Saturday February 18 2023 Forecast (9:16AM)

68 Comments

DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 18-22)

A dry February weekend, well 2 out of 3 if you included Monday’s Presidents Day holiday as part of a 3-day weekend. High pressure approaches and provides a bright, dry, chilly day today with a gusty breeze at times as the air mixes, but diminshing later on. The wind blowing across the water will result in more cloudiness across Cape Cod for several hours before that moves off / dissipates. Only a few passing fair weather cloud fragments may drift across the sky elsewhere. The high shifts east and a southerly air flow takes over Sunday with lots of clouds. An upper level disturbance then moves in from the west and triggers some rain showers in the region late Sunday night into Monday. A lot of this may stay just offshore but there is a decent shot for eastern areas. Later on, a cold front approaching from the west and northwest may trigger a few more rain showers before we get a shot of chilly, dry air for Tuesday. We start seeing evidence of an evolving weather pattern by the middle of next week when the next low pressure system moves in from the west on Wednesday that may start with a variety of precipitation – something to monitor and fine-tune later.

TODAY: Lots of clouds Cape Cod with increasing sun there later in the day. Sunny with just a few passing clouds elsewhere. Highs 35-42. Wind N-NW 5-15 MPH, higher gusts, diminishing later and shifting to W.

TONIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 22-29. Wind W-SW up to 10 MPH.

SUNDAY: Clouding up. Highs 45-52. Wind SW to S 5-15 MPH.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Chance of rain overnight favoring the South Coast to MA South Shore. Lows 38-45. Wind S 5-15 MPH becoming variable.

MONDAY: Mostly cloudy. Chance of rain showers. Highs 45-52. Wind variable 5-15 MPH becoming N.

MONDAY NIGHT: Variably cloudy. Chance of a rain shower evening. Lows 25-32. Wind W 5-15 MPH shifting to NW.

TUESDAY: Sun/cloud mix. Highs 38-45. Wind NW 10-20 MPH, gusty.

TUESDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 25-32. Wind variable up to 10 MPH.

WEDNESDAY: Clouding up. Chance of rain that may start as a mix. Highs 40-47. Wind variable 5-15 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 23-27)

Unsettled weather early in the period may produce a variety of precipitation trending toward frozen before tapering off with mid period dry weather. Another storm threatens with potential wintry precipitation later in the period.

DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 28 – MARCH 4)

Flatter Southeast ridge and a jet stream in a position further south than it’s been much of the winter results in a pattern of near to below normal temperatures and near to above normal precipitation including frozen stuff.

68 thoughts on “Saturday February 18 2023 Forecast (9:16AM)”

  1. Thanks TK
    So your saying there is a chance for winter to make an appearance last few days of February into the first few days of March.

    1. Anywhere from February 22-23 on into March, maybe for a while. We’ll see how much staying power that pattern has.

      It’s always hardest to break the most stable patterns, and this winter’s pattern has been among the most stable I have witnessed.

      1. Southeast Ridges are hard to break, and they usually don’t stay “broke” for very long. I’ll take one moderate snow event and then move on to next winter. It’s probably the best we will get all season. 😉

  4. Thanks TK

    Hopefully, will be a good night to see Starlink. It moves west to east at 6:11. Even with a few deck lights on and the stars very visible, it was impossible to see it Wednesday night until I turned the lights off. Hopefully, 6:11 will be dark enough.

    1. Tonight’s pass is a little less bright, but with lights off it should be viewable. 🙂 I’ll be in a very dark spot far west of Boston.

  5. Backward trace of yesterday’s rain takes it to off the Carolina coast and the air origin to the southern Plains where there was a dust event.

    Of course mainstream and social media had to immediately link it to the chemical spill, but does that surprise anybody? It shouldn’t.

    The smell in the air may also be as a result of that same dust, which is rare to have deposited in our region. You need a very specifically timed set of conditions from dust event to weather pattern taking that air to a specific spot to have it come up here and be deposited in rain. That’s what we had.

    Science. An amazing tool. Petey B. posted a backward trace on Twitter and/or FB I believe.

    1. I was waiting for Pete to weigh in. I’ll look for it. The smell also could have been from the fire at clean waters. And to be fair, I don’t think everyone on social media was linking it to Ohio but was asking very logical questions. This is the case where social media I think helped more than it hurt. A few posts might have gone overboard but the majority I either read or commented on were simply concerned. The smell seemed to be for the most part, not exclusively, toward this area and down into CT. It was strong when I woke up at 8:30, died off and then was very strong around noon. To the point I thought something in the house might be on fire.

