Tuesday February 6 2024 (7:14AM)

93 Comments

DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 6-10)

Large scale blocking remains in place with high pressure ridging from our west to our north, and low pressure stretching from northeast of the Bahamas to south of Nova Scotia. Between these systems a north to northeast air flow will remain established over our region through Wednesday. A canopy of clouds will be generally located from the I-95 region eastward, with thickest and most persistent cloud cover over southeastern MA through Wednesday. It is here, mainly coastal Plymouth County to Cape Cod, where occasional to at times more persistent ocean-effect snow showers can occur, with some minor accumulations possible. This will not be a high-impact event. Weather systems start to move eastward during midweek, and the high pressure ridge will find its way into and across our region during Thursday and Friday with fair weather and moderating temperatures. While we’ll have lost the cloud deck from the ocean, we’ll start to see some high and mid level clouds moving in at times from the west on Thursday and even more so on Friday. By Friday night, a warm front moving into the region can generate some light precipitation, mainly rain though the possibility of some mixed precipitation across higher elevations of central MA and southwestern NH. This does not look like a widespread event or anything more than just light intensity. It leads a mild air mass into the region to start the weekend on Saturday, with temperatures rising to well over the seasonal average for the date. It should be a mainly dry day, but I can’t rule out a passing rain shower or two from a weak trough of low pressure passing by.

THROUGH WEDNESDAY: Lots of clouds I-95 eastward, fewer clouds to the west. Occasional snow showers Plymouth County MA to Cape Cod / Islands. Minor accumulations possible. Highs 32-39. Lows 21-28. Wind NE 10-20 MPH except 15-25 MPH Cape Cod with a few higher gusts possible.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Clearing. Lows 15-22. Wind N-NW 5-15 MPH, diminishing.

THURSDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 39-46. Wind variable under 10 MPH becoming SW up to 10 MPH.

THURSDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Lows 32-39. Wind S 5-15 MPH.

FRIDAY: Partly to mostly cloudy. Highs 42-49, coolest northwest of Boston in higher elevations. Wind SE 5-15 MPH.

FRIDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. A period of light rain possible, with some mix of rain/sleet/snow possible higher elevations well west and north of Boston. Lows 32-39. Wind SE-S 5-15 MPH.

SATURDAY: Partly sunny. A passing rain shower or two possible. Highs 51-58. Wind S-SW 5-15 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 11-15)

A cold front swings through the region as a trough departs to the east with mild air ahead of it, a potential rain shower, and a modest cool down following later on February 11 to finish off the weekend. Low pressure threatens a more widespread precipitation event in the February 12-13 time frame, but timing and low pressure track will help determine the details. These can be brought into better focus during the next several days. Fair and seasonably chilly weather follows that storm threat for the middle of next week.

DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 16-20)

Another potential storm system can impact the region early to mid period. Temperatures trend to below normal.

93 thoughts on “Tuesday February 6 2024 (7:14AM)”

  2. Good morning and thank you TK

    6Z GFS for early on the 13th

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=prateptype_cat-imp&rh=2024020606&fh=168&r=us_ne&dpdt=&mc=

    Kuchera Snow

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=snku_acc-imp&rh=2024020606&fh=180&r=us_ne&dpdt=&mc=

    Not a bad dump of snow at all. Wouldn’t this be something????

    Euro had it but warmer and too far SOuth for real meaningful snow

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=ecmwf_full&p=prateptype_cat_ecmwf-imp&rh=2024020600&fh=174&r=us_ne&dpdt=&mc=

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=ecmwf_full&p=sn10_acc-imp&rh=2024020600&fh=210&r=us_ne&dpdt=&mc=

    1. Remember the 12z ECMWF had the same low passing over Lake Huron? 😉 Nearly the same intensity too… haha!

  3. Thanks TK !

    On the northwest edge of the ocean effect.

    A few snow grains and very, very light mist.

    A cutting ocean breeze though that makes 32F feel a lot colder.

  7. Thank you to Mark for posting about the avalanche at the Lee Canyon Ski area near Las Vegas. I must have stopped watching their web cam just before the incident. The web cam has since been shut down and the area is closed today.

    Here is some additional information.

    https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/skier-gets-help-but-nobody-missing-in-lee-canyon-avalanche-2994086/

    Lee Peak has an elevation of: 11,289 ft.

    https://www.leecanyonlv.com/mountain-statistics/

  8. Thanks, TK.

    To me, February 6th is more meaningful than, say, January 1st. The arbitrariness of a calendar change versus an actual event that took place on a particular date, gripped a region and will forever be remembered.

  11. My memories of the blizzard of `78 are still quite vivid. Actually clearer than remembering what happened yesterday (must be the aging brain).

