Saturday Forecast

71 Comments

9:12AM

DAYS 1-5 (JANUARY 30-FEBRUARY 3)…
Warm front moves through today producing some cloudiness, then in and out of clouds as mild air becomes established on Sunday. Not a bad weekend at all by January standards. Some changes for the first few days of February with a mild Monday, a cold front producing a few rain showers Monday evening but only slightly cooler air for Tuesday before a bigger warm-up for Wednesday, though accompanied by a wet weather as a stronger cold front approaches.
TODAY: Mostly sunny morning. Mostly cloudy afternoon. Highs 37-44. Wind S 5-15 MPH.
TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Lows 30-37. Wind SW 5-15 MPH with higher gusts.
SUNDAY: Partly sunny. Highs 47-54. Wind SW 5-15 MPH with higher gusts.
MONDAY: Partly cloudy. Chance of rain showers evening. Lows in the 30s. Highs in the 50s.
TUESDAY: Mostly sunny. Lows in the 30s. Highs in the 40s.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy. Rain showers likely. Lows in the 40s. Highs in the 50s.

DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 4-8)…
Fair weather expected February 4-5. Unsettled with chance of snow/mix February 6-7. Fair February 8. Temperatures near to above normal overall.

DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 9-13)…
A passing system may bring precipitation about February 10. Storm threat again at the end of the period. Temperatures fairly close to normal though variable.

71 thoughts on “Saturday Forecast”

  1. To elaborate on how I feel the system(s) behave late next week…

    I think the front that moves through Wednesday slows down offshore but will be far enough out there for a wave of low pressure to pass to the east on Friday for no impact. What we have to watch for is a digging northern stream trough that comes down over the weekend and may yet try to recapture that front and at least take some moisture from it and try to develop some kind of low pressure that mills about, even cuts off briefly, before getting booted out. Not sure this is exactly how it goes but that’s the feeling. The 06z GFS actually show a little bit of what I mean in a rough sense. If you look at the ensembles from 00z and 06z on the GFS you see the trough axis is still in the Ohio Valley Saturday night. That implies things are not “done happening” here yet. Also the ECMWF though a little less impressive shows the unsettled weather for the weekend, especially later February 6 into February 7, on its 00z run. Long way to go but just the basis of why I think February 6-7 is more of a potential issue than February 5.

      1. Still not seeing it as a very wet pattern. Active but the storm systems do not maximize their output here.

        We may see UP TO an inch of rain on Wednesday but probably less.

        The thing next weekend, if it were to occur as I feel, would be probably under 1/2 inch melted.

  4. Storm on the 6th
    Euro. High pressure over great lakes and pushes weak storm out to sea
    EPS Center of high pressure over central Mississippi valley (shows a second low forming off the coast on the 8)
    gfs is closer with a storm system off the coast. High to the north and southwest with an area of weak low pressure over the great lakes.
    GEFs way out to sea, next to nothing very weak ,high pressure north and west and southwest. area of low pressure forms over the lakes moves north
    GEPS weak system off the coast, high pressure to the north, west and southwest. Clipper forms over the lakes and moves across northern new england the 9th.
    latest canadian is not out yet

  6. Thanks TK. Very mild pattern right now, and it’ll only intensify for the next several days. Shades of December. Pattern change is coming though. Not immediately behind the Wednesday storm, but soon after. I don’t see much storm potential in the 2/6-2/8 window. However, from then on, likely deep into February, temperatures should generally be near to below normal. Tough to call on snow chances, naturally, but with the cold in place you’d have to assume opportunities will exist.

    1. If December was on volume 10, February will be similar but on volume 6. This time it won’t sustain for the entire month or be to the magnitude of what we saw previously. Also looking for major pattern breakdown at or after the middle of the month. We’ll see a preview just before, then a relaxing, then a bigger change.

