What’s March Without Some Madness?

72 Comments

4:34PM

Although we are not going to be seeing any major snow and damaging storms in the next several days, we will be seeing some big swings in weather and temperature.

After our little bout with winter, especially inland and higher elevations, the cold air and clouds remained locked in during the day Friday, but it won’t really get any colder tonight. In fact it will go the other way, with a rising temperature as a southerly wind develops ahead of a deepening low pressure area that will pass northwest of southern New England on Saturday. Precipitation will arrive early enough so that some snow/sleet/freezing rain may lead things off later tonight, especially around and outside of Route 495 in areas mostly north of the Mass Turnpike. So conditions in these areas may become slippery all over again for a few hours tonight before the warm air takes over and we just see rain. Elsewhere, rain will move in. And bands of rain will cross the region through Saturday morning. A few of these may have embedded heavier showers of rain with possible thunder. This system looks as if it will be moving fast enough so that the rain cuts off in the early afternoon from west to east, clouds break, and even some sun may appear before it sets. Very mild air will be in place by this time, erasing much of the snow that fell.

An upper trough and a series of cold fronts will cross the region Sunday and Monday, with a trend to colder weather, some rain showers and eventually snow showers, though much of this time will be precipitation-free.

High pressure will build across the  East Coast then offshore Tuesday through the middle of next week, with a chilly Tuesday followed by a major warm-up during the middle of next week (always said with not total confidence given the time of year).

Forecast for eastern MA, southern NH, and RI..

TONIGHT: Cloudy. Areas of fog. Precipitation developing from southwest to northeast after 9PM, in the form of rain in most areas except starting as snow and sleet anywhere outside of Route 95 with maybe a mix just inside 95, then snow/sleet/freezing rain continuing for a while especially well north and west of Boston for up to a few hours before turning to rain. Temperature starting out in the upper 20s to middle 30s then rising to the upper 30s to lower 40s during the night, coolest northwest to mildest southeast of Boston. Wind light variable, becoming S increasing to 10-15 MPH.

SATURDAY: Cloudy through early afternoon with numerous rain showers and possible thunderstorms, ending west to east. Breaking clouds and some sun possible mid to late afternoon. High 50-55. Wind S 10-20 MPH shifting to W.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Low 30-35. Wind W 10-15 MPH.

SUNDAY: Partly to mostly cloudy. Slight chance of rain showers in the afternoon. High 41-46. Wind W 10-20 MPH.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Mostly to partly cloudy. Low 25-30. Wind WNW 10-15 MPH.

MONDAY: Sunny start and finish, clouds in the middle part of the day with a few passing snow showers possible. High 35-40. Wind NW 10-20 MPH.

TUESDAY: Mostly sunny. Low 17. High 38.

WEDNESDAY: Partly sunny. Low 28. High 54.

THURSDAY: Partly cloudy. Low 39. High 62.

FRIDAY: AM rain showers. Low 40. High 50.

72 thoughts on “What’s March Without Some Madness?”

  1. Thanks TK ! I’m reading some of the news coverage about today’s outbreak and based on reports in the stories, I hope that loss of life is not significant. Just touring the radars, the amt of current tornado warnings is staggering, both on the squall line and on the individual cells further to the south.

  2. Historically speaking, with all the severe storms in the south and mid-west, how would that/or could it have any effect on New England in the spring/summer? In other words, has anything like this happened before and did it affect New England later in the season? Hope I am being clear on this.

    1. Hi Rainshine.

      I don’t think we can read into what could happen in New England during our severe weather season, which I believe is climatologically the months of June, July and August.

      I do think the severe weather of today is partially tied to the positive phase of the north Atlantic oscillation, which tends to allow for storms to track over the Great Lakes. This path allows lots of warm, humid air to surge northward. Combine that with cooler, drier air crashing into it and a powerful jet stream above and unfortunately, the atmosphere produces today.

      What I’d watch later in spring and early summer is the teleconnections, like the NAO. If we still see a lot of storms tracking to our north and west….and we see above avg temps continuing, then I think New England stands a chance at seeing a greater frequency of severe weather threats, as cold fronts occasionally collide into warm to hot and humid airmasses. Time will tell.

        1. Sure thing……I’ll be the first one complaining about how raw and chilly it was today, but this type of weather sure is our friend for keeping all that severe weather away.

  4. We have a good dose of rain on its way from 9pm to noon Sat then cloudy, most will be in the mid 50’s, be back later 🙂

  5. I think temps start out around freezing for now but will rise to around 34-35 degrees around midnight to around 40 degrees by 7am tommorrow morning.