      1. Clean harbors. Not waters. Mac is laughing. He worked very closely with them and was always invited to their golf tournaments and outings. You’d think I’d know

        1. I know the nonsense posts are actually the minority of posts, but they disappointingly stand out.

          There is a place down the road from me that collects waste oils / etc. and I often see trucks marked “Clean Harbors” driving in there. 🙂

          1. They sure do have the loudest voices. Goes with my comment about schools yesterday. I have a habit of blocking folks who are over the top so don’t see as many sensationalized posts. But have gotten fairly good at searching out folks I trust. Fairly is the operative word 😉

            Question. Pete said the air yesterday was coming from the Carolina’s. NOAA’s HISPLIT Model trajectory had the plume traveling south into the Carolina’s. That is sort of an open ended question.

            Thought. There was a fire at a plastic plant in FL yesterday. Could that have caused the smell.

            And comment. My SILs black truck is covered by something that doesn’t look like any pollen I’ve ever seen

      1. It was tropical humidity last night, dp 70F.

        This morning, a cool front made it through, turned the wind NE off the Gulf Stream, so it still hit 78F and the dp dropped to 65F.

        It feels like the trade winds today, extremely comfortable.

  7. Thanks TK.

    Murphy’s Law is very much at work as always on a 3-day weekend. Of course, 20 years ago, it was working overtime to say the least. 😉

    27.5” (still a mystery to this day as to the accuracy though). I don’t know if it’s ever been fully resolved.

    1. Take any 3-day period, weekend or not, in the winter, and almost every time at least one of the days will be unsettled. We live in a place where the jet stream is often nearby or over the area. This is normal.

      We’re actually going to end up with mostly dry weather overall for the 3 days. Dry, cold today. Dry, mild (just more clouds) tomorrow. Monday’s unsettled but most of the time rain-free. In fact much of the region may never see anything during the daylight hours Monday. So we essentially have a dry 3-day weekend with near to below normal temps today and above normal temps the other 2 days. Not bad when you think about it.

      I’ll never be fully sure about that measurement but it was taken in a different spot and by a volunteer I believe. If it was who I remember, they were a dependable observer, but the method of measurement may have differed from what was used in 1978. Also, getting an accurate measurement in 1978 was nearly impossible just due to the wind. Boston’s snowfall could very well have been 30 inches in that storm and estimated too low. We’ll never know for sure. I think they were vastly different storms though when you compare them. One was a big snowstorm. The other was a big storm, period, that just happened to have a lot of snow, but it had a lot of wind, and a lot of coastal impact, with no comparison in those regards.

        1. After the NWS moved from Logan to Taunton, they didn’t have a professional staff left at Logan to do it, and the obs were automated. Snow had to be measured by whomever was available and as qualified as possible. One of my former coworkers in the private sector was among the official measurement takers. I didn’t keep track of how many people did it and at what times.

          Note: It was sometime after that move that the observation site was moved to between 2 runways, which I think was another reason we started getting warmer temp readings from Logan, before the “bad sensor” issues even started.

    1. That is definitely not depicting the same old crap. It’s reflective of the pattern change, though details are going to vary run to run.

      In fact this is the pattern shift I’ve been talking about.

      1. What I mean is what is reflecting on the GFS run is the same result: RAIN and not SNOW.

        Now, the GDPS is more like it. 🙂

        Waiting on the EURO

  10. Keep in mind, the pattern change I’ve been talking about is not a 2015 repeat. We’re not likely about to get hammered by relentless blockbuster snowstorms. Not the same animal.

    As explained, the SE ridge is relaxing and flattening, somewhat in response to a weakening of La Nina, which was forecast by CPC, and other factors as well.

    The pattern improves for more wintry weather midweek and beyond, into March.

      1. It could, but I think we may have seen the best it can throw at us.

        We’re undergoing a slow transition out of La Nina toward neutral ENSO, and eventually we head for weak El Nino later this year.

          1. In theory, but that will also be determined by any number of other indices up to 12 or 15, that dominate the large scale pattern.

            Let me put it this way – without La Nina, our odds of having a limiting factor as much as a dominant SE ridge are far far FAR lower. That index was a big deal this time. El Nino may or may not be a big player. Time will tell.

    1. Both models show nicely the pattern I’m expecting to be the dominant one from February 22 through at least early March.

      1. Just based on that, I get the impression future events will be borderline rain/snow and not all/mostly snow. Southern jet not quite far enough south, not to mention battling climatology as well.

        2. I think we’ll see at least a couple events that are borderline during the transition but the more specific details obviously we won’t know for a while…

  14. A bit more on the pattern…

    CFS long range model was not too bad pointing at a pattern change in a gradual sense. Far from perfect but still a decent overall idea.