    I had a newspaper (Boston Globe) route which I did by bicycle. Yes, I was the kid tossing newspapers onto your front porch. I sort of perfected the art until I didn’t … Newspapers would sometimes wind up where they shouldn’t. I’d have to hop off my bike to retrieve the paper and put it where it belonged. Sometimes I’d get chased by a dog. And when a German Shephard is chasing you, you somehow become a speed demon on foot and on the bicycle.

    The Globe used to have an evening edition on weekdays. My responsibility was to deliver the evening edition. On Monday, February 6th, 1978, the wind was already picking and it had begun to snow. I asked my mother if she would drive me this time. We did the route. Then, all evening and overnight I watched the snow pile up. What was most impressive was the wind and snow combination. I didn’t sleep much at all. [I still don’t sleep much during epic storms. Somehow I have to experience them in real time]

    Nice series of black and white photos:
    https://www.boston.com/news/history/2018/01/29/photos-blizzard-1978/

    1. Great photos. Thank you Joshua. Brings back many memories!!

      Everyone on our street had to pitch in to shovel our our whole dead end street which is perhaps300 feet long or so.
      I measured 36 inches all along our street. We clearly had
      MORE than Logan on that storm. That one was a DOOZY
      that I will remember until I no longer exist.

      ABSOLUTELY LOVED THAT ONE!!!!

      Took a walk to DUNKIN DONUTS that evening and I could not believe the wind. I thought I was going to witness trees coming down as they were bending like I had never seen before, but not a tree fell. We did NOT lose power.

    3. What a great collection of photos. Thank you, Joshua.

      A dear friend and work buddy was in that line of cars near Westwood.

  12. My other memory from `78 is of the shoveling. For some reason, my father wanted us to clear the driveway and sidewalks before any of the neighbors did, especially before the neighbors who had paid crews doing the clean-up. Needless to say, it meant a lot of shoveling by me and my father and two foreign students we had living with us (one from Venezuela, the other from Colombia). We had a real sense of achievement once it was all cleared. The foreign students loved it, too.

    1. I didn’t go to work on the morning of the 7th, but did work
      every day the rest of the week. I worked on Boylston St above the Exeter Theatre in our satellite office. From there I went over to our cambridge office on Bent St. I remember getting off the Green line at Lechmere (there’s another whole memory!!)
      and walking on top of parked cars to get to my office.
      INCREDIBLE!!!!!!

  13. JP Dave, correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember you sending WHW a picture of your daughter in a snowsuit after the storm. You had just shoveled out a path. The snowbanks were taller than your daughter as I recall.

  14. Elevation can do wonders.

    Currently it is RAINING in downtown Flagstaff AZ (7,000 feet), while at the ski area (9,500 feet base) 12 miles North of the downtown it is snowing like crazy!!!
    Gotta love that elevation

    1. Yeah, Vicki, that was a tough one. He was the guest star of the Boston Pops Esplanade Fourth of July show in 2010 which we were at.
      Many of his songs are just about every day things and funny.

      He put his money where his mouth was and supported our troops at shows here in the States and toured bases overseas

      I played his playlist off of my phone on the way in this morning.

      “American Soldier” is his best in my opinion:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWrMeBR8W-c

      1. Wow. What a treat to have seen him especially on the fourth.

        My eyes have not been dry since I heard the news. No exaggeration. I listen to the Bobby bones podcast daily. Toby was on the show a few weeks ago They are having a tribute to him today. Starting around 20:00 on their morning podcast today

        One person called in whose husband was at Paris island. She shared a wonderful story. He sure loved his country

        Tough day

        1. My daughter grew up singing his songs at 2 and beyond, after hearing them in the car with us. Such sad news. Vicki do you remember which day the podcast with him on the podcast was? Mrs. North is heartbroken, as she loved him so much.

  17. Thanks, TK:

    I remember having school the morning of the Blizzard of 1978 and we got out at 11:30. Mom came to pick me and my brothers up at Mansfield High School. A normally five-minute trip home took 45 minutes and that was just at the start of the storm.

    I seem to remember that an elementary school in Norton did not get out early and they were forced to spend a couple of days at the school with the teachers. It was safer keeping them there then trying to get home in the storm.

    I still have all of the newspapers from the Blizzard of 1978. The February 7 edition of the Boston Globe never made it to Mansfield. A couple of years ago, I got a subscription to newspapers.com (newspaper archives) and the February 7 Globe was there and I printed myself a copy.

  19. Vicki, it’s indeed sad news about Toby Keith.

    By the way, he performed in 2011 at the July 4th concert on the Esplanade.

  23. So far this winter there have been opportunities with precipitation but no cold air to work with and vice versa. Still I am wondering about late February and early March. I sort of feel that winter snows might have been moved a month out. I need a blockbuster or a couple of majors to reach my snowfall projection.

