The Week Ahead

90 Comments

7:23PM

A couple mild days will start the week out as high pressure sinks to the south of New England Monday and a cold front approaches Tuesday. A southwest wind will transport the mild air into the region. Only a few showers are possible with the cold frontal passage later Tuesday, but this front will settle just to the south and wait for a wave of low pressure to travel along it on Wednesday, and this will bring a chance of some rain, especially to southern and eastern portions of southeastern New England.  As the low departs Wednesday evening, any lingering moisture and a very chilly air mass could create just the right combination for a few areas to see their first flakes of snow mixed in with a few lingering rain showers. It would not be a snowstorm situation. This low pressure area will intensify as it pushes through the Canadian Maritimes, and as upper level low pressure takes up residence in eastern Canada, this combination means a windier and colder pattern for the end of the week. A disturbance will have to be watched for the weekend as it may bring some unsettled weather to the region and also reinforce the colder air. Details on how this may play out are not clear so the forecast for the end of the week is low confidence.

Forecast for southeastern New England (southern NH, eastern MA, and RI)…

TONIGHT: Clear. Lows from the middle 30s inland valleys to middle 40s immediate coast. Wind W diminishing to around 10 MPH.

MONDAY: Sunny. Highs in the 60s, coolest South Coast, may touch 70 few interior areas. Wind SW 5-15 MPH.

MONDAY NIGHT:  Partly cloudy. Patchy valley fog. Lows in the 40s to near 50, coolest interior valleys. Wind S up to 10 MPH.

TUESDAY: Variably cloudy. A few passing showers possible. Highs 60-70, coolest south-facing shores. Wind S 5-15 MPH.

WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy. Chance of rain especially southeast midday and afternoon. Lingering patches of light rain at night may mix with snow interior areas before ending. Lows around 40. Highs around 50.

THURSDAY: Partly cloudy and windy. Lows in the 30s. Highs around 50.

FRIDAY: Mostly sunny and breezy. Lows around 30. Highs around 50.

SATURDAY: Increasing clouds. Chance of rain in the afternoon, may turn to snow interior areas at night. Lows in the 30s. Highs in the 40s.

SUNDAY: Variably cloudy. Chance of rain or snow showers in the morning. Lows around 30. Highs around 50.

90 thoughts on “The Week Ahead”

        1. Ya know maybe I should not say this out loud but darned if I don’t have great memories…so shhhh don’t tell anyone else

          1. The setup next weekend is loaded with potential for early snow. Cold air nearby, cold air aloft, energy coming around the base of a trough. Timing is everything but not only is that needed, but all of the ingredients. No leaving anything out of this recipe. Maximum effect is that part of the region sees something on a smaller scale of what happened on 10-29-11, i.e. measurable snow. Please let it be known I am not making this an official call, but merely stating the potential that exists out there.

  2. Thanks TK.
    Nice to see the s word mentioned in your blog. With that said I want to enjoy the fall season and get the leaves raked before the snow starts to fall. I remember that October 2011 snow event quite well and causing the big power outage in CT history. A foot of heavy wet snow where I live but some places up in the northwest hills getting a foot and half of snow.

  4. Still plenty of tweaking to do for late week. I’m leaning a bit more GFS vs. Euro for details though there are no tremendous differences with the overall pattern through the end of the month.

    1. really you are going towards the gfs, see most of the other models don’t have this up coming storm effecting us at all. Last time i checked this afternoon.

      1. The Euro has it too. But it’s progressive and almost an open wave. Nevertheless it’s played too close to ignore.

    2. My grandson keeps asking if we will lose electricity soon. After 2 yrs in a row he thinks its an October event.

    1. No heat here yet but baseboards are mostly vacuumed as I sense in the side of the house the little ones are there will be heat this week….ugh

      1. Vicki – we are feeling better, thanks. It was a nasty cold – the first one we’ve had in 5 yrs. The coughing was awful – I strained a lot of muscles coughing. But with the stress of us being sick and our apt. installing a new heating system during our cold, w/all the dust and stuff – people coming and going – they had to break apart the bathroom ceiling to install a new fan! We and another apt. were chosen to test this new efficient heating system out. In any case, all this stress upset my stomach so much I went to my stomach dr. who said to take Miralax (I’m so bad taking meds.) which helped but the dr. said it’s been 8 yrs. so I should have a colonoscopy nxt. mo. just to make sure all is ok. Not looking forward to this – I just haven’t felt much like blogging ‘though I have glanced now and then. I did see the S word in one of TK’s posts – looking forward to that! And thank you Vicki, for asking! Hope the fall has been good for you so far!

