Saturday AM Boston Area Forecast Update

83 Comments

2:56AM

SATURDAY: Partly to mostly sunny  Temperature steady 40-45. Wind NW 10-15 MPH.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Clear. Low 15-20 inland valleys ranging to near 30 Boston. Wind calm.

SUNDAY: Partly cloudy. High 37-42. Wind W 10-15 MPH.

MONDAY: Mostly sunny. Low 24. High 44.

TUESDAY: Mostly sunny. Low 27. High 41.

WEDNESDAY: Partly cloudy. Low 31. High 44.

THURSDAY: Mostly sunny. Low 27. High 45.

83 thoughts on “Saturday AM Boston Area Forecast Update”

  1. Wow I’m looking all the way into the 1st week of jan and I cannot believe there’s no real cold air around and no big snows, could it be the winter that never came? Some analyst r saying jan appears that it to could come in above normal temps, have a great day, raining a little down here in wrentham. 🙂

  2. Thanks for the update TK !!

    As best as I can tell, Logan hit 48F sometime after midnight, Worcester hit 43F. Using Logan, if the day were now to avg below normal, it would need to be 25F or lower by midnight tonight to offset the +5F departure already reached in the pre dawn hours.

    In a way, I apologize for all the harping on the temps, but I find it an amazing weather story. It interests me as much as the crazy six weeks of winter we had last year did.

    It appears tomorrow is the day to record below normal departures and then its back to relative mildness a majority of next week.

    2. No need to apologize. The weather blog is for chatting weather. If you’re keeping it clean & civil, then harp away. 🙂

  3. Does anybody live close to Gillette stadium and if so are they going to the foxboro meetings on the casino, this is truly a opportunity for Foxboro, I’ll b going to the meetings over the next few weeks, perfect location and wouldn’t want anybody else to build this than these 2, I still want to see the proposals but my main concerns are traffic and if they can make dramatic infratuture improvements by widening rt 1 and better lighting and of course build the pedestrian bridge across rt 1 I will vote yes on casino.

    1. Regarding your post above, the only caveat is just keep in mind how something can look so solid yet then a weather change can sneak up on us with almost no warning… But I do agree it’s hard to look at reliable long range and find much in the way of anything resembling a closer to average early meteorological Winter (yes we know it’s still technically Autumn for much of the longer range period).

      I don’t live anywhere near Gillette and I also agree that something should be done to widen Route 1. Hopefully Bob Kraft has pull here. He tries to do it right. Take it from someone who used to work with a good friend of his. He’s quite the guy and he’ll make sure if this project is going to get done it’s as good as it can be.

  4. Charlie I never pay attention to long range since they change so many times. As I have said before we will see wintry precipitation and some snow during December but the snowfall will be below normal.

  5. With that said I don’t see any wintry precipitation next week. The one POTENTIAL storm system late next week looks to be another inside runner and we know the drill there. Were on the warm side and the other side is wintry.

  6. Your welcome Charlie. Have a great day since the weather is going to be nice today and tomorrow. Its amazing since that Pre Halloween Noreaster the weekends have been great.

  7. Unbelievably warm. I cannot remember the first 10 days of December without a single night of frost. That’s beyond just being in a zonal flow and having a SE ridge (which would not normally translate into this!), that’s bizarre. I don’t believe the forecast of 24 for Monday night. Not going to happen. Just 3 days ago they said last night would be in the 20s, did not even get close. There’s no cold air out there. A winterless winter is a depressing thought.

    1. The 24 is an average forecast low for Metro Boston for Sunday night, or early Monday morning, based on expected light wind (under 10 MPH) and a mostly clear sky. Logan will probably come in around or just under 30, but what’s funny is they may come in a couple few degrees lower than that tonight if the wind drops off.

      I remember some “frostless” early Decembers. 2001 was remarkably warm. This pattern has been more persistent with short cool interludes. We made the upper 70s TWICE in December 2001.

      1. Thanks, TK. I do remember December 2001 well. Early part of the month was very warm, so you’re right. However, we did get a week-long cold shot just prior to Christmas as I recall.

