Shower Threat Looms

48 Comments

11:44PM

I don’t think much rain is on the way, but we won’t see much sun from Tuesday through early Thursday. This is because a low pressure trough will be moving into the eastern US, bumping up against a high pressure ridge off the East Coast. Moisture will move northward into New England, bringing the chance of showers from the end of the day Tuesday through the morning hours of Thursday. Fair and mild weather will end the work week and start the weekend, but a cold front coming along sometime on Sunday will send a batch of chilly air into southern New England by Columbus Day.

Forecast for RI, eastern MA, and southern NH…

OVERNIGHT: Partly cloudy. Lows 50-55, few upper 40s inland valleys. Wind light W.

TUESDAY: Partly sunny to mostly cloudy. Slight chance of a shower by late afternoon. Highs 71-76, upper 60s to near 70 some south-facing coastal areas. Wind SW 5-15 MPH.

TUESDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Chance of showers. Lows 52-57. Wind SW 5-15 MPH.

WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy. A few showers possible. Highs 66-71. Wind SE 5-10 MPH.

THURSDAY: Mostly cloudy with a few showers AM. Partly sunny PM. Low 55. High 73.

FRIDAY: Mostly sunny. Low 53. High 74.

SATURDAY: Partly cloudy. Low 55. High 74.

SUNDAY: Variably cloudy. Chance of showers. Low 56. High 66.

MONDAY – COLUMBUS DAY: Partly sunny. Low 39. High 58.

48 thoughts on “Shower Threat Looms”

  1. Thanks TK ! Great sunrise this morning. Clouds turned bright red, especially on the eastern half of the sky.

  2. Thanks TK.
    I was just reading the TWC is going to be naming major winter storms. To me a major storm is a widespread 10 plus inches of snow but I have seen others consider a major storm having 6 inches or more of snow. It makes for an interesting debate on what is considered a major storm.

    1. I think the impact of the event should be a major consideration in lieu of amounts. A 5″ snow storm is not a big storm, but have it fall in a few hours during rush hour and its a different story (2005).

    2. I heard about what TWC wants to do as well…a stupid idea IMHO. Named storms should be reserved for tropical systems. I hope NOAA doesn’t go down this road in the future.

  3. Thanks TK

    Naming winter storms? Would it mean including criteria such as wind, damage, etc. Interesting.

    1. I hope we go through the alphabet with the winter storms. 🙂 And good thing I didn’t post thing on another blog or I would have been ripped to shreds. 🙂

  4. The criteria is different for the country what is considered a major storm. In the deep south I believe a winter storm warning is snowfall of 3 inches or greater and up here its 6 inches or more.

  5. I use a 1-4 snow index scale. It did not get use much last winter. Just like the thunderstorm index the higher the number the bigger the storm.
    A level 1 would be a dusting to 4 inches
    A level 2 would be 5-10 inches
    A level 3 would be 10-20 inches
    A level 4 more than 20 inches.

      1. I like Jimmy’s scale as well and my bet is it will be used much more compared to last year but I’m still not convinced of even normal snowfall just yet. We will see. 🙂

        Also, AccuWeather comes out with their winter forecast tomorrow!…fwiw. 😉

  6. I don’t know if any body posted this yet but September was .2 degrees below normal. I know its not much, but maybe it is a trend.

  7. i would put in the effect of
    amount of snow
    type of snow( heivy wet snow or powder)
    wind
    time
    stickiness of the snow to road ways. warmer the concreate the longer it takes for the roads to get bad.
    12inches of powder with winds of 20mph is better than 6 inches of wet snow and 20 mph winds. rush hour or not.
    either kind of snow has its advantages. Powder =skiing ,wet snow = snowball fights

  8. Call me a traditionalist, but I think names should be reserved for tropical systems. There are too many variations re: snowstorms in everything, including what part of the country one lives in.