        1. Hi rainshine….I’m so sorry to hear you have had such a miserable time and everything at once doesn’t help at all. Good that you are having a colonoscopy. I am a huge fan of preventive procedures. And yes, the S word has been mentioned a few times. Winter – she is a comin’ 🙂 But meanwhile I’m enjoying this lovely fall weather.

          It is very good to see you here !!

            1. Hi Rainshine! Sorry to hear about your luck this fall so far. I hope all is on the mend. I asked Vicki if she had seen you a couple of weeks ago.

              I can’t wait for 2014. 2013 has been such a bad year for us and it is not even over!

              Glad to see you back!

  9. No heat here yet either, we’re still waiting for the gas company to install a meter after our conversion. It was 54 deg in the house this morning, i had my red sox snuggie on! 😀

  10. of course my proffesors decides to give me projects this week and next week just when the models get heated up.

    1. Matt don’t think you’ll be missing much. Cooler air coming in for Wednesday and beyond but nothing major. Hopfully the rain for Wednesday will happen as we need it.

    2. Matt, I saw your comment on the Jones’ penalty yesterday. My daughter was watching Kelly and Michael this morning. Michael (Michael Strahan) had explained the Chris Jones’ penalty to her. My sense was even he thought it was a ridiculous penalty. Kelly’s comment was (paraphrasing) that in a game where pushing and shoving is not only encouraged but what the game is all about, it’s odd that pushing and shoving in one little instance is a penalty.

      How accurate 🙂

      1. and the fact that the jets did that on our feild goal that tied it earlier in the same game., there is even proof of it and i could show you the picture since i have it on my facebook.

  12. Bring in your plants by Thursday bc I think we all go below 32 this weekend at night ahead of the average frost date for Boston.

  13. Seeing Hurricane Raymond south of Mexico.

    Its been amazing to me to see how many tropical systems in the Pacific, all season long, have paralleled the coast and then eventually have turned northeastward into Mexico near the Baja of California. I wonder if there are some analog years that have had a similar tropical season in the western Pacific and what happened in the following winter in the US………

    Also, what have we seen so far this late summer and early autumn ……

    Dry, dry, dry ……. and mostly positive NAO and even when its been negative, it hasnt been a setup thats led to storminess along the east coast. I wonder if this is leading towards a dry winter with cold shots that eventually modify as the cold shots move out into the north Atlantic, as opposed to be sent southward into the US ???

    2. Is that more of what we’ve seen. We had tropical systems go poof all season and two years ago we had potential winter systems do the same. Even with the snow last year we had warm weather and oceans and a drought.

    1. LOL, it can snow, here are the acceptible dates for me……….

      Dec. 21 – Jan 5
      MLK Jr. Holiday Weekend in mid January (19th-21st ??????)
      Feb 15- Feb 19

      And pretty much any weekend, beginning at Friday after 4pm and finishing by Sunday morning at 10am …… Preferably less than 12 inches per storm, so school can open on Monday mornings.

      8 snow days last year, 8 !!!!!

      Shooting for 3 or less this year. 🙂 🙂

      4. BOO! Let it snow. selfish me is saying as many snow storms over 12 inches so i do not have classes preferably durring the week. and preferably fridays and mondays 😉

    1. Indeed they do ! I think I’m more interested by what the tropics, in both the eastern Pacific and Atlantic (an above avg season that did not materialize) are trying to tell us. I would think that there must be some overall big picture correlation btwn what happened at lower latitudes this tropical season and what may happen in future months at mid latitudes, etc…………on the dry pattern for us lately, just noting it as a trend. So, some precip (after the World Series, of course 🙂 ) would be great !!!

  18. Ace posted a questioned to Matt Noyes about whether the lack of strength will impact out winter storms, ie could they be nugget as we get into winter. I was thinking about that for a while. I guess we shall see.

    1. Thanks for mentioning that Hadi, awful lot of unused energy out there, at least in the atlantic. Me thinks its gotta go somewhere

    1. I saw that …… Trying to decide whether to spread the dates out because of climatology for the locations or go with the idea of a late in the season storm that gets all 4 locations on the same date.

  20. I’ve been reading some of the winter predictions from a variety of sources and it sounds a little like 2011-2012, which would make a winter lover like myself rather gloomy. Is there consensus on a milder than normal winter in the northeast together with a flat jet stream, at least during the first half? To be fair, the forecasters noted the lack of certainty for a region like the Northeast, though they were much more certain about the winter being very mild in parts of the south and southwest.

  22. Last winter was supposed to be drier than normal too, until late feb and early march hit. Ironically, we probably were still below normal precip wise for the winter as a whole, but all we remember were the big snows late. I can see that happening again this winter.

    2. With all this talk about winter lets pick a deadline for our winter predictions. I propose 12/1. If somebody could keep track as well that would be great.

    1. Historically have we seen consistent snow that early or just the big hits or maybe a few small storms? I know dec 9 area has a history of big storms.

