Sunday Forecast

55 Comments

Merry Christmas!

2:33AM

DAYS 1-5 (DECEMBER 25-29)
High pressure to the north of the region provides a seasonably cool and dry Christmas Day. A low pressure system will move eastward into southeastern Canada Monday, and its associated cold front will bring another round of rain showers to this area Monday night. Behind it will by dry weather with a mild Tuesday and colder Wednesday. Timing brings the next front in from the west, parented by yet another low pressure area tracking into eastern Canada, during Thursday.
TODAY – CHRISTMAS DAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 38-45. Wind N 5-15 MPH.
TONIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 20-28. Wind light N.
MONDAY: Increasing clouds. Chance of rain showers late day and night. Highs 35-42 but may rise at night. Wind variable 5-15 MPH becoming S to SW.
TUESDAY: Partly cloudy. Windy. Lows 33-40. Highs 40-47.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly sunny. Lows 18-24. Highs 33-40.
THURSDAY: Mostly cloudy. Chance of rain showers. Lows 28-35. Highs 40-48.

DAYS 6-10 (DECEMBER 30-JANUARY 3)
Dry and colder December 30-31. Next system brings a chance of rain showers later January 1 into January 2 with dry weather following.

DAYS 11-15 (JANUARY 4-8)
Pattern persistence with fast-moving low pressure areas tracking over or north of the region with a few episodes of rain/mix possible.

55 thoughts on “Sunday Forecast”

  4. Beautifully perfect Christmas morning. Frost makes everything look white. Gods fingernail in the sky, looking through my front windows when the kids woke us up.

      1. It is absolutely within the normal range. In active years, they get nailed several times. I forecast this exact region all throughout the 1990s and first half of the 2000s.

          1. I remember a lot of cat 3 & 4 storms in the 1990s there but I’ll have to check to see the trend there.

  8. Thanks TK and Merry Christmas to all!

    I guess it will be another one of those winters when any serious snow will have to wait until mid if not late January? That seems to be the general theme the past few years including 2015.

    1. I don’t see any changes through 1/10. Who knows beyond that.
      Pretty Pathetic. When it stays like this, just Bring on SPRING and SKIP
      Winter altogether. Why bother.

    2. The shift in the seasons was one of the main focuses of the WBZ weather special. Snow will be here.

      We were lucky to have such a heavy freeze last night that it looked as if it had snowed here. The trees also had frozen water drops making it look as if they had hundreds of tiny lights as the sun shone on them

  12. Not exactly a white Christmas, but as Vicki alluded to, we had a very heavy frost here this morning, it looked like it had snowed a bit when I first looked out.

    1. Pretty much the same theme as previous days, but less, until Northern maine.

      About 8 inches in the higher terrain in Mass. Virtually NOTHING at the coast, as would be expected looking at that map. The event depicted clobbers central
      and Northern maine.

      The Euro 24 hours maps are split across Thursday and Friday and the run
      total map has everything on it.

    2. NWS discussion regarding the Thursday/Thursday Night system

      Thursday and Thursday evening…

      Another low pressure system will be tracking well to our northwest
      into Quebec. At the same time a shortwave dropping into the Ohio
      Valley will result in a secondary intensifying coastal low pressure
      system. The biggest uncertainty is how quickly and how far
      southwest this secondary system develops. The ECMWF continues to
      develop it quicker and farther southwest than the GFS/GGEM models.
      However, there are some GEFS ensemble members that support the
      ECMWF. So in a nutshell, if the system intensifies quicker/further
      southwest a more significant precipitation event would occur. A
      slower developing system would result in a short-lived lighter
      precipitation event.

      Ptype remains uncertain as well, but the higher risk for snow and
      ice exists across the interior. A coastal storm that intensifies
      quicker and further southwest would bring more snow/ice to portions
      of the interior, where a slower developing low will allow for a
      warmer/wetter solution. On the coastal plain, either solution will
      probably be a challenge to get significant snow at this point given
      upper level configuration. Nonetheless, some snow would be possible
      at the onset if the colder/stronger solution verifies.

  14. Not for Nothing and TYPICAL of this Winter, High temperatures are OVERACHIEVