Thursday Forecast

142 Comments

7:27AM

DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 11-15)…
The first surge of Arctic air arrives today, producing scattered snow showers and bringing cold air into the region through Friday. The second surge of Arctic air arrives for the weekend as a cold front dives out of Canada and a disturbance passes across the region early Saturday then opens the door to the Montreal Express, bringing the coldest air in during the day Saturday which will last through Sunday. Moderation will begin Presidents Day Monday, but it will still be a cold day.
TODAY: Variably cloudy. Isolated snow showers and snow squalls. Highs 25-32. Wind W to NW 10-20 MPH and gusty.
TONIGHT: Clearing. Lows 5-12. Wind NW 5-15 MPH with higher gusts. Wind chills below 0 at times.
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny day. Clouds arriving evening. Chance of light snow late at night. Highs in the 20s.
SATURDAY: Partly sunny. Chance of snow early especially southern areas. Risk of snow squalls. Temperatures fall through the 20s. Very windy.
SUNDAY: Mostly sunny. Lows -10 to -3 interior, -2 to +5 coast and Cape Cod. Highs 5-12. Windy.
MONDAY – PRESIDENTS DAY: Mostly sunny. Lows -5 to +10, coldest interior valleys, least cold Cape Cod. Highs in the 20s.

DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 16-20)…
Storm system brings snow/mix to rain February 16 as its track is likely west of New England. Windy/colder with a chance of snow showers February 17. Fair and cold February 18 and milder February 19. Mild with a few rain/snow shower possible February 20.

DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 21-25)…Milder trend continues during much of this period with fair weather then a period of unsettled weather. May turn colder at the end of the period.

142 thoughts on “Thursday Forecast”

  2. Thanks TK
    Stay warm this weekend everyone. Leaving for Florida in a few hours and looks like I will be greeted by a sloporama the day after I get back.

  7. Good morning and that tk.
    Good trip jj.

    Figures. Coldest air of the year followed by
    A rainorama. Is there any other way?

    Anyhow, euro track more to the east.
    Still rain, but does it offer hope or tease?

    Gfs and cmc now similar with gfs a bit more east, bu
    t not east enough.

  8. I can’t help it but I’m just nervous about the squall Saturday morning . Will boston see it it is this mostly confined to the south shore and cape I heard it could drop a few inches .

  11. Question for the arctic sea ice folks. In winter when you look out over the ocean at the horizon, it often looks as if there are clouds sitting right on the ocean. A lot of times, it can appear to be a huge fleet of ships spanning the horizon. Is that arctic sea ice?

    1. If it’s near the horizon it can be any time of year and that is man made and/or natural lower atmospheric pollutants.

      Arctic sea smoke will appear much closer to you and is like rapidly moving fog columns.

    1. i was actually thinking that myself, it is going to be so cold this weekend and monday that I bet there will be enough cold for freezing rain for areas north of the pike/valleys up into new hampshire and Vermont. very well could be

        1. Eversource called about 20 minutes after we got power back to let us know it was out. They then called 5 minutes ago (over an hour after we got it back) to tell us it was back. They said trees on wires.

    1. The difference between last Feb and this: Doesn’t matter how cold we get before. In this case it’s not going to lock in. Too progressive.

  21. After this cold blast, it looks to be fairly mild for some time, like to the end of
    the month or nearly so anyway.

  22. Charlie, say u were to go to a customer in 2 weeks in southern RI, what do u typically do for the visit? Rake, lime, fertilize? I’m only asking since soil needs to be at least 50 degrees to promote any kind of growth so that means air temps need to be consistently above that, day and night. And do customers expect green growing grass after the visit?

    1. Again, not saying right or wrong, just trying to get an idea what this first visit entails so I can understand the benefits of an early start when there is still danger of frost/freeze and snowfalls.

  23. The pressure gradient between the Tuesday storm and the retreating high looks impressive.

    If that maintains, that’s probably going to need some high wind advisories ……….. and a coastal flood advisory, this time for the south coast of New England.