  6. Way to go Mansfield,, they r going to get owners of there outdated downtown buildings to change to a modern fascade sidings, we got enough outdated brick buildings in this state to go around the world, it’s nice to see 🙂

  7. 458 Severe Weather Reports across parts of the midwest and south including 71 tornadoes. Severe Weather season if off to a bang in those areas. Of course to me our big severe weather months don’t come until July and August but hopefully this is not an omen of what is to come for the spring for the folks down south.

  8. Gosh several killed in Indiana tornadoes. I haven’t heard other reports. I can honestly say I could not live in a tornado or earthquake prone area.

    1. Based on some of the video footage I’m seeing, I’m afraid the number of fatalities are going to rise………I have this weather book and in one section, it gives the weather “threats”‘ I guess you might call it for each states. I get to Massachusetts and almost fell over. Among the list were blizzards, hurricanes ( that didn’t surprise me ), but at moderate risk in parts of eastern Mass…….earthquake.

        1. There is a fault that runs right through framingham. I can’t remember the reason we don’t have many but something to do with the way the layers are structured. 6.2. Wow for here

          1. Part of our earthquake vulnerability is due to the fact that our buildings aren’t constructed to withstand them, especially the older ones. Smaller quakes can do as much damage here as big ones would do in California..

            The guys I chase with are chasing today, been following their stream online. Jeff Piotrowski was on CNN with his stream earlier, and had some compelling footage. It does sadly look as though the damage is horrific, and the death toll will rise. Night has fallen so streaming is largely done, but my friends are at cloud9tours.com.

          2. The one quake I remember was from when I was young….it was in the early 80s and I remember feeling the rumbling. I think it was 1982, may have been centered in southeast Canada and was felt in a large part of New England.

          3. Thanks Chris. Look how much the buildings swayed from the VA earthquake last summer. This far away

            There was a smaller quake in the mid 90s west of Boston. We never felt it at the barn where my daughters pony was boarded but the horses ran for quite a while around the paddock. They felt it

            1. I remember hearing that the reason last year’s VA quake was felt all the way up here and even into Canada is partly due to the soft nature of the ground on the east coast. The energy is able to penetrate and disperse further in softer ground. In places like CA, the ground is more firm thus limiting the distance the energy can travel.

  9. We are fortunate here in New England that strong tornadoes like the ones that are happening today across parts of the midwest and south are rare but as June 1st last year showed us they can happen here. I would be surprised if a setup like what happened on that date happened this year.

    1. I wonder how far along a lot of those New England towns are, 9 months later, as far as rebuilding and cleaning up all the damage.

      1. I would be shocked if there was not a story on how far those towns have come since the tornado on June 1st which will mark one year since it happened.

  11. Back from a week at Killington and I already want to go back. The conditions were incredible. I really hope this wasn’t the last time they get significant snows in ski country. Pleasantly surprised at how much snow there was on the ground and on the trees on my ride home. Beautiful winter scene. Too bad it has to rain, UGH!

  12. Just got home and reading all of the posts. I do not think we are exempt from any of this happening here. The weather all around the world has just been crazy. A few things that come to mind. As JJ said above on the tornadoes coming here are rare, but they can and did happen here. It seems like every summer there is that strong threat here. How often did a show get interrupted here last summer with these warnings. And the last two labor day weekends we have had a major threat/shot at two possible huricanes. Last year coming real close with end results being a tropical storm. I remember seeing all the damage in Pembroke just from that, imagine if that turned out to be more. And all the record breaking snow we got last winter in a six week span. And than this record breaking winter with the warmth and lack of snow. Also how many of our buildings in the last couple of years beeen rattled by an earthquake far from us. Just scary when you think of some of the things we have dodged. I do believe we will see another great blizzard here, one that may rival our famous one from the 70s. The No name storm or perfect storm was close just with no snow. Growing up in Marshfield I have never seen destruction like that in my 40 yrs of life, people lost everything. Hope I am making some kind of sense here. I just think we have been so lucky and yet so close to a major disaster here. The one thing we can do is to take some quiet time and remember all of the people today and this week who were not so lucky and had to go through this disaster. Enjoy the weekend all.

    1. Hi Charlie – I heard sleet here around 1:30 – could have been going on for a while but that’s when it woke me up. It didn’t take too long to turn to rain.

  14. was i suppose to get 2 inches of snow overnight night with freezing rain and sleet. Its going to be an interesting ride down to trumbull ct

  15. Good Morning, All 🙂
    A chance of thunderstorms this morning… how big of a chance and how strong if we do in fact get any? My heart goes out to all affected by yesterday’s horrific storms.

    1. Hi shotime.

      I think the chances of thunderstorms are low to moderate, as far as a town receiving thunder and lightning. However, there appears to be some heavy showers and storms ? developing in southwest VT, headed for southern and central NH. It’s the activity developing in southeast PA and around the DC/Baltimore area that looks to be headed for us.

      Terrible weather day yesterday and a lot of lives tragically and dramatically changed forever.

  16. Pretty surprised this morning to find that much snow fell. Solid 1-1/2″. And a good 1/8 of ice accretion. Looks really nice still. Especially since all the snow is in place still from this week.

    1. We didn’t get snowin Marshfield, however, I was awoken at 2am by heavy sleet hitting the window. The deck had a coating of sleet on it, which has since melted. I am surprised how well the cold air hung in there last night.

  17. Unfortunately, there’s already a tornado warning on a cell in southern GA this early morning. Northern FLA looks clear and is going to receive heating from the sun this morning. The jet stream still looks pretty strong above that area, I’d think there’s turning of the wind with height in that area.

  18. Re: thunderstorms and the weather for the rest of the day –

    7AM UPDATE…
    HAVE EXTENDED THE WINTER WEATHER ADV UNTIL 9AM AS SEVERAL SITES
    WITHIN THE ADVISORY ARE STILL NEAR OR AT FREEZING. WITH THE
    MOISTURE IN THE AIR…THIS MAY CAUSE SOME FREEZING DRIZZLE
    CONCERNS FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS. AREA OF THUNDERSTORMS ARE
    TRACKING SOUTH OF THE OUTER WATERS AND ARE SLOWLY DYING OFF. HAVE
    UPDATED FORECAST TO ACCOUNT FOR CURRENT TRENDS. PRECIP SHOULD
    DWINDLE DOWN BY MID DAY AND SKIES WILL CLEAR.

    PREV DISCUSSION…
    CONTINUING TO TRACK THE FREEZING LINE NORTH AS SOUTHEAST WINDS
    INCREASE. CONTINUED WINTER WEATHER ADVISORIES WHERE TEMPERATURES
    ARE STILL BELOW FREEZING THIS MORNING. TEMPERATURES WILL
    EVENTUALLY RISE ABOVE FREEZING ACROSS ALL OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND
    BY MID-MORNING.

    LATEST WATER VAPOR IMAGERY CONTINUES TO SHOW A DEEP MOISTURE
    PLUME STREAMING NORTH AHEAD OF A COLD FRONT WHICH WAS ACROSS
    WESTERN PA AND NY STATE AT 4 AM. THIS FRONT WILL MOVE EAST…AND
    SHOULD MOVE OFFSHORE THIS AFTERNOON. 03/00Z GUIDANCE CONTINUES TO
    INDICATE STRONG WIND SHEAR ON THE ORDER OF 25-30 KTS LATER THIS
    MORNING AHEAD OF THIS COLD FRONT. LOW-LEVEL INSTABILITY IS VERY
    POOR…BUT MID-LEVEL LAPSE RATES WERE APPROACHING 6-6.5 C/KM.
    THIS COMBINED WITH SEVERAL OF THE OTHER CONVECTIVE INDICIES
    INDICATE SOME POTENTIAL FOR ELEVATED CONVECTION LATER TODAY.

    STRONG CONVECTION SOUTH OF LONG ISLAND LOOKS LIKE IT WILL REMAIN
    TO THE SOUTH OF BLOCK ISLAND…MARTHAS VINEYARD AND NANTUCKET.
    BASED ON TIMING OF THE COLD FRONT…AM THINKING THE GREATEST RISK
    FOR THUNDERSTORMS WOULD BE ACROSS RI AND SOUTHEAST MA.

    ONCE THE COLD FRONT MOVES THROUGH…WINDS WILL SHIFT TO WEST
    DURING THE AFTERNOON AND BRING DRIER AIR TO THE REGION. MODEL TIME
    SECTIONS SHOW DRYING AT ALL LEVELS…SO EXPECTING
    AFTERNOON/EVENING CLEARING.

    A BLEND OF MAV AND MET GUIDANCE LOOKED REASONABLE FOR
    TEMPERATURES.

    I miss Old Salty – miss all his models and info. Hope he is ok.

    I can’t believe what happened last night – actually still happening in some places now.

    1. Old Salty – if you are reading this, please understand that I am not trying to take your place in giving this info. I have done this before and I prob’ly will do it again – but I will never be able to do what you do with the models, etc. You know much more than I do! 🙂 Hope you are ok and hope to see your posts soon!

