Friday January 7 2022 Forecast (6:56AM)

156 Comments

DAYS 1-5 (JANUARY 7-11)

A quick-hitting but potent snowstorm this morning, especially under a solid synoptic band of heavy snow that sits right over Metro Boston extending south southwest and north northeast around the back side of strengthening low pressure as it passes by to the southeast. For many it’s a fluffy snow, which helps the amounts add up more, but keeps it from being heavy/wet. Wetter snow is confined to the Cape Cod region with some rain mixing in on Nantucket, where amounts will be lightest, building up to heaviest in eastern MA and RI, then dropping off as you head northwest to north central MA and southwestern NH (a similar profile to the previously mentioned amounts, which will be heavier than previously mentioned). The storm winds down this afternoon and is gone tonight. Fair and cold due to Canadian high pressure Saturday. A warm-up Sunday, but still cold enough that if rain showers arriving from the west are early enough there may be some icing over the interior. That will be from a cold front that will introduce much colder air for Monday and a secondary front that will bring in a blast of pure arctic air for Tuesday. Generally dry weather is expected those days with the exception of a possible snow squall with the arrival of Arctic air Monday evening. We’ll focus more on that after we get by this current system.

TODAY: Cloudy through midday with snow of 6 to 12 inches (maximum amounts northwestern RI to Metro Boston to Cape Ann), except 3 to 6 inches mid Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard and 1-3 inches outer Cape Cod and Nantucket with rain mixed in, and under 6 inches in north central MA and southwestern NH. Breaking clouds and a glimpse of sun possible later in the day. Highs 28-35. Wind N 5-15 MPH except 15-25 MPH over Cape Cod and the Islands.

TONIGHT: Clearing. Lows 12-19. Wind NW 10-20 MPH and gusty. Wind chill often near 0.

SATURDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 27-34. Wind NW 5-15 MPH.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Lows 15-22. Wind W 5-15 MPH.

SUNDAY: Early sun then mostly cloudy. Chance of rain showers possibly mixed with sleet and/or snow I-95 eastward, and snow/sleet showers possibly mixed with freezing rain then eventually west of I-95, mostly midday and afternoon. Highs 37-44. Wind SW 10-20 MPH.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy evening. Clearing overnight. Lows 22-29. Wind NW 10-20 MPH. Wind chill below 15 at times.

MONDAY: Mostly sunny to partly cloudy. Isolated late-day snow showers. Highs 25-32. Wind W 10-20 MPH.

MONDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy with a chance of snow showers / squalls evening. Clear overnight. Lows 8-13. Wind NW 10-20 MPH and gusty. Wind chill below 0.

TUESDAY: Sunny. Highs 12-19. Wind WNW 10-20 MPH. Wind chill below 0.

DAYS 6-10 (JANUARY 12-16)

A couple of weak low pressure systems bring threats of snow or snow showers but overall pattern is cold and on the dry side.

DAYS 11-15 (JANUARY 17-21)

Overall pattern looks colder than average with a couple of snowfall threats possible, but generally drier than normal.

156 thoughts on “Friday January 7 2022 Forecast (6:56AM)”

    1. Watch for that band to re-intensify briefly in the next hour or so before it lets go for good, but it may get areas a little further southeast before it’s completely done.

      Combo of heaviest banding and temperature at snow growth region was perfect for fluff without it even being too cold at the surface. All you needed was 2-4 hours of that. Enjoy JP D!

      I’m going to be outside for a while now, but I love it. 🙂

    2. Yet, snow has picked up in intensity here once again.
      Perhaps not quite as intense as earlier, but it’s coming down
      at a really good clip, probably in the area of an inch an hour, whereas it was probably 2 inches per hour earlier.

  4. Thanks TK.

    Somewhat surprising to find the snow so fluffy with temperatures in the upper 20s.

    I made it into work (6:47) with 13 minutes to spare. The T seems to be running pretty good and walking isn’t horrible either. The fluffy snow helps. 🙂

    Actually, I fear the pm commute home will be the trickier one, even though the event will be long over.

    1. It’s not really a surprise considering what we were talking about yesterday where the snow forms in the atmosphere. It is not about the surface temperature and even upper 20s helps support it down to the surface anyway.

  7. When I left Woburn I had 5 in of pure fluff, one of the easiest snowfalls to move that I have experienced in quite a while in terms of how lightweight it was for the amount that was on the ground. I am now in Reading and it looks like the amount is similar if not a tiny bit less here as the synoptic band got a little further to the south east of this area before it did back home.

  9. Thanks TK !

    Reporting from the wrong side of the coastal front, its 33F or so here and we have 1.5 inches of water-logged snow.