    Perhaps the interior snow cover will stabilize the boundary layer and make wind not too much of an issue inland.

        2. Through the Great Lakes. If it passes through anyone
          of them, we call it a Cutter as in it cuts through the Lakes.
          Between the Lakes and the coast we call it an
          Inside runner. Along the coast, we call it a coastal.

          There could be a coastal that hugs the coast all the way up, and cuts through say Ct. We would call that a coastal
          hugger, or even and inside runner when it is up here.

          1. Even NNE ski areas don’t benefit much. They get mostly rain as well. What little snow does fall, gets pretty much washed away.

  26. Charlie, thanks for you answer. My question was out of curiosity, knowing some lawn ppl up this way. I don’t get uptight about when you start. You can start in December for all I care. Start before the leaves even fall. It’s your business. I wish you a successful season. 🙂

  27. Reviewed the 12z data…

    Arctic punch #1 underway – not too big a deal, but pretty chilly. Popcorn snow showers until about 6PM.

    Arctic punch #2 coming – means business. May be preceeded by a period of snow and snow squalls. I think if anything greater than 1 inch occurs it will be Saturday morning and mostly south of Boston. But anywhere could see a brief blinding squall. More important will be the wind and falling temps during the remainder of the day. There will be an inverted trough pivoting around low pressure to the east of New England but all it will really do is enhance ocean snow showers that stay over water except outer Cape Cod which may end up with a private snowstorm Saturday during the day/evening. Arctic sea smoke and wicked cold air Saturday night and Sunday. Wind stays up and keeps wind chills way down.

    Arctic eases Monday with lows around zero and highs in the 20s (which will feel mild by comparison). There should be enough cold air at all levels for some areas to start as snow when the next storm arrives Tuesday. It will warm rapidly aloft and more slowly at the surface as low pressure tracks west of New England (an inside runner versus a cutter because it will be too close to the East Coast to be considered a Lake Cutter). May be brief freezing rain interior valleys north central MA into southern NH. I saw some comments about this possibility and I agree with them, though being several days away from the event there is plenty of time to monitor.

    Windy/cold weather returns Wednesday with a few snow showers then dry weather Thursday.

    “Warm-up” back to above normal temperatures late next week. There may be one or two pretty mild days sometime between February 19 and February 24. Longer range guidance is probably missing the magnitude of a trough re-visiting eastern Canada and the northeastern US during the last several days of February, and since the pattern is not being shown too accurately I suspect they are also missing what will end up being an interesting storm threat about February 27-29. Long way off so for the back burner only right now.

    3. Super–so I won’t be missing any big snows while in Florida from Saturday through Thursday, and it looks like flights in and out of TF Green shouldn’t be impacted either. Hopefully we get the “big one” sometime between then and when I leave for Israel March 13!

    4. As long as this “interesting storm threat” stays in the 27-29 range, I’m a happy camper as my flight to Fl is the 24th. I really need to stop traveling in the winter, it’s too stressful for me!

      And thanks for all the info, TK!

  28. TK – Is next week’s setup a perfect example of your professor’s idea of it being harder to snow coming out of cold? It does seem that so far this winter our snows have been following big warm spells as opposed to arctic blasts.

    1. Yes, it’s a perfect example. This also happened a bunch of times in other Winters. One good example of the Winter of 1978-1979. Very very cold February, but nearly every event was mix or rain. I’m starting to note this is a common trait of a negative AO / positive NAO pattern.

    1. Funny you chose the Canadian to demonstrate. 😀

      Btw, look at that 500 mb chart.
      Where does that support a storm threat here?
      As depicted, it still looks a little flat.

      Do expect it to sharpen up? Retrograde? What changes do you envision
      that would support a storm threat. Inquiring minds would like to know.

      AND, it it supports it as is, can you enlighten us as to how/why?

