be a miss for us.

            1. Now that truly hurts. Three years old and not a whole lot of use last year I would imagine. Not really even this year until now. Mac’s mom got his through Sears. We don’t typically use sears but it had a five year warranty and we needed it in year two and three. Imagine, the Ariens my brother bought in the mid 1960s still runs.

    1. Just a few rain/snow showers per TK’s forecast above. At this time, nothing I see in the 12z models would change that.

        1. I obviously would defer to TK but the way I see it right now, looking like minor if any accumulation. If things come together with the coastal a bit earlier, perhaps could get into some more meaningful precip but even then, looks like thermal profiles would be an issue.

  38. 23″ of new snow reported so far as of this morning at Sunday River, ME and 4 feet in the last 7 days! That’s some Utah type skiing. Here are some pictures from this morning:

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/sunday_river/

    They may get it again Thursday with the late developing coastal. There has been a pretty strong norlun feature appearing on the models across Maine between the dying northern stream energy and the developing coastal.

    1. House shaking here also but I do believe your wind is forecast to be stronger so I can only imagine what you are feeling, SSK!

  40. Friend who has a place in York, Maine, said everyone, including first responders, are being asked to get off road.

    TK or anyone who would like to offer some info. He was wondering what is forecast for Downeast Maine on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thank you!

    1. The 12z GFS and GFS ensembles as well as the Canadian crush a good chunk of Maine with another 1-2 feet on Thursday! They are going to have a 60″ snowpack by the end of the week! Crazy.

  41. 12z Euro crushes Downeast Maine as well. Mercy…

    There has been a definite trend on the models to phase this midweek storm a bit sooner. Still too late for SNE but also too close for complete comfort.

  42. Maine missed out last year, as did most of Northern New England. Far Northern Maine already had a very sizable snow pack after the December and January snows. Now it’s the coast’s turn as well as Central Maine. It’ll be a very muddy April and May there. As you know, NNE folks call it mud season.

    1. Hi Joshua. I love that the ski areas are finally getting their due after too many years.

      I chuckled at mud season. Folks who have horses call it that as well. There is nothing like trying to brush baked in mud out of a horse’s winter coat after he rolled in the mud and then stood in the sun to dry it. Oddly enough….that is a fond memory for me.

  44. mid week storm very much up in the air it depends like with this storm when does the coastal form? Different models are disagreeing but so are their ensembles.
    Canadian , not sure about at different levels but 500 and 850 look good for more wintery weather. (benchmark storm)
    Canadian maybe lower boundary issues….
    http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=gem&region=us&pkg=T850&runtime=2017021312&fh=60&xpos=0&ypos=514
    Ensembles
    http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gem-ens/2017021312/gem-ememb_lowlocs_us_11.png

    GFS ( for some reason shows rain but what levels I have available to me all show conditions for wintery weather including the 2m temp.) again maybe another temp level misbehaving.)
    http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2017021312/gfs_T850_us_10.png

    gfs ensembles (showing transfer location) if it happens further south could lead to a good storm for us?)
    http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2017021312/gfs-ememb_lowlocs_us_10.png

    EURO has been either to far south or to0 far north with each run. the EPS has a mean just south of the bench mark.

    Two areas of energy one coming in from Canada and the one coming in from the southwest US. Need the energy from the southwest to speed up or the energy from Canada to slow down so the area of energy in the southwest can get ahead of the energy coming from Canada. Right now the energy coming from Canada is coming in to fast.

  45. Big time UGH if this mid week storm misses and it looks like it will be now. I say UGH because what comes after is not good if your a fan of winter.

  46. Ryan Hanrahan ‏@ryanhanrahan · 21m21 minutes
    @NWS data outage continues. No products from any of their offices coming out and no wx obs either. Embarrassing infrastructure failure.

  47. 2 more weeks of met winter.
    5 more weeks of celestial winter
    Pitchers and catchers reported today
    Could see some 50’s next week.
    No more snow, please. Probably too much to ask, but it never hurts to try 😉

    Teleconnectors quite a bit more hostile to winter after this weekend. Hopefully it will stay that way till next winter.

  48. I am happy the snow lovers didn’t get skunked and we had our big snowfall last winter.
    People will be writing off winter again with the mild temps but March is a fickle month and you could get a good snowstorm in that month.

    1. I’m sure it will snow in Marchand have cold weather.
      But for people like me who loathe winter, March 1st starts the countdown to the 1st day of spring, Red Sox games, marathon Monday, fertilizer applications, and all things warmer weather brings.

  50. Hi all!

    Last snow bands will exit Cape Ann & Cape Cod soon.
    Amounts were either just under or in the lower end of forecast ranges most areas.
    Winds settle down late tonight. Thankfully highest winds were confined to the shore and the very strongest remained offshore.

    Bright/dry Tuesday.
    Rain/snow Wednesday, NOT a major storm. I think much of southern and eastern CT, RI, and eastern MA see rain or rain showers, with mix/snow showers elsewhere. This system which is the northern portion of 2 pieces of energy will merge with the southern piece east of the Gulf of Maine and clobber Downeast Maine into the Maritimes of Canada with snow/wind. Just snow showers here Thursday with an upper low. Then dry and chilly Friday.

    Pattern then changes big time and we start it with a weekend warm up. This mild pattern continues through out the following week as we finally see a shift of cross polar flow back into Europe. This is not a La Nina thing anymore, as La Nina is gone, and we are neutral.

    Pattern may turn cold and dry very end of February into March, but more on this later. As always, snow chances exist well into spring here, but this particular pattern will afford fewer than average after this recent short-lived snowy period.