    Light snow, visibility maybe 1-1.5 miles.

    Even without much wind, darned 47F ocean !!!

  10. Phillip, the fluff factor has more to do with temps at the snow growth region and they are cold throughout.

    1. Looking out my window, it just doesn’t look like a foot to me.
      Looks like 7-8 inches to me. I’ll measure a little later. 🙂

  14. Its almost transitioned to rain here, I kid you not.

    North facing windows are wet, the trees are wet and have that wet, dark look to them and well, this stinks.

    1. That sucks! You are between bands, so the precipitation is lighter. Not surprised. If the band to your North holds together and slips over your area, it would surely go back to snow.

        1. Sounds like it already did its think, even if it wanes now.

          Seeing the amounts you, Hadi, Vicki and Arod are reporting.

          Given what I´m seeing out my window, I actually thought Arod was joking at first.

      2. Agreed !!

        It (47F ocean) was lurking in the back of my mind. Not that it would change the snow to rain, but within a mile or 2 of the ocean, that can be just enough to add that 1F to the boundary layer that turns 12¨ of powdery into 2-3 inches of slop.

        I´ll bet if I went 2 or 3 miles west on 139 to the Marshfield/Pembroke line, its probably a different world.

        1. I’m sure you are correct. How close to the water are you?
          Sounds like you are across the street from the beach. 🙂

          1. At the end of my road, 200 yards or so, is the tidal marsh and as the crow flies across the big salt marsh with the South River, its 1 mile to the ocean.

  15. Boston is clearly out of that band that has now slipped just
    S&E of the city. Visibility is up again and the snow rate has
    come down. NOT snowing an inch an hour anymore.
    Perhaps 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch per hour.

  17. It has changed to rain !!!

    Visibility is far, 5 miles maybe ??

    I´m watching the window and can see the many rain drops hitting it.

    I´m feeling JpDave frustration level !!

  18. Not heavy here now. We are closing in on 9 but not there yet.

    What I thought was a very clever idea to put inch markers on the umbrella base rod that sticks up from our deck table would have worked a whole lot better if I’d remembered to put numbers on each marked line

  20. Looking at this radar loop, it looks as though one last band of heavier snow is trying to bubble northward. Look closely

    https://radblast.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/radar/WUNIDS_map?num=40&type=N0Q&mapx=400&mapy=240&brand=wui&delay=15&frame=0&scale=0.5934782608695652&transx=-58.131868131868146&transy=37.912087912087884&severe=0&smooth=0&centerx=341.86813186813185&centery=277.9120879120879&station=BOX&rainsnow=0&lightning=0&noclutter=0&showlabels=1&showstorms=0&rand=27359781

    1. the comma head should add some intensity for a while.

      That intensity increase, as you predicted above, flipped us back to snow.

  22. As with Mark. I got out onto the deck. We have 9.5. I thought I’d marked the umbrella rod to 12 but only 3 more marks were showing.

    I basically swept a path in the snow because it is so light

  24. While we get robbed of snow, we do usually see the max winds when we have those intense storms, like back in October.

    And the early season heat waves are usually muted in some way.

    And the late warm season cold fronts can be slow to push through down here. I´ve seen Logan´s dew point drop to 50F and ours at 72F.

    So, its definitely a different micro-climate here very close to the ocean.

  26. Closing in on 10” here in Sharon and still in the heavier band. Not snowing as hard as it was earlier but still a decent clip with more to come. Can we get a foot? It’s possible.

  27. Nice to see TV Mets being classy about the blown forecast. Matt Noyes owing up for the poor performance. Not sure they need to but in todays age it’s nice to see.

  29. Ah, wind just came around to north, visibility dropped and it’s snowing pretty good.

    Maybe we can get to 4 or 5 inches before this winds down. I’ll take it !

  30. Dorchester I see coming in at 11.5 inches. I am confident we are similar. Haven’t gone out in a while.

  33. I don’t think this was as big a blown forecast as a lot of people are saying. Especially if you take into account the inherent unpredictability of synoptic banding and the snow to water ratio.

    I chickened out on going for the bigger amounts. Should have listened to the instinct that I got when the same thing happened to me last year. 😉 Do you all recall that one? That was a much bigger blown forecast by everybody than this one is.

    2. Pete and Eric were very very very (one more for effect…very) vocal last night about banding and possible larger numbers. Timing was perfect. But then social media folks would tell you the earth is flat if given the opportunity.

      1. You mean it isn’t flat? 😉

        Yes I watched them and they were both very adamant about the uncertainty in those little details.