  24. North – thank you for your kind words. My husband and my troubles started in the early spring and still continue. But, I guess, that’s life. I hope your mother is doing better. Sorry I didn’t get to you sooner – I tend to shut off my computer early. Here’s to a better year nxt. yr. for us all!

  25. So – dare I say that New England doesn’t even see a tropical storm this yr.? Or am I being too hasty? I guess it’s s’posed to get colder at the end of the wk. More likely a blizzard 🙂 than a hurricane this fall? Oh, well. Besides all the lousy stuff going on in my life this past summer, I wasn’t totally oblivious to the weather. I kind of remember one day not long ago when the sky looked really weird but pretty. And some pretty loud thunderstorms – particularly at night, if I am not wrong.

    We were lucky to get to Rockport/Gloucester at the beginning of the summer and I am hoping that all will be well in early Dec. for us to go visit some friends up in Maine. We haven’t seen them in a long time. They live in Portland – we’ve never been there. Just to Ogunquit and Kennebunkport.

    2. Thanks, Hadi. In the next few days I am going to start “winterizing” my wardrobe – a little, anyway. No boots or anything – but sandals and such I think can be put away ’til nxt. yr.! 🙂

  27. I now have a non-meteorological guarantee that another surge of relative warmth and high humidity is coming after the next 7 to 10 days of chill……..

    Our school custodial staff took the air conditioners out of our windows last night. 🙂

  28. I like John’s suggestion of 12/1 as the deadline for our predictions and I hope Vicki will record them again as usual. 🙂

    I still have no real clue as to how much snowfall for Logan but probably not much above normal if at all. So far I have yet to see any real “serious” predictions from mets (TV or online). Nothing from Henry Margusity either surprisingly. 😉

      1. I absolutely agree with you John. The TV mets are going to have to come out with their predictions sooner or later. It is just that in previous years there have been a few mets here and there that boldly (or foolishly) come out by now. 😉

        I am wondering now with our changing climate if seasonal predictions are going to become more and more difficult in the coming years.

  29. I was surprised Henry Margusity has not made his winter predictions. He usually does that in early October.
    The one thing that I have been reading and hearing when these predictions started coming out in July and are continuing in the fall are of a mild start to winter but by the middle of January and February will be the time period for the coldest temps and best chances for accumulating snow.
    I am leaning towards snowfall in the 35-40 inch range with slightly above normal temps. No snowstorm to the magnitude of the blizzard.

  30. After this brief cool down, it appears it warms back to above average going into early Nov , thanks tk

    1. I have nearly all leaves on all trees in our yard. Our neighbors leaves are falling in our yard 🙂 But forsythia, Japanese maple, and two big maples are all leaves. Two big maples just started to change. Even our mimosa tree is completely green and it’s a warmer weather tree.

  33. Where can you see warmth that far out Charlie? I am looking at euro out for a month and it looks average at best.

  34. Good afternoon all! Trying to get an update out by 4:45PM.

    Cold front moving thru now — maybe a shower in a few spots but at least Metro West and possibly Boston should see the sun before it sets, coming underneath the breaking clouds as it sinks toward the horizon.

    Yes, colder shot of air is good for a few to several days but as has been discussed before this is NOT a persistent cold pattern setting up for the Northeast just yet. Already signs of a warm-up next week .. not to astronomically warm levels, just milder again. Pattern may go into another major reorganization phase shortly after that so we’ll see where it ends up as we head into November.

    I am GLAD some of the major names are waiting before making a winter forecast. A foolish winter forecast is made before at LEAST the start of November, in my opinion. There are too many clues within the Autumn season itself to help you forecast the winter. It may not be perfect, but it’s more evidence to examine.

    I think the rain largely misses tomorrow and even if it does get into Boston, it’s gone before game time. What is a lock: 2 very chilly games coming up at Fenway Park. Glad I’ll be watching from home (staying warm and not going broke). 🙂 More on the weather for these games in the update coming up next hour.

    As far as leaves go: Some trees up this way are nearly bare, others are peaking in color and the color this year is pretty good, brighter than the last few. And of course the later trees are still green, but not the lush green of summer, but that green heading toward gold and brown because that’s just the way those leaves are. I see nothing unusual about this Autumn season. It’s just a dry pattern and the various types of trees are reacting as they would normally.

    1. How about the weekend event you mentioned. Poof??

      Feamingham had to shift its leaf pickup forward three weeks from what its been for at least 30 year. It should have been done two years ago but they didn’t expect it. I was glad last year. This year we will be raking in mid-late November again.

  36. All the trees except the Oak and willow has lost their leaves. and the small maple. thats protected by vines Other than that its brown. Storms looks to be way out at sea, and the weekend possible system went bye bye.

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