      1. I like JJ’s number system too.

        But if you start naming winter storms, too – wonder if you will run out of names? Example, a conversation might go like this: Gee, remember what Lester did last year? The other person says, Hmm, Lester? Was that a snowstorm or hurricane? Whatever! Hope I didn’t insult anyone named Lester on the blog here! I know storms are just storms, but hurricanes seem to have a long history and we should remember them with names. Unless we give snowstorms numbers! 🙂

        1. Don’t get me wrong. There have been some strong and memorable snowstorms in the past. I just think we should keep the system the same. But who am I to judge – whatever happens happens.

          1. Our local mets usually come up with their own names for our winter storms and that seems to work just fine, such as “The April Fools Blizzard”, The Blizzard of 78….etc…

    1. Thanks for sharing, Vicki. I’ve been to that spot so many times in my life. When I see a picture like this it’s almost as if I’m there. I can feel it. By the way, the mid section of the country (I’m really talking northern tier) is going to get some heavy duty frost in the coming days. My daughter is now at Macalester (St. Paul) where they’ve already had a slight freeze last week, and are expecting 20s at night later this week. As is usually the case at this time of year, those cold temperatures will mitigate as they approach the east coast.

      1. I feel the same way about the entire area, Joshua. It brings back wonderful memories of my time there and of my dad’s

        I am keeping my fingers crossed we get those freezes soon. Is this the daughter who was in Bretton Woods or do I have the wrong person?? If so, she certainly gets around.

        1. Yes, my daughter Lisa gets around, indeed. Her gap year between high school in the Netherlands (where she lived with her Dutch mother, my ex-wife) and college consisted of work stints in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Ghana. Now she’s settling in as a freshman in college at Macalester. Lisa’s not as into weather as I am, but she shares in my love for winter and does kid her father sometimes by texting me things like “freeze warning in St. Paul, just thought my weather-obsessed Dad would like to know.”

  10. 65 with 59 dp. We had showers on and off starting at noon and now it’s steady light to moderate rain.

  11. Another year with no New England landfalling hurricane, I know bob hit the cape but it didn’t affect me so it’s been 27yr since Gloria, I guess it’s good news, maybe next yr

    1. I am seeing a more balanced attack by new england, we lost the running capability for a while.It looks like it is comming back but i want to more of it before i call this a remaking of the early 2000 teams

  13. Charlie to me its just a question of when a hurricane will strike New England.
    As far as naming winter storms goes I much perfer a storm impact scale for each area that will have impacts from the storm. To me that does the job.

  15. Ok let’s do a little verification.

    Yesterday, I called for mostly sunny to partly cloudy, and it turned out mostly cloudy in the northern 2/3 of my forecast area (sun to the south).

    Today, I called for a slight chance of showers late in the day, and we are getting fairly steady light rain since early to mid afternoon.

    0 for 2!

    And since things happen in 3’s, I may as well get #3 out of the way now and forecast snow for tomorrow… 😛

    Hope everybody is having a great afternoon. Stick with me, my slump will end soon. 🙂

  16. In reply to JJ and others above, about TWC naming winter storms…

    I think that may be one of the worst ideas to come out of anybody’s heads. As if they don’t hype stuff up enough already, adding names to it will just make it “that much more exciting” in the wrong kind of way.

    Stick to forecasting the weather, not naming it.

    1. TK, you’re so very right. If we think we had hype before, can you imagine when we start naming winter storms “Gunnar,” “Hunter,” or “Rogue,” and they turn out to be duds.

    2. I agree tk, I can hear it now, winter storm Paul is coming up the coast cat 5 and we get an inch of snow that changes to rain bc the ocean 🙂 then u would really start having people not believe anything, 7% of people really do believe weather forecasters can control the weather, these r the same people that don’t let the weather really effect anything they do or have planned 🙂

  18. Well of the 31.0 inches of snow I’ve predicted at Logan….

    9 will come from Draco

    14 will come from Khan

    and the remaining 8 will come from Yogi (hey Boo Boo and Mr. Ranger)

    I guess the folks in Atlanta have too much time on their hands. Not surprising given that they have so little live weather programming on now a days.

  19. Watched Todd on BZ at 11 tonight. He has the high temp at 55 for Sun, Mon & Tues. It just plain sounded chilly.

Comments are closed.