    1. Don’t expect to see much consistency at all any time soon. Your best bet is to focus on the overall larger scale pattern as depicted by the ECMWF to get a feel for what is most likely to happen. Also, the ensembles from the GFS seem to be doing a decent job.

  8. That low shifted a little further east with that run. 6z run had it just west of SNE. Now its right over us.

  9. Thanks tk 🙂

    Absolutely loving this weather. Some great weather ahead. I’m a bit suprised to receiving a few new clients in January. It makes it much easier to quote properties with no snow. Loving it!! We are a bit ahead of where we usually which is good. Enjoy!!!

    1. It’s a good stretch, but we’ll be paying for it before the end of Winter. The good news is, the payment will come at a time when we’re in the highest sun angle days of late Winter, which somewhat mutes the overall impact.

      1. Yup!!! Sunrise is already before 7am, and sunsets after 5pm, and gaining 2 min’s of daylight per day. 🙂

  11. TK – I may have asked this before but is the warmup early-mid week El Nino’s “last hurrah? If not, then mid-late February? or March?

    1. Debatable. El Nino will continue to slowly fade then more rapidly sometime starting around mid February.

    1. The secret to having a feel for the atmosphere, in my opinion, is this:
      Do NOT over-analyze data. You may have never seen this exact set-up, but you have seen something similar, and you know what can and has happened. If you’re not feeling it, it’s probably not happening. The models can be as much a hindrance as a help. If you worry about the detailed placement of features, especially surface features, on model output that is forecasting more than 48 hours in advance, you’re immediately way behind and probably won’t catch up. None of this makes anyone infallible. My good forecasting streaks have almost always been followed by a horrendous period of missing just about everything. The atmosphere has a way of reminding you that it is simply too complex to be consistently predicted with anything near total accuracy. But thank you for the compliment. 🙂

      1. Tk, you are humble. You have an unnatural ability to read
        the Atmospheric tea leaves and I mean it.

        What did you say earlier? Forget about the 5th, the 7th was the time to watch.

        The GFS and CMC appear to be battling nitwits at the moment.

        I give you the Euro for 7PM on the 7th. REMINDER, click on
        these Imgur links to enlarge.

        http://imgur.com/6T3Oiot

        did you say something about it may close off at upper levels????

        500mb

        http://imgur.com/eJZSBb2

        300mb

        http://imgur.com/yUYhJl2

        The CMC and GFS do NOT show this, YET Mr. TK KNEW this.
        Do you all get that.? TK KNEW this!!!! Incredible!!!!

        TK, how did you do it?

        You NEED to be a TV Met!!!!!!

        BTW, As depicted this is a swing and a miss for SNE, however.
        this is 10 days out and a LONG way to go. Wouldn’t take much
        of a change to get it up here.

        OH and btw this thing is LOADED. Here is the 24 hour qpf grid

        http://imgur.com/STylLRP

        1. You’re more likely to see Charlie doing the sports on one of the Boston stations before I end up on TV as a met. 😉

          But thanks! 😀

            1. I’m the Bill Hovey of the 21st Century. *yawn* No disrespect to Bill, of course, but those of you who saw his weathercasts would be able to remember that he presented weather like the teacher that put you to sleep the period after lunch.

  13. TK which winter or winters were an easy forecast if there were any and which winter or winters were your toughest to forecast for?

    1. This one so far is the easiest. Last year was not too bad other than the fact I don’t think anybody could have seen the magnitude of what was coming after the pattern changed.

      They all present a certain amount of challenge.

  14. It is amazing as to how much quieter this blog is today compared to last Saturday at this time. 😉

    1. All you have to do is look at the total amount of comments without reading the blog to find the big events. 😉

  15. TK – Would WP allow you to post a snow map here on the blog? or would it be too complex? I have a gut feeling that this has been discussed here before in previous years.

    1. I use wordpress for my blog and I can upload and make my own maps, We have similar set ups. they way I do it is
      1. google maps
      2 go to my maps
      3 create map
      4save as
      5go to the page write new post usually there is an add media ( click add media)
      6 choose from save docouments
      7 name map
      8 do what he would usually do.

