Monday Forecast

84 Comments

7:34AM

DAYS 1-5 (MARCH 11-15)
Quick caution: If you are heading outside early this morning, temperatures are near to below freezing in some areas with black ice! …
A pretty straightforward forecast as we head toward the Ides of March, which will be the mildest of the next 5 days, but before we get there we will have a somewhat mild and breezy day today with a moderate westerly flow behind yesterday’s low pressure area, some cloudiness to start Tuesday as an upper disturbance passes (don’t think the snow showers will survive the trip from the north), fair and chilly weather the balance of Tuesday and Wednesday but some cloudiness arriving Wednesday as warmer air starts to make its way in above us, then a warm-up starting Thursday as high pressure builds along the East Coast and a surface high pressure area slides offshore. That mildest day I mentioned will unfortunately will also be the wettest as rain showers are likely with the approach of a cold front. Forecast details…
TODAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 43-50. Wind W 10-20 MPH, higher gusts.
TONIGHT: Increasing clouds. Lows 25-32. Wind W to NW 5-15 MPH.
TUESDAY: Partly sunny. Highs 35-42. Wind NW 5-15 MPH, higher gusts.
TUESDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 18-25. Wind light N.
WEDNESDAY: Sun and high clouds. Highs 38-45. Wind light variable.
THURSDAY: Partly cloudy. Lows from the upper 20s to lower 30s. Highs from the middle 40s to lower 50s.
FRIDAY: Mostly cloudy. Rain showers likely. Lows from the upper 30s to lower 40s. Highs from the middle 50s to lower 60s, cooler South Coast.

DAYS 6-10 (MARCH 16-20)
Cooler air and a gusty breeze with some lingering cloudiness as an upper level disturbance crosses the region Saturday March 16 then fair and chilly weather as high pressure builds in for St. Patrick’s Day Sunday March 17. A chilly air mass will keep control of the region early next week and by the end of the period. Vernal Equinox March 20 may not feel very spring-like. In addition, we may have to deal with a storm system moving into or developing near the region with the threat of some wintry precipitation. That part of the forecast is very low confidence and just something to keep an eye on going forward.

DAYS 11-15 (MARCH 21-25)
Expect below normal temperatures and at least one more storm threat that may include frozen precipitation at some point during this period.

84 thoughts on “Monday Forecast”

  1. Thank you, TK

    Be safe driving. Of course depends where you are. Reports from people in Sutton on FB is roads are very slick in spots. Son in law was sure there would be a delay. Worcester was apparently only district smart enough.

    1. A delay is good on a morning like this when the wind stayed light, ground stayed wet, and temperature, marginal overnight, dropped below freezing just enough in many areas prior to dawn to create a pretty dangerous situation. This will take care of itself naturally by mid morning.

      1. I am amazed there was no delay. Daughter is driving her two but not all parents have that choice. They have an hour bus ride on some roads that don’t clear even in the best of weather. Last night she had said there would be problems in the morning if they didn’t treat.

  4. If it wasn’t for this Daylight STUPID Time, it would have been easier to see any black ice if not already in the process of melting with the sunrise. For me walking it was more difficult to distinguish between ice and plain water. All I could do was be as cautious as possible. For the life of me, I just don’t understand the push for year round dst. It is totally useless during the winter months including March.

  6. Good morning and thank you TK.
    I was going to post about the ice, but you got it very well covered.
    Even here in the city (at least in JP), it was extremely icy.

    1. Awful conditions this morning. Sidewalks were a sheet of ice and even side roads were really bad.

    1. You obviously don’t have to leave home early mornings by 6AM. Most mornings I am out the door no later than 5:45 AM.

      1. I use to and never minded waking up in the morning while it’s dark. It gave me time after school and this also included college. Also during summer I have had to wake up prior to sunrise so I could get to my experiments at low tides at times.

        1. What TK posted in the blog entry:

          DAYS 11-15 (MARCH 21-25)
          Vernal Equinox March 21 may not feel very spring-like as colder than normal

      1. The fluctuation of the Vernal Equinox actually affects what day the movable feast of Easter Sunday is each year.

        1. And the full moon

          Easter, I believe, is the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox

              1. Dear heavens and I thought it was difficult to type the first sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. I have a conference call at 1:00 and my head will be spinning if I keep reading this.

                Thanks, Captain. As confusing as it is, it sure is fascinating.

                1. I’ll keep it as simple as:
                  Easter occurs when the Easter Bunny brings me my
                  marshmallow Peeps and Hershey’s Kisses.
                  Then I’ll know it’s Easter!
                  🙂

  11. Answers to yesterday’s AccuWeather Trivia Quizzes.

    1. What is the record snowiest single day in March in Boston?
    A) 9.9″ 3/4/2019
    B) 12″ 3/4/1891
    C) 13.2″ 3/9/1956
    D) 14.5″ 3/13/2018

    The correct answer is D.

    2. What date do Boston’s average high temperatures reach 50F? (March 0th should have been March 30th)
    A) March 10th
    B) March 17th
    C) March 30th
    D) April 1st

    The correct answer is C. (I am not sure how accurate this answer is.)

    1. Thank you, Longshot. When you said March 30 was question date I wondered also. Do folks who selected March 0 and were correct get a bonus point 😉

  12. Thank you, TK.

    I’ve run every day this past week, but every day it’s been icy. And this morning – the mildest in the past 7 days – was the worst. Why? Water on ice on the pathways. That’s by far the most slippery. Plus, you can’t tell there’s ice until you fall.

  13. Get ready for a show over the Plains this week. We’re looking at a potentially historic cyclone developing. This storm will eventually bring us our rain showers towards the end of the week, but the real show will be far to our west. Blizzards, flooding, and very high winds all likely depending on what side of the low you’re on. This storm will likely set records relating to its strength relative to its location.

    https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=nam3km&region=us&pkg=ir&runtime=2019031112&fh=60

    3. A rare location to maximize spin (vorticity) off the southern California coast which then translates perfectly across the Southwest to max out that surface low further southwest than we often see. Not a situation we have set up just so all that often.

  14. Re daylight savings time. My concern for eliminating it is that in late December, the month of January and undoubtedly well into February – if not the entire month, kids would be waiting in the pitch dark along roads or walking on those roads (which towns don’t seem to clear any more) during what are the snowiest months of the year.

    1. I agree. I really don’t think we need to change anything other than maybe rolling the change to DST back to early April. Darkness is going to be part of the equation. It’s depended on latitude. Granted, the population is much less, but folks north of the Arctic Circle have embraced the way of life and they don’t take to social media to constantly complain about times of sunrise/sunset. There will be inconveniences as a result of just how things go, no matter what we do with out clocks. So instead of having everybody adapt to a new set-up just leave it as is. We survive. 🙂

      And that later sunrise now? It’s minimal. It lasts about a week like that and then we’ve already gained back nearly 10 minutes on it. After surviving dark mornings from November through January, a couple weeks of slight darkness in March is no biggie. Or we could go back to the early April switch to DST. I’d be ok with that too. Not sure why they pulled it back to before the Equinox anyway.

    1. Let’s make it happen! Just not on the 20th. The good Dr. S. has a birthday then and I think we should work on keeping it snow free. Unless of course we have not choice!

  19. Yes the blog was written while half asleep hence the incorrect date and not even where I intended to put it. I have since fixed all of that. The Equinox is indeed March 20, not March 21.

    1. Ohhhh that’s what I missed.

      Well I read it very early while still half asleep so also read incorrectly. Far as I’m concerned, makes us special. Anyone want to disagree 😈

  21. North Atlantic storms that hit Northern Europe tend to be an autumnal phenomenon. This year, after a very warm and sunny start to spring (in the 60s and even a few spots touched 70 in late February through last week across the U.K.), several massive storms in succession have hit the Isles as well as the low countries. `Gareth’ is closing in on Northern Ireland and will nail much of Britain on Tuesday and Wednesday. My daughter – who lives in London – told me that several parks were closed to visitors yesterday due to high winds.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47526089

  22. Fwiw, Harvey said on air that he is against DST because the models come out one hour later. He noted that updated info is critical for winter forecasting.

    I guess we may find out in the next week or so, huh? 😉

    1. Hmmm. If an hour delay messes his forecast, does that mean he relies on models a tad too much. May not be true but was my first thought

      1. It was always harder doing this during DST because all of the products are later, and sometimes when needing to see some of the MOS temperature data for a client who had a deadline it made for an interesting crunch. 😉

        Harvey is definitely not over-reliant on models, but when all the data is suddenly 1 hour later than it has been for almost half a year it’s quite the adjustment to make. This includes sounding and observational data for key times, not just models.

        1. Hmmmmm. I don’t think he is overreliant. That was tongue in cheek. I always have trouble understanding not preparing for something that is a given ….on both sides of the coin.

          1. We always did the best we could to prepare, but clients who wanted their update at 11PM still wanted it at 11PM, even when the latest info that used to come in at 9:30 now came in at 10:30. 😉 There are a lot of impacts, but we do our best to live with them.

            1. I’m trying to Understand. So for six months clients are all messed up. Are they messed up again in the fall?

              I’m not challenging. Just trying to understand.

              1. If someone who buys your info is using DST and Standard Time, and not GMT, they are going to want their updates by their clock, not the one that NOAA etc. use, so it will just put that wrinkle on the ability to get updates out when the time is critical, such as in the example I cited. Thankfully, for me, it didn’t have a huge impact, but in the operations area of the company I was in, it had a big impact.

              3. Does it help that most countries in North America and Europe use DST? Along with other countries of course.

                Sorry. I’m curious. I never heard this mentioned before

                1. It’s always been mentioned in the private sector and occasionally will be mentioned in media as Harvey did today. I’m used to it personally and never really let it bother me that much. It is a little harder to wait for the new runs when a storm is coming though. Anxiousness increases a bit. And sometimes a little impatience. 😉

                  As far as the question about clients being messed up for 6 months. No, we would do whatever we could to get them their info on time. It messed up the process, but they were fine. My company did an excellent job at it when the time-challenge hit.

  24. Interesting setup next week around the 20th on the 18z GFS and FV3 as well as the 12z CMC and Euro . Right in that potential watch period we have been talking about for awhile.

    All 4 of these models are showing a fairly strong piece of southern stream energy forming a low pressure system somewhere around the eastern GOM or Florida and ejecting NNE while a northern stream piece of energy dives down from Canada around the same time. Were these to phase, we could have a nice east coast storm.

    The GFS and FV3 narrowly miss the phase though the GFS still brings some accumulating snow to parts of the area from the northern stream system.

    Euro has that southern stream storm bombing out off the Georgia coast at 240 hours, overamped I’m sure, and gearing up for a historic east coast storm that probably wont happen.

    CMC sends a southern stream low up the coast giving us a snowstorm on the 19th and then sends another one up off shore on the 21st that misses the phase with the northern stream.

    So lots of solutions on the table from a phased storm, southern stream nor’easter, weaker passing northern stream system, or complete miss. Still 8-10 days out but a decent shot at getting at least some accumulating snow in here. I’m not convinced that is our last chance either.

    1. I refuse to acknowledge the FV3 until they fix it. But yes, the pattern is going to be interesting and we’ll be vulnerable.

  26. Philip or others…did you watch jeopardy? The question re deviled ham, I’m willing to bet most from this area knew was Underwood. I didn’t know it is the oldest trademark still used in the US. The Underwood estate is/was in Belmont. Their factory was in Watertown. The company mac and I worked for bought it and moved there from Belmont in the mid 70s

    Sorry. A bit of useless info but fun. MassBay would be familiar with the Underwood home

    1. funny, the company I worked for at the yime purchaes the Underwood headquarters building in Westwood sometime in the mid 80s or so. 🙂

      Underwood, which up to this point had been privately owned by the Underwood family, was sold to Pet, Inc., in 1982.[19] B&M Foods was included as part of the sale, and the Underwood headquarters building in Westwood, Massachusetts, was closed as a result.

  27. Is there a way to quantify rate of snow melt based on conditions, temperature, sun angle and wind?

    1. There probably is, but I don’t know of anybody that does it in an official capacity. It’s usually just kind of something we can tell by keeping an eye on it. We are losing this snow pack to sublimation more than anything else, and that will continue in a big way today.

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