  8. If anyone wants a faint glimmer of hope for snow (that could potentially cover the ground in Metro Boston and nearby areas), there are 2 chances coming up, based on hints in long range info (which should never really be taken verbatim beyond a few day but used as general guidance, to be trusted or ignored), and hints of polar vortex breakdown, associated with sudden stratospheric warming. This event was tagged as one of the events needed to push things in a more wintry direction (initially forecast by Joe D., Joe B., Barry, myself, and others) for sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, though I think most of us were leaning toward the earlier side of that and obviously it didn’t happen that quickly.

    This is the type of thing I would not be jumping on air with but keeping in a discussion among meteorologists if I was responsible for on-air weather info.

    So for a little fun, I will toss out 2 dates that it could snow before Christmas: December 18 & 21, +/- one day on either side of both dates. Put them on the back burner and we’ll see…

    1. P.S. … I am aware that the “reliable” Euro model doesn’t show much potential of anything resembling a snow event around December 18, but if I was to be officially going with what I noted above, I would be tossing out the 00z Euro, obviously. And this is not my official forecast yet anyway since I really don’t go out more than 5 or 7 days in any attempt at detail. IF I have legitimate cause to start calling for some precip event around the 18th, which would be day 7 on my week ahead outlook tomorrow, you’ll see it nosing into my forecast. This is all part of the science. The trick is the translation. Keeping it simple.

    2. Thank’s TK. I believe it will be sometime in the last 2weeks. As I believe this happens right before xmas I will say 21 or right after.

  9. Great post on the BZ blog by WeatherWizard from Todd’s blog last night. There is hope for us snowlovers. We just got to hang in there.

  12. Its not looking good but the NAO is tough to predict 7-10 days out. As I said earlier if you read WeatherWizard’s post on BZ blog from Tood’s blog last night there are signs things could be changing.

    1. Read it. We’ll see. We have been teased before. 6Z GFS hints at snow
      around the 18th and then the 20th/21st. Waiting for 12Z GFs to see if it
      still has it.

      1. Even if the 12z doesn’t have it, it means nothing. Each run is just that, a run. It’s more about what these models show, detail-wise on a daily basis. How many times have we seen models predict an event, lose it, bring it back, lose it again, bring it back, lose it yet again…over a 15-day period? Enough for me not to get too hung up on panels more than 72 hours out. 🙂

        There’s a bigger picture.

  14. GFS has several shots at snow, and usually when it’s shown in the long range, that is something we will have to look forward to. The EURO wants to keep the same old pattern. If this helps I see a fat squirrel outside my house.

      1. See my reply above. 🙂 And this is not a statement against what you said, just a general statement prompted by your observation of the model.

  16. today a mix of sun and clouds highs in the low to mid 40s
    tonight clear lows in the upper 10s and low 20s
    sunday sunny highs in the low 40s and upper 30s.
    sunday night clear lows in the 20s
    monday sunny and warmer in the 40s
    monday night clear lows in the mid 20s
    tuesday sunny highs in the 40s.
    tuesday night clear lows in the mid 20s
    wednesday partly sunny highs in the 30s and low40s
    wednesday night becoming cloudy lows in the mid 20s
    thursday cloudy with a chance of showers highs in the upper 30s to low40s
    thursday night cloudy with a chance of rain and snow
    friday chance of showers warm in the upper 40s to low 50s
    More models are hinting at this storm not effecting us and the ones that do have it effect us makes us on the warm side of the storm. there could still be some mixing across the interior durring the overnight hours but it has become less of a chance.

  17. As long as the long range models have storms around us is a good sign, clearly they are not going to consistently show a blockbuster every run starting around hour 348. Just have to wait and see…(and hope)

  18. The temp. here in Sudbury is 39 degrees. I think I have seen a few snowflakes in the air – unless my eyes are deceiving me!

    And Scott, I too have been seeing a lot of fat squirrels around – here in Sudbury, as well as in Holliston and Bellingham.

  21. If the wind dies down in Boston I could believe a 26-27 degree night and mid teens for the usual cold areas.

  22. i have seen fat squirrels around what does that mean. i might have seen it in my weather books that i have but i forget.

  24. Now i feel like it is closer to Christmas. It was cooler out today and i needed a jacket and i needed some gloves. MY family has been looking at christmas trees and looking for the best one 🙂 . Knowing that we have a 6 month old kitten….