    The 6 week forecast shows something I can buy…
    Transition upcoming, more precipitation, trending colder during the first 3 weeks. The next 3 weeks would establish a new pattern of trough West, ridge Middle US, trough East, but with the eastern trough more just off the coast than over the continent. If this is the case, the pattern would transition from chilly / wintry / wet to chilly and dry East Coast, mild Middle US, and continued colder than normal and wetter than normal West.

    Glancing ahead of at its seasonal / monthly ideas, it likes another dry 2023 at least until later in the year, no screaming big temp anomalies in the long term.

    CPC has indicated that during the next 2 to 4 weeks the percentage of below normal temps would outweigh the above normal temps in the continental US.

    1. what I do not understand about the CFS is it wanting to get it to El-Nino, then by August, the SSTs are back down to neutral in the 3.4 region, at the same time the CFS transitions the SST configuration around in the Atlantic, neutral/cool Atlantic equatorial, and warm MDR, and variable sub-tropics. The other models are more inline with each other with a similar atlantic set up to last year and a solid El-Nino developing going through the fall and the CFS seems to be on an island by itself. Looks just as dry as last year here in the Caribbean. Sak I know you have done a good amount of forecasting down in the Caribbean. If I am not mistaking, isn’t that the dry season ( spring, usually wetter than normal under a developing El-nino? This will be the second year in a row of extreme drought in the Caribbean if the models are correct. My cistern is going to hurt.

      1. CFS definitely has its issues.
        I don’t rely on that model to determine ENSO for sure.
        CPC is hinting at the potential transition out of neutral to weak El Nino – but even if that happens it may not be for long. I’m curious what happened coming out of the very small sampling of triple-dip La Nina episodes we’ve observed. I’m going to have to look that up.

  15. Now this was no February 4, but it felt cold today, even without the wind, but now that the wind is actually picking up from the SW you can feel the temps heading for the predicted highs late-day. A hint that we’re going right back to mild in short order, as has been the case pretty much all winter, even when we got our coldest weather.

    1. Sorry to hear that. Not too surprising though as he hasn’t looked very well in a number of years now. His time is likely near.

      If those soldiers he sent to free those hostages succeeded, he would have easily won the 1980 election. Oh well. Wasn’t meant to be.

  17. When I was out and about, I noticed our small pools of water are quite low. Also one of our lakes is quite low. I still don’t know if they drain it but it seems the smaller ponds / pools are abnormally low.

    1. After a wet January, so far February has been very dry. Depending on the body of water, of course, some of that is drained, and some of it is lost to evaporation, easily accomplished this year because most water is not ice covered and the warmer than average temps have been able to steal moisture more quickly.

      1. Decisions will have to be made as to whether to redo our lawn. If we have another drought, it’s just throwing money away. 🙁

        1. I’ve been concerned about dipping back toward drought one more time in 2023 before we reverse it.

        1. Had to have been. A lot of rustling. But we have varied types of critters and the deck is high enough to accommodate most. So I stood by the door ready to scamper in. But all lights were off

          Our immediate neighbor did not see it tonight either

          Were you out looking?

    1. What an absolutely beautiful world. I know it’s in our Siberia (well, without the gulag) and it’s certainly not what we normally should have in SNE, but, man, I’d love to have it.

    2. Winter has been alive in well from there up through southern Quebec and beyond. This 3rd year La Nina SE ridge has been persistent but has its limits. They have been in the battle zone where even a mild winter is snowy when you have many battles.

      Here in SNE we’ve literally been “just outside the door”.

      It’s easy to get the impression that when it’s not happening when you are it’s not happening anywhere. This is a form of “regional bias”. It’s like when a rain shower passes by a certain area some people will make the assumption that’s raining everywhere in the region. Example: I was with someone where we had an isolated rain shower, kind of heavy, and it was the only one around. And the person said, talking about a friend 20 miles away, “oh there’s no way she’s outside right now because of the rain” and I said “It’s sunny there” and explained why.

      A larger version of “regional bias” can be found in media. Much of it based in the East, especially what we hear, talking about such a mild non-winter, which has been very true so far for the East, but meanwhile the western US would say “huh? our winter’s been cold and snowy!”. And forget it if you want to hear them talk about the extreme cold that occurred in Siberia and China, or even more so the record low temps in the southern hemisphere over their summer. If it’s not happening here, it’s not happening anywhere. 😉

      Now we, here, know better than that. 🙂 But I’ve had to enlighten many folks during the last few months and remind them that weather occurs everywhere, not just in their back yard. 😉

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