      Many thanks TK

      1. Sorry, I was confused. It is the GFS. Sorry about that.
        I was wondering why on earth you would chose the Canadian. 😀

        1. Cool. That is exactly what I wanted to know.
          EXPERIENCE COUNTS!!
          Certainly with meteorologists.
          It used to be a poker term I would hear bandied about.

          Many thanks

          1. No problem.

            Of course, no amount of experience can completely safeguard you from a monumental forecast error, and that entire thought process leading to the idea of a storm threat at the end of February may fall flat on its face. But I feel pretty strongly about how the pattern is and will be, so I’m going with it for now.

  31. Went to Vermont to visit my mother and my sister. Inverse snow profile – with snow levels mostly diminishing as one heads north. Similar last year. This said, driving back on the secondary roads outside Norwich and Thetford and then onto 91S and then 89S I encountered several fairly intense snow squalls. The first one early this morning may have laid down a small blanket of snow, especially above 1000 feet. They need all the snow they can get, as it’s slim pickings up there.

  32. I noticed that the streetlights on my street come on just prior to 5:30 pm now. Even just two weeks ago it was nearly pitch black at 5:00 pm. Too bad mornings are still dark until around 6:30 am. Interesting how the mornings take much longer to catch up.

  33. I just read an article online that La Niña will be returning in the coming months. It mentioned that east coast hurricanes are more likely such as Irene in 2011.

    Do you agree TK that La Niña returns? Is she going to be responsible for Summer blowtorch and a cold & snowy next winter you have been hinting for the very long range?

      1. There is more than many places. I posted his graphic yesterday so will be on yesterday’s thread. Way to go Cape Cod

      2. That’s not a correct term, but it’s clever. It’s just that they’ve had a fair amount of snow because they were very cold last Winter during the barrage, and this year they’ve been in a set-up a few times where they have been seeing the most. The same thing happened in 1987-1988.

          1. He probably was talking short term and kind of tongue-in-cheek. Obviously he has enough experience to know that they are not the new “snow capital”. It’s just in reference to recent events. 🙂

  37. TK – NWS has arctic air returning next weekend (though not as severe) which is contrary to your thoughts above. Is it different models?

    3. Some show that, some don’t. In fact, different runs of the same model have shown both…just today. 🙂

  38. Just for kicks, I checked out the SREF for Saturday.
    Specifically I was looking at their snow maps (1 inch or less for Boston, a tad more
    well S&E)
    Then I checked precipitation, specifically a chart that shows the maximum over
    a 24 hour period. This is sort of like the NWS Max snow map.

    INTERESTING to see around .75 Inch qpf in Boston and nearby and 1 inch amount hugging a few coastal locations.

    http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/sref/gifs/2016021115/SREF_precip_MAX_24hr_f063.gif

    I presume this could only happen IF the inverted trough set up much farther to the South than anticipated, else how could they generate these numbers?

    Look at this surface map. Clearly shows how this “could” happen, however as depicted
    it sets up shop farther North and gets the coast of Maine.

    VERY INTERESTING….

      1. That’s pretty close. A small change in that and we could get
        hammered. I am NOT saying that will happen, just that it is
        something that needs to be watched. That is all. AND I find
        it fascinating.

    1. Personally I think it does. March “should” crap out of Winter
      sometime around 3/15 or thereabouts. We shall see.

      2. We are long over due for a snowy March. Only really snowy one I can remember recently was in 2013. If not this year maybe next

  42. This winter though is just flying by and I find a lot of people thinking the same way .
    In two more weeks this month is over . I have not worn my usual winter coat at work I’ve been wearing heavy weigh sweatshirts and it’s been good.

    1. I figured. 🙂 It’s in his nature.

      I believe the difference in 1987-88 was even greater with the Cape being very snowy.

  44. Today’s the anniversary of the February 1983 “high-splitter” storm. A foot plus in this entire area when a storm that buried the Mid Atlantic looked like a lock to go out to sea and instead cut right through a high pressure area and came right up.