    1. Nothing like a kitten. We were lucky that neither our kitty or any of our dogs bothered the trees through the years. I was feeling more christmassy today too with the colder weather.

  25. Hi Matt- Again I welcome you here to this great blog. I enjoy reading your posts, as you really know your weather. As you know from my postings I really believe we will have a plowable event here right before or after christmas. It just has been the case here in December and I don’t think It will change here. I would like in detail your thoughts on my prediction and how right now you feel winter may or may not go. Again I enjoy your postings and would love to hear back on what you think.

    1. I think we will see a few storms before christmas but they will be inside runners. There will be near normal temps but the storms will bring warmer temps with them since we will be either towards the center or to the right of the center. We could always see some snow in these events but they will mainly be rain with some mixing.
      After the storms they will usually bring cooler air. so when it is calm and sunny we will see normal and even some below normal temps. which is good for ski resorts but not good if you want a white christmas. I think after christmas will be the best shot at plowable snowfall. IF you live in the high terrain you will probably see some light snow events and could pull a few inches for christmas. Remember for areas like boston and worcester (areas south of the pike and inside 495 . usually do not see plowable snowfall until after christmas. I am thinking near normal snow fall ,with above normal temps. I do not think this will be a winter than never came I think this will be a normal winter.

      1. Thank you for your response. But keep in mind the last four Decembers = over 100 inches of snow. And we had some good ones to with thundersnow, thundersnow wows me.

  26. Hey TK…the latest CPC regarding your December 18 & 21 dates has spoken, Lol. 🙂

    http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/814temp.new.gif

    This current pattern reeks of 2001-02 = 15.1″ 🙁

    I do believe that there will be snow opportunities from mid-January thru March but they will be few and far between. IIRC the snow game in Foxboro was early/mid January in which most of our snow total for that winter fell…not to mention the arctic cold for the Patriots Super Bowl Duck Boat Parade that early February…I was there freezing like crazy, but it was worth it.

    1. Also TK, I don’t understand how you and Barry could even be thinking about any opportunities for snow with a +NAO expected to continue for the rest of the month at the very least.

    2. Philip I am just wondering why you think it will not snow this month. And I see you corrected my spelling of month I am sorry about that, not the best speller out there LOL.

      1. John, as I mentioned above…+NAO means mild temps not to mention the latest CPC predictions. We need a -NAO to have cold & snow which is not likely to occur anytime soon.

      2. John my father in laws brother was a graduate of Harvard and MIT and president of Kodak. He couldn’t spell at all. Not uncommon and although I’ve never noticed any spelling mistakes on your part if you have them you are in very good company 🙂

    3. Good for the CPC. But it can snow with the temp averages above normal over a 7-day period. I don’t see much correlation between their above normal temp forecast and my mention of 2 events that are distant potentials at this point. We shall see. I know exactly what Barry is looking at and we arrived at these conclusions before we knew of each other’s thinking.

  27. You could get a good dumping of snow even with a mild temperature regime overall as was the case with the Pre Halloween Noreaster.
    There will be some snow this month but we will end up having below normal snowfall.

  28. Dec 18
    Dec 21
    Dec 23
    Dec 25

    None look big.
    All are dates to watch.

    Those are the last 4 chances to get anything on the ground by Christmas.

        1. We get called in as soon as the first flake if not before on standby. Doing snow removal for a Hospital is big. It is a place that runs 24/7 365 days a year. We run a top notch snow crew, when job is done you would think the storm missed us.

    2. it will be nice to see a light snow event for christmas eve/christmas day. it would be nice seeing light snow flakes coming down but not effecting travel.

  29. Barry is also on board with snow before christmas saying we may have two shots at it. He also said Monday is a cold start but climbs back into the 50s.

  30. I love the snow but I would not want it to mess up travel on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Last year we had the snow but a day after Christmas. Hopefully we could get it before so we have a white Christmas.

  31. Remember the CPC forecast can take into account some very above average temps and several cold days and that’s how they give the 8-14 average. IE a storm can happen during those cold days.

  33. TK, I have mentioned elements not in our favor for snow, so can you tell us things that will be in our favor during these dates? Are you thinking about a very brief regime change?

    1. Nothing more than a favorable surface and upper air setup for a day or two a couples times. They can happen regardless of regime and regardless of the status of any index.

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