    3. Thanks Rainshine. Just had breakfast over your way. Roads slushy. Temp 34

      I miss old salty too and am worrying.

  19. Was yesterday’s outbreak of storms rather early in the season for such intensity and frequency? I sure hope it’s not any indication of what’s to come this spring.

    2. I heard on tv this morning that normally March has 72 tornadoes, but so far there have been 80 already. Also most tornadoes occur in late March as opposed to early March.

  20. The snow/sleet involvement at the front end of this was more than I expected. Had a solid 0.6 snow/sleet here from midnight until around 2AM until rain finally took over. I was out in it and visibility dropped quite a bit during the heaviest snow with big wet flake-clumps.

  21. Joe Joyce on his morning blog mentions widespread warmth from the 12th-18th. Is this going to be the type of warmth that brings out every flower, tree and insect in which we never look back on winter again?

    1. Philip some bulbs already coming up. In Boston at work we have a garden and things starting to pop up. With more warmth they will be sprouting. By Easter 3_8 everything will look nice, but before that.

      1. The daffodils on the side of my house (south and against white siding) are up about 10 inches and the buds are getting pretty full. Forsythia also budding more on that side

        1. Even though my Iris’ are not doing so good, my tulips are at least 2″ above ground level and look quite healthy!

        1. We haven’t seen anything resembling spring in our yard or even Sudbury (at least in the parts of town I have been). I will keep my eyes out, ‘though. I’m sure spring will be showing up soon around here.

          1. I have a friend in New Ipswich NH who is always weeks behind me and she has daffodils behind her barn for the first time ever at the same time mine came up – I should have looked more closely when at the Wayside Inn this morning but was too busy dodging rain drops

  22. My husband was saying that with global warming – for whatever reason (cyclical or man made) storms are supposed to really ramp up and become more severe as well as weather patterns worldwide changing. He said this – not me – so if he’s wrong don’t shoot the messenger 🙂

      2. LOL! those were the days. I think my mom still has my nerf ball guns from when i was younger. Come to think of it, I think she’s still holding them hostage from the last time she got mad at me for shooting them and was put in timeout!

        1. Oh we have a whole collection of toys around here. It never gets old…

          You should see our water gun and water balloon fights in the summer. Though the way winter has been I probably could have held some in the last few months too. 😛

  23. I hope Old Salty is okay. I have not seen him post in a while.
    I don’t know if you could global warming is contributing to storms becoming more severe. With the setup yesterday you had dew points up in the 60s a low pressure center going up to the Great Lakes and a cold front coming through which provided the lift necessary for these storms to develop.

  24. What is really weird is that in the Indiana area, they are expecting some snow tonight. Let’s see – big tornado, then snow within 48 hrs. or less? And with all that destruction, snow on top of it? Strange – but so sad. My prayers and heart go out to all who lost people and had property damage from the tornado outbreak this past week.

    Was out earlier – very slushy but felt chilly and raw. Still overcast in Sudbury. Hard to believe the sun will be out by around 3:00 and be near 50 degrees.

    1. My heart also aches for them.

      Everything feels raw doesn’t it. I have no idea how it will get even close to 50 – 38 now

      1. Yeah, I was surprised. Stepped out expecting that damp, cold, raw air and got that summertime feel.

  26. Looks like the last batch of light to moderate rain coming through now. Temp up to 49.2 here in Easton and climbing. I think I may have to trade my fire for a window fan soon!

  27. Philip and others have mentioned Joe Joyce’s prediction of widespread warmth from the 12th to the 18th. Respectfully, I disagree. First, any long-range prediction like this in March (!) is subject to extreme variability, and should be viewed with caution. Robert Frost pointed this out many years ago: warmth for more than a couple of days in a row in March is pretty much elusive around here. It happens, but very rarely. Second, beyond a 2-day spell of mild weather next Thursday and Friday (even that could be delayed or muted depending on what the atmosphere wants to throw at us), I do not see widespread warmth from the 12th to the 18th. What I continue to observe is a much more normal pattern, too late to really produce wintry conditions around here, but not conducive to a particularly early spring. In fact, much more conducive to oscillations typical of March, with perhaps more below- than above-normal temperatures this month. I don’t know what the rest of the month will bring, but if the first three days are any indication, or the next 4 days over which we have relative certainty regarding the forecast, then we may actually see the first below-average (temp) month in a very long time.

    1. I think we’re looking at swings, not wild, but every few days, like the atmosphere is taking medium breaths. Colder Sunday-Tuesday, warmer Wednesday-Friday, colder next weekend. For beyond that (the Joe Joyce warm period), too early to be sure.

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