  29. Dave, scary situation indeed yesterday with an inbounds avalanche at Lee Canyon. It was very fortune no one was killed. Palisades, where we are going in March, had an in bounds avalanche (in a lower mountain area) that killed a man last month. The ski areas can only do so much to mitigate the risk with dynamite/avalanche control but you can never totally eliminate it.

  31. Bernie’s thoughts on next week’s threat:

    Bernie Rayno
    @AccuRayno
    51m

    Split flow early next Sun.ECMWF (left) is from Sun eve. Southern branch energy needs to run ahead of northern branch (for snow) if not,it gets buried across the Southeast resulting in rain not snow. My snow area is further where I think the cold arrives (if storm is guided north)

    https://x.com/AccuRayno/status/1754913039889895479?s=20

  32. More crazy pictures from the Nova Scotia blizzard. 150 cm = 5 feet of snow:

    Ryan Snoddon
    @ryansnoddon
    4h

    How much snow fell in Sydney, Cape Breton?
    It’s tough to measure with so much blowing & drifting, however this car lot at Ramsay’s Honda is the best photo evidence I’ve seen to support the 150 cm reported.
    Currently parked in this lot are CRV’s, which are 168 cm high!

    https://x.com/ryansnoddon/status/1754863934991929482?s=20

      1. Amazing.

        That Low is still spinning pretty close to Nova Scotia. It did a loop, a little 360 and then back to where the circle started, similar to the one that impacted us in 1978. TK and others can chime in. Perhaps I’m wrong about this. It looks like it’s been jogging in place for several days.

        I’d kill for a storm like that.

  33. Absolutely love Henry Margusity’s enthusiasm, the “Big Daddy” guy. BUT, if there’s a hype master, HM is it. I trust his forecasts about as much as I’d trust most politicians to tell the truth.

      1. Weather terminology can sound dictatorial: “Suppressed” systems, “oppressive” heat and no-one wants to be in the “deformation zone” subject to the wrath of “retrograde” reactionaries.

        1. Then there are weather terms that are not g-rated like “hoarfrost,” “panhandle hooker,” “orogenous zone,” “beaver tail,” and many more which I can’t post due to their suggestive language.

  35. I have tickets to the Bruins next Tuesday. I would not mind AT ALL a miss or a minimal impact system. 🙂

      1. Not particularly. 🙂

        The Beanpot final is the night before I go there. The semi-finals were last night. 🙂

  36. In 24 hours the operational version of the ECMWF for 00z Feb 13 (Monday evening) has gone from putting that low center over western Lake Huron as a really strong low to a really weak low over the northeast corner of Louisiana. 😉

  37. I think much of eastern MA and RI is about to experience a short lived burst of great sunset color on the underside of a stratus cloud deck.

    1. Funny how many people are calling it the Valentine’s Day system. Nope. Late Feb 12 into Feb 13.

      Valentine’s Day is Feb 14. Not a Valentine’s Day system.

      2. probably looked at the end time on that snowmap which was 2/14 but yeah, all of that snow has fallen before the clock strikes midnight on 2/14.

  39. To say there is a bit of spread amongst the ensembles at 7 days out is an understatement. That said, I will take that 960mb member at the benchmark please.

    SNE Weather by Owen
    @SNEWxCenter
    2h

    EPS certainly more intrigued with the possible snowstorm next week than the Euro operational is. Lots of spread, and a concern with lack of cold air on the front end of the system, but some big storms in there. Lots of time to watch.

    https://x.com/SNEWxCenter/status/1754948703822217393?s=20

      1. Thank you. Better get dark soon though. I don’t dance and it’s a better sight for my neighbors not to see

  42. For those who can read French, this is a devastating report about the entire ski industry in France, from the Pyrenees to the Alpes Maritimes to the Jura. https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/2024-02/20240206-Stations-de-montagne-face-aux-changements-climatiques.pdf

    Researchers systematically examined the financial viability of 200 places to ski/resorts and found that all of them are vulnerable and many will close between now and 2050. It’s particularly precarious for those those in the lower elevations of, say, 2,500 to 5,000 feet.

  43. While pawing through my old newspapers from the Blizzard of 1978, I came across two surface and station maps from February 6 and 7, 1978 (7 am EST) that I forgot I had. I believe I went into the BPL to make copies of them.
    They scanned a lot better than I thought they would. You should be able to read clear data if you zoom in!

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/kJG9aXStkAorqVPd7

    1. They came out great! I’ve often looked at the synoptic pattern leading up to, during, and after that event. That entire winter was a remarkable case study in winter weather patterns …

      To this day, I’ve never observed as dynamic a month as January 1978 was.

      And February, a tremendous pattern lined up just so … ONE storm, and that was it. And it only took that one to give Boston double its average snowfall for the month, while the precipitation was actually below normal for the month. 😉

      1. 4-1. They never really showed up for tonight’s game. They better not play that way next week when I’m there. 😛

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