    2. It can be done. Just so far I’ve chosen to be text only with links to graphics. 🙂

  17. Speaking of Bill Hovey, is he still living? Yes he may have been “boring” by today’s standards but his forecasts were fairly accurate and a met you could always trust.

    I don’t recall though if he had to deal with the real big historical storms “on-air” like the 78 Blizzard, etc. He seemed to “luck out” in that department IIRC.

  18. TK – I have to work the next 3 weekends. Will the two upcoming systems present any difficult challenge as far as public transit? I take bus/train/walk combo.

    I had to work last weekend and actually walking was the most difficult of my commutes.

    1. A cumulus cloud shadow could cause difficulties with public transit. 😛

      It’s a bit early to speculate beyond next weekend’s possible event. I don’t see major impact from that right now.

      2. Actually there was a derailment on the Green Line this morning. Not weather related I assume. 😉

          1. In a city that needs the mbta so very bad, it’s sad that no money has been spent to keep up with it. On a side note some of these train stops such as Mansfield, attkeboro, etc in Sharon the train doesn’t stop past 8pm. Many of these train stops have not changed in the last 30+ yrs, and are so outdated. Many still have dirt parking lots. Smh

            1. Yep the commuter rail has never really done a great job nor promoted themselves well as an alternative to driving into the city. Commuter rail in around NYC is in some ways a lot better (newer stations-outside of the city at least, better schedules, etc). Some of the lines around here are better than others…I’m lucky that the Greenbush line is one of them.

              1. Also agreed, schedules r key, when in NYC we felt like they were there for us, even on off times. Here we feel like it’s more of an inconvenience and seem to always have to estimate that if we miss this train, we have to wait 2 hours in some instances. Very inconvenient.

          2. Rolling Stock on the green is roughly about 100+ Type 7 cars from Kinki Sharyo that are roughly anywhere from 18-30 years old but are actually some of the best cars the Green Line has ever had (The first LRV’s from Boeing-that replaced the venerable aging PCC fleet-were dogs didn’t really last much beyond 20 years). Also there about 80 cars from the Czech manufacturer Breda. These cars had some initial problems but are now performing well. They are anywhere from 9-17 years old. There are newer cars due in 2017 if the Tufts extension goes forward. The problem with the green line in some places is that the rails and signals are old and constantly need work.

              2. Forgot to add that the the old PCC cars (I think about 20) still run on the Mattapan High Speed Line which runs from Ashmont Station to Mattapan Sq. Not actually part of the Green Line but rather part of the Red Line. These cars are over 60 years old and have been extensively refurbished and are actually in good shape. They also have painted and made to look like they did back in old Boston Elevated/MTA days.

  20. Reporting from Newport, Rhode Island.
    Nice out. About 37 with a brisk
    Breeze off of the Atlantic.

    Waiting for our table at the Brick Alley Pub.

  22. I have a feeling that there will something sneaky that pops up that no one expects within the next two weeks that will not show up on the models till about 3 days out.

  23. Barry hinted on air that it will be cold & stormy the second half of February. If anything happens next weekend then it must be Sunday since Barry’s 7-day has suns with near normal temps (36) for Friday and Saturday.

    It appears TK and Barry are on the same page so far. 😀

    1. Either or both days next weekend. Too early to time exactly. We’re still not free of the possibility there is unsettled weather on the East Coast that evolves too far south to get this area too. I just don’t know how those pieces of energy are going to interact yet.

      I do think that threat around the 10th may end up being much smaller than the GFS has been wanting to make it. A larger threat looms behind that.

      1. It’s just nice to have any threats.
        But until it materializes that’s exactly
        What it is, a threat.

        WE shall see. Waiting for 0z suite of models.

        1. Don’t forget our “friends” El Niño and split flow are still around and probably will not go away quietly. 😉

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