  34. Thanks TK.

    Still a light, fine snow falling here. We ended up with 9″ here in North Coventry which is double what I thought we would pull out. Love these overachievers! We were on the northern fringe of that synoptic band but with 15-20:1 snow ratios, we were able to really pile it up. The southern part of town is reporting over 10″ and many 12″ totals coming in from just south and east here under that band.

    Here are the totals thus far from the NWS (obviously many of these still to go up):

    https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=BOX&product=PNS&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1&highlight=off

    Snow totals from NWS Upton:

    https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&product=PNS&issuedby=OKX

    Some 13″ totals starting to come in in NE CT and northern RI

  35. Haven’t been out since this morning but we must be close to a foot or more. Will go out after 11 and do an official measurement.

  36. A couple things that were blown:

    1. NWS should have extended the WSW’s further west into Hartford and Tolland Counties. Widespread 4-8″ fell in Hartford County and 8-12″+ in Tolland County. In addition, the updated snow map they issued at 3AM had totals in CT that were already too low for what had already fallen, let alone the final totals. Typically they adjust upward as needed when the storm is in progress but they seemed asleep at the wheel earlier this AM.

    2. Every single model underestimated the snow growth with this one. Many of them showed the banding and in the general correct place but were all too low with the QPF and probably the ratios too. Usually there are one or two that nail higher totals but get discarded as outliers. Even the usual suspects on this one were low.

    Another learning experience!

  38. We are just under 10” by my ruler and the marks on the pole that I finally marked ….at least the marks I can see. Others in neighboring towns are posting a bit lower so I did what I do best…..I second guessed myself. I took measurements front, back, and sides. All the same.

    https://imgur.com/a/DPb5XYd

  39. I still have to go out and measure but POWDER DAY!!!! Heading to WAWA this afternoon to hit the slope 🙂

    1. Glad you got to experience this before you go back! It will likely be one of the bigger storms of the season when all is said and done (hopefully not the biggest though)

  40. Thanks TK
    8 inches of fluffy snow where I am and now the sun is out.

    Snowfall standings of now
    BOS 7.5
    NY 5.7

    I have a feeling BOS will widen its lead when this is over.

    2. We are planning to go to Killington tomorrow…of course it figures they largely missed out on this one!

      1. I just spoke with my brother in Bow, NH. He said they got two inches. I love it here but would rather it in ski areas

  46. In a way, I like it better when forecasters start on the lower side. Even though it may have “technically” been a blown forecast, snow lovers won’t really complain and just chalk it up to the event as an overachiever.

  48. There has been talk of twitter to watch the Jan.15-22 time period for a snow threat. Let’s see if that pans out.

    1. Pattern looks nice the rest of the month. I would be surprised if we didn’t have a few more decent snow events.

    2. The pattern looks better but the models are still in the same boat in terms of not being trustable beyond a couple days.

  50. This was another one of those examples of people using meteorology and still not quite getting it exactly right because some of the numbers came in even higher, versus people who just said we were going to get that much because they wanted that much and didn’t actually present any meteorology to back it up. We’ve had several of these now.

  51. 11.1″ report from trained spotter here in North Haven CT

    Very happy with this overachiever!

    It was even a breeze to shovel.

  54. Snowing very lightly in Swampscott. I would say it should be gone between 12:30-1:00 PM. I think the duration for my area will be just about 9 hours.

  55. Here at the StormHQ World Headquarters on the north slope of Cary Hil in the City of Champions, we measured 8.1″ this morning. My forecast was for 5-8″ down here. Epic bust.

    2. Haha!!
      Back at home I had left myself in the 3-6 inch band and told the locals to focus on the 6. We had 6.5. My early morning update put my area in a six plus but by then the damage was done. Epic bust… 😉

  56. Nice little storm–perfect timing for a snow day too! When’s the next one–didn’t TK say something about January 13….:)

  58. I’m going to be phoneless and away from blog from 1 to 2:30 then finishing snow removal after that.

    If anyone has any questions for me, I’ll catch up later on that stuff.

  59. My mother’s story has now gone international on dozens of web pages and newspapers including the front page of The Guardian apparently.

  60. Thank you TK!
    We were just northwest of that heavy band this morning and missed out on the bigger totals by a few maybe 10 miles as the crow flies. We ended up with 6 1/4 “ of very light fluff.

  61. TK – Do you owe AccuWeather an apology for your “critique” of their forecast yesterday of 6-10”+ for Boston south? 😉

    1. Logan outdid me. I’m a couple of miles from the airport. My measurement was 9.6 inches. Very nice storm!

          1. That’s what was in my front lawn. What would you like me to say. I didn’t get to measure on the top of the car
            which would have been the best measurement.

            Later I did shovel my 2nd floor deck and it sure looked like a foot there, although I did not measure it.

            With this pandemic, I am just not the same. I am not sick, but it is all getting to me.

  65. Thank you Hadi for giving the total for Logan.
    Updated snowfall standings
    BOS 11.6
    NY 5.7

    NY had it’s measurement of 5.5 taken at 7am so I am not sure if there is anymore snowfall to add to that. BOS averages 14.2 inches of snow for January.

  67. One last heavy burst here.

    Recovered to around 5 inches here, with the bottom layer being cement and can tell its transitioned to powder as its blowing off the roof.

    1. Good for you Tom considering it was mix/rain much of time, correct? A nice recovery.

      Too bad it’s heavy & wet to move around though.

      1. For some time in the middle. When I had woken, it had snow 1 to 1.5 inches, then from about 7:30am to 9am, I think, it had at least some rain or all rain stretches and was even melting some.

        Turned back to snow and what we have is mostly since then.

        Thankfully, we have a person who plows. After our first few years here of wet snow and rain and snow, I said, no thanks. 🙂 🙂 🙂

        1. Do you want to correct that last statement Tom? I assume you accepted the plow offer, correct? 🙂

  69. Up to the minute snowfall standings. NY came in with 5.8 for this storm. So far BOS got 11.2. Coming in NY had 0.2 and BOS had 0.4

    BOS 11.6
    NY 6.0

  71. Mom just got off the phone with the NY Times and now is waiting for a call from the Washington Post. HAHAHA. Unreal.

    1. The girls are here now and I read your comment to them. They are beyond happy and can’t think of a nicer person for this to happen to

  72. Had just under 5 inches where I am in NJ; interestingly, the storm performed perfectly to forecast here, but overperformed quite a bit for you guys.

    There were some signs there for an overperformer. Any time you have strong banded snow and are dealing with rates of 1-2+”/hr, it piles up fast. Even in many of our “long duration” events, usually most of the snow falls within a 6-10 hour window, so in a sense duration is overrated outside of the real high-end blockbusters. There was also a subtle but noticeable trend towards a longer duration event in the 24-36 hours leading up to it, a slightly stronger low with a little bit more of a “pivot factor” to keep the snow going longer.

    Fluff factor was big with this one also. Don’t always assume cold temps = high ratios; that’s not true. But in this case, the vertical profile as a whole was favorable for efficient snow growth.

    Model performance… generally good across the board. The global models certainly did a great job telegraphing the synoptic pattern. And hi-res models were all over the banded snow potential, even if they had a (small, but somewhat unusual) dry bias overall. The HREF is the undisputed king of models right now. One of the best numerical weather prediction tools ever created. If you’re serious about forecasting, you are selling yourself short if you’re not familiar with that model and all its bells and whistles, including a wealth of probabilistic information.

    Overall, a pretty classic SNE winter storm 🙂 Onto the Arctic air next week…

    1. If the core of that air comes right across here at the right time Tuesday, there will be places that fail to reach 10 during the day.

        1. Brr! Of course now for a while we have a snowcover which means that the low temps will often come in below guidance temps.

      1. I’m not sure why sites like Pivotal, COD, or TT don’t have it; maybe related to licensing? In any case, I recommend SPC. They have a great viewer for it, and most of the time when you see, for example, tweets from local mets containing HREF graphics, they come from here:

        https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/href/

        There’s a lot there; for winter purposes, most of what you’ll want is under the Winter tab, or the Precipitation tab. As you’ll see it has many severe weather applications also. I’m definitely happy to answer questions if I see them! But for example, under Winter, the 1-hr snowfall P[<1"] (probability of hourly snowfall rates greater than 1"/hr) is hugely useful, and there's plenty more than that.

        The model itself is simply an ensemble of several hi res models that are frequently referenced on the blog (ARW, 3km NAM, etc.), but the real power is what can be done with probabilities blending all those individual models together.

  73. My Son Measured 11.5 inches on top of his car in our driveway.

    So that looks to be pretty much in line.

    1. Awesome. I’m happy for you, OS

      I will say the snow level sure shrunk here when the sun warmed it a bit

      1. I noticed this as well when I went out tonight to clean up the edges of the driveway a bit. I’d say the foot we got has shrunk down to about 7-8”

        1. We didn’t have sun here but the 8 inches were settled down to under 6 by evening. Low water content snow will do that fairly quickly even if it’s still cold.

  75. Maybe those scattered, but briefly intense Snow squalls ahead of a secondary arctic front passing thru Monday evening ?????

    1. Yes. Those will be in my forecast as a possibility with the passage of the arctic cold front late Monday.

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