    I had to laugh with all the comparisons of this to 2015. It wasn’t even remotely close to that. This was the pattern that JMA and I had told you all to expect sometime in February.

  52. I love winter, but this winter has been a drag for me as I have only gone skiing once and the conditions were not great. I been working the weekends and having classes during the week. Today I would have gone if I did not have to study for an exam thats tomorrow. March can be a very good ski season especially in Ski country as people stop going to the slopes which help ski areas keep good conditions. March is going to be extremely busy for me… Hoping for a cold and snowy spring break 😉

    2. Skiing is actually one of the least environmentally sound activities. Between clearing land, animal destruction, and the oils and gas used for lifts and lodges…
      Not trying to argumentative I saw something online about it and know you are a lot more green than I.

      1. WeatherWiz, not Matt but would bet my bottom dollar he knows more than you think. It seems you underestimate our Mayg. I guess you hadn’t seen that ski resorts have been going green for years now. They didn’t have the knowledge when I was young and skiing. But once the knowledge wss available, they jumped on board. To their credit they did this during times when snow was lacking and they were struggling.

        Killington is a great example. I would post a link but I always think things are best learned when one does his own research.

  53. This winter hasn’t been terrible, certainly much better than last year and the winter of 2011-2012. I am sitting at about 49″ on the season in Coventry, CT after the three snow events in the past 5 days. BDL is already an inch above average for snowfall on the season (41.4″) with plenty of time to go. I think you are going to see most reporting stations in SNE actually end up with near to above average snowfall by the time we are done. No, we haven’t had the sustained cold/snowpack this year but it hasn’t been half bad either.

      1. Too bad you cant get out to go skiing sometime this week. I think this week is going to end up being the best conditions of the season. I am going to try to get up to VT Saturday if I can.

          1. I have been everywhere in VT but frequent Killington, Okemo, Stratton, and Mount Snow the most because they are easy day trips from CT and we can use our CT Ski Club passes there on association days for half price tickets. Killington is my favorite – more variety and challenging terrain than the southern VT mountains. Jay Peak is great as well, just too far a drive!

            2. Thanks, Mark. Son loves killington. I hadn’t thought about an easy one day from CT. That is some great skiing to reach in a day.

  54. Snowfall this winter to date as of 5PM today vs. normal end of season averages:

    BOS – 34.6″ / 43.8″ avg
    PVD – 38.2″ / 33.8″ avg
    ORH – 57.8″ / 64.1″ avg
    BDL – 42.7″ / 40.5″ avg,

    Hartford and Providence are already above average for the season, even if it doesn’t snow a flake the rest of the winter. Boston has only 9″ to go to meet average and Worcester has only 6″ to go.

    By the time all is said and done, this winter is likely to go down as an above average one snowfall-wise for most places in SNE. Who’d have thought that a few weeks ago!?

    1. Based on TK’s post above, Boston may not make normal snowfall. With the water temps so warm and few opportunities left, 9 inches is a lot to make up.

      Of course TK predicted below average snow for Boston way back in his Winter Outlook anyways. 🙂

  55. The 2015 barrage of snow will likely not be repeated in my lifetime unless I live until 2197. But winters like this one will be commonplace. When all is said and done this one will be positioned somewhere in the middle of the bell curve between -1sd and 1sd, both in terms of snowfall and temperature.

  56. Okie dok.

    I think it’s time we quit the bullying / semi-quiet bashing. It’s pretty easy to spot.

    I specifically asked for these types of things not to go on here.

    I trust we can remember to follow the rules. Thanks… 🙂

  58. Still pretty windy out tonight. Not one to write off the rest of the snow season but based on forecasts early in the winter I believe remember TK pointing out that we would get an early start on spring, correct if I am wrong TK.

    But with that said March is a fickle month.

    1. I think March will be cold but dry. Doesn’t shut out snow chances for sure.

      After that we await the start of a weak El Nino which will have impact on the summer forecast. For now I’m leaning toward a normal April balancing the cool/damp with some early season very warm weather.

  59. Was just going to post on the wind, Hadi, once I could figure direction 🙂

    Wind keeps switching from SW to ESE….I have yet to get a good fix on direction here so direction may not be exact. Sorry about that

  60. So 21.5 inches in North Reading for the three “events” since last Thursday. Wish it had been more, but definitely not going to complain given the lack of snow in December and January.

    1. Wow not bad at all. I don’t have a firm number on the second storm but thinking we had total of about 10-20.

  61. Blackstone, WeatherWiz. I been skiing since I was young, I competed since I was 10. I have seen the efforts by ski areas to go green, many locations have upgraded their lifts, some are even hydro powered. Many locations have wind and solar farms that now power them. Some of the green tech we have is because of the ski industry. Buses that use better forms of fuel get more discounts. Many ski areas use water from near by sources, there are very strict laws on how much they can take, and how much they need to be able to flow back into the source come spring time, They literally have measure how much goes back into the source from melt water hince why you are finding better snow machines. Many professional skiers have support from green tech and other organizations. For example I had the NPS as one of my sponsors before it was considered illegal for government agencies to take part in sponsoring.

    In terms of clearing land, many of the ski areas around New England were made back in the 70s and 80s. many skiing areas have closed because of regulations and other situations. There is a reason why many in NH, VT and Maine do not have night skiing. Its because of the Nature. Lights have to be turned off at a certain time in many of the states in the Northeast.

    So yes there a fair amount of pollution but so does every other activity. Ski areas are just ahead of the game.

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