    That storm arrived with the most distinctive “wall of snow” I’ve ever seen. It was like an over-inflated snow squall about 200 miles wide and 500 miles long. We went from nothing to heavy snow just like that when it arrived. February 11 was a Friday and all day we could see high clouds to the south while the sun was out, then at night it just clouded over really fast, snow came roaring in behind that, and it ended nearly as quickly Saturday morning followed by clearing.

      1. Yes, I think I do remember this particular storm. Thanks TK for sharing. 🙂

        Boston had below normal snowfall that 1982-83 Winter = 32.7″

  45. TK – This evening’s NWS Discussion mentions a short wave trof ushering in arctic air (not as bitter) for the Wed/Thurs. timeframe like you posted above and NOT next weekend…my error. The discussion does not go beyond the workweek. Again, sorry TK.

    1. Yes, we’ll have a shot of cold air Wednesday/Thursday indeed. And no, it won’t be nearly the magnitude of what we’re about to go through.

      I think next weekend will be in milder mode though we will have to watch a boundary to the north.

  46. TK, your comments on 1983 brought back a memory of the WBZ 11:00 weather. I remember Bruce Schweogler going ballistic about the unbelievable wall of snow approaching from R. I. He was spot on. It was unbelievable.

    1. Bruce was a character. He made the weather fun to watch. Sometimes I’ll pull up an old video of Bruce on YouTube.

      1. I went to a Lecture Bruce gave at the Old South Meeting House near Downtown Crossing in the mid-1990’s. After that he passed out his autograph picture which I still have today. 😀

  47. Long time lurker here and a huge fan. Have followed your combined wisdom since your days on the WBZ blog and after the understandable en masse departure it took me and my dog blue almost two years to find enough clues for our handy dandy notebook to find woodshill. I read this everyday, try my best to learn and understand – I also laugh with you, silently send out my heartfelt condolences for losses like Mac and TK’s Dad , curse batman style with the artist formerly known as OS when a system goes OTS, and even get driven crazy by Charlie Like everyone else. But the real reason I appreciate this blog is that I am a life long new englander who has always had a full blown snow phobia. But now by understanding a little better how weather systems work and evolve and knowing different people’s laundry list of possibilities of what may lie ahead at any given time I am slowly but surely conquering my extreme fear of storms.

    And as for today thanks for TK for remembering that 1983 storm when my mom picked me up from school outside of Concord Center heading to the Skating Club of Boston – 4 plus hours and about 3 miles later we ended up spending the night at (or perhaps sliding our way into) the old Lexington Sheraton – what a memory!

    So Thanks to all of you for making winter weather fun for me instead of just horrible and scary. But 2 pieces of advice to any WH parents – don’t put a scared toddler on ice skates and force her to take lessons for 3 years until she finally goes on strike (I’m still on strike) and don’t teach that same scared kid when she’s 16 year old how to drive in the snow in a rear wheel drive 1983 Volvo station wagon. This type of activity is what breeds an unholy fear of winter and a love and damn near obsession with warmth and with traction.

    Apologies for long post – 5 years in the making! But thanks to all – I will begin to contribute more regularly when I’ve learned enough to be a worthwhile contributor. Until then remember always that you have legions of silent fans! Creepy? Maybe? But there it is! And I really doubt any of us are scary, we are just shy.

    1. This is one of my favorite posts. I can’t even begin to thank you. So instead, I’ll ask you one question regarding your name: Beatles or not?

      1. Beatles of course! Sgt. Peppers is of my favorites – Abbey Road being just a slight notch higher.

    3. A+++ post! My only question….how long after the 3+ drive did you decide to go on strike from ice skating? Ha ha. (I lasted maybe 3 classes. I mean, they wanted me to skate backwards when I could barely skate forward)

      So fun to have all the lurkers emerging!

      2. Thanks and what a wonderful coming out from the shadows party – you guys are really great!

  48. 06z GFS has temps rising into the mid 50’s Tuesday evening in Boston! What a swing that would be after going below 0 tomorrow night.

  50. Update complete. I think I set a record for typing. Surprised my fingers worked that fast – cold!

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