Tuesday Forecast

57 Comments

7:24AM

DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 11-15)
Low pressure passes south of the region today bringing its steadiest rain south of I-90, but low level moisture has a lot of area north of I-90 foggy and drizzly to start the day, and low level cold in the Merrimack Valley, northeastern MA, and southern NH has a few areas sitting just below freezing, so some icy areas will be out there to start the day before it warms up and that condition dissipates. Use caution if traveling in those areas early today. High pressure brings a chilly, dry interlude Wednesday. The next low comes along with a little colder air to work with and should start as snow/mix for most areas pre-dawn Thursday, but as has often been the case in the long-term pattern we’ve been in, there isn’t anything to hold the cold in and we will warm up enough for a flip to rain across the region, quickly to the south, eventually to the north. And then we get something we haven’t seen that much of this winter, really cold weather, to end this week.
TODAY: Cloudy. Fog mainly north of I-90 this morning. Areas of drizzle into mid morning, with some freezing drizzle northern MA and southern NH. Rain likely South Coast, periods of rain elsewhere. Highs 35-42. Wind N up to 10 MPH.
TONIGHT: Clearing. Lows 23-30. Wind NW 5-15 MPH.
WEDNESDAY: Sun and high clouds. Highs 35-42. Wind N 5-15 MPH.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Clouding over. Snow arriving pre-dawn, mixing with or changing to rain South Coast. Lows 20-27. Wind NE up to 10 MPH.
THURSDAY: Overcast with rain South Coast, snow to rain most areas but may remain mixed southwestern NH. Highs 35-42. Wind E 5-15 MPH.
THURSDAY NIGHT: Clearing. Rapid freeze-up of any standing water / wet surfaces. Lows 13-20. Wind NW 10-20 MPH.
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 23-30. Wind NW 15-25 MPH. Wind chill near 10 at times.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Clear. Lows 0-7. Wind NW 5-15 MPH. Wind chill below 0 at times.
SATURDAY: Sunny. Highs 23-30. Wind variable up to 10 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 16-20)
A quick moderation in temperature Sunday means more cloudiness and a few periods of light snow/mix/rain possible. Fair, seasonably chilly February 17 to early February 18. Next system brings a risk of light precipitation later February 18 to early February 19, followed by more fair weather with temperatures not too far from normal.

DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 21-25)
Fair, seasonably cold early period. Watching February 22-24 for potential winter storm threat. Fair, colder to end the period.

57 thoughts on “Tuesday Forecast”

    1. I’d think there would be enough time for drying of a majority of surfaces so that its more of a patchy icy spot scenario.

  5. re: DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 21-25)
    Fair, seasonably cold early period. Watching February 22-24 for potential winter storm threat. Fair, colder to end the period.

    We have a major event to attend on the Cape the 22nd. So with this piss-poor-performing Winter, there will be a blizzard on the 22nd for sure. Why would it go any other way??? 🙂 🙂 🙂 just saying

    1. We haven’t had a blizzard since I think March of 2018 right? Wonder if this is the longest period of time without a qualifying blizzard.

      2. I believe that is correct Dr. S. I don’t believe the last March 2019 snow event qualified as one. Just typically windy iirc.

  6. Thank you, TK

    I have an appointment in westboro Thursday so will be driving from noon until 5:30. I know it is not an easy question, but when do you see the quick freeze? After evening commute?

  13. With the latest 12z run, GFS has now shown an east coast winter storm threat for next Thursday into Friday (2/20-21) for 3 of the last 4 runs. Might have appeared before that but it first caught my eye on the 18z run last night.

    It’s actually shunted well south on this latest run which is right where we want it because we know it is going to end up 700 miles northwest.

    https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=gfs&region=us&pkg=mslp_pcpn_frzn&runtime=2020021112&fh=234

    1. I should add that the 0z Euro has a system at hour 240 (2/20) forming to our southwest and heading our way. If I had to guess, that system is going to cut or track over us which would make sense with the pattern.

  14. As Mark mentioned it’s snowing in Baghdad, but certainly not here. Of course, there is no correlation. I understand that. But, it underscores our winter.

    After more grays and blah, Boston may actually have a 2 day period of winter cold. Could single digits be a possibility in the city on Friday night? Perhaps. But, of course, the cold will ease and allow for the next system to produce more grays and blah. Gloomy.

    I was in central Pennsylvania this past weekend, and it was sunny all weekend. By the time got home it was gray again. I do think Pennsylvania (and especially the Philadelphia area) has more sun than Boston in February, March, and April. Philly also has an actual, extended spring.

    At this point, all I want is some sun and I’m blessed that there will be some on Friday and Saturday.

  16. Because I am Florida Keys bound next week, I have been reading a lot of the Miami and Key West NWS discussions.

    A gem from today’s ….. the 500 mb heights compared to the 1979-2009 climatology period are above the 90th percentile for South Florida, sitting around 590 dm. They went on to point out that it wasn’t just for a day or 2, but for a several day period.

    This is resulting in high temps in the mid 80s, lows in the mid 70s and dp’s in the low 70s.

    1. Reading this all week has messed me up with our weather, because when your reading about 80s all the time, suddenly 48F doesn’t seem very mild. 🙂 🙂 🙂

          1. Wonderful vacation. Have a ton of fun. That’s what we did when we stayed with Ted. I wish I recalled his address in Islamorada. I seem to recall Sue has friends in islamorada also.

            1. I found the address. It was only a shell of its former shelf when he sold. I can only assume his son and daughter got hold of it like everything else and took away all of the charm and simplicity that was Ted. Arghhhhhhh

        1. Wow, didn’t know there was that much variation in the highs down there. Not that it’s a lot, but noticeable. Looks like Tom picked the right time to go!

  17. Actually the snow in the Mid East is correlated. It’s all part of the large scale pattern. I had to be in tune with these patterns especially when doing agricultural forecasting worldwide. Mid East snow is not too common but it’s also not entirely uncommon either.

  18. This is a very interesting bar chart plotting the seasonal snowfall amounts at Worcester every year since the 1920’s….

    https://www.americanwx.com/bb/uploads/monthly_2020_02/ORHsnow_15year.png.604969037f8458c2a490b8b2db0424f7.png

    The black line is a 15 year moving average.

    A couple things that stand out to me:

    1. We have been having decent winters lately on average every other year to every 3 years. Perhaps that means we are due to turn things around next year?

    2. From the mid 90’s to present, we have had most of our “biggest snow” winters in the last century. Conversely, lots of terrible winters from the 1920’s to early 1950’s. Perhaps correlated to climate change creating bigger storms?

    3. The 1955-1970 period was solid. Not a ratter winter in there.

    4. When looking at the rolling average, we appear to be near a 15 year avg “high” or near the top of a peak so perhaps we are due for an overall regression moving forward.

    This chart courtesy of Will, one of the mets who posts on the American Weather forum.

      1. Of course we were deep into pollution by the 50s soooo…..
        Heck, even the company that spearheaded the study of PCBs in this country was still burning its oils that tested unsafe in its furnace. …..in 1970

      1. Yeah I would expect it would follow the same trend. Regardless, it gives a good sense of the snow trends for SNE over the years. Relatively speaking I guess, we are in an overall snowy point in time.

    3. There is a relationship between snowfall (decadal trend) and the AMO, but there is some looseness there which can be attributed to other factors as well.

      There’s also some relationship between AMO and Global average temperatures as you can see here… https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:This_graph_shows_Global_Average_Temperature_between_1880-2009_compared_with_the_Atlantic_Multi-decadal_Oscillation_(AMO)_Index._The_roughly_parallel_curves_of_the_two_parameters_show_that_they_are_related.gif

      1. The temperature relationship is pretty impressive. As we trend into the next negative AMO cycle, one would think the Earth’s temperatures should trend back down a bit though clearly from that chart, the “cooler” period will be much warmer than the previous cooler negative AMO cycles. The overall global warming trend on that chart is pretty obvious.

    1. The only positive I can see out of that chart is that the models are all trending the NAO closer to neutral in the next few weeks. Whether that’s temporary or a trend I don’t know, but getting that NAO to go negative for a period of time could give us a window of opportunity. Need something to our north to serve as a block, lock a bit of cold air in, and send a few of these storms south of us. Too early on Feb 11 to discount the possibility of that happening IMO….perhaps as we get into early March.

      1. I love patterns that we don’t see all that often, or so persistently. This one is an example. It’s fascinating. To me it’s about as equally fascinating as the January 24 – March 8 2015 pattern was.

          1. I’m glad not every winter is colder than average with above average snowfall. That would mean something was drastically wrong with the climate. 😉

            1. Don’t get me wrong – I’d be fine if we mixed in a few “average temperature with much above snowfall” winters every once in awhile….

            2. I’d say it is a tad worrisome that the last decade and much of this century has been the warmest on record

  20. 2019-20 Boston (Logan) snowfall to date = 14.9”

    2018-19 Boston (Logan) snowfall to date = 2.3”

    I just had to find a silver lining somewhere but…

    2018-19 final total = 27.4”

    1. I think we still have a shot to equal last year’s total. You can pick up a foot of snow in one storm. Perhaps it’s another “bookend” winter? Or get there the painful way with 2 or 3 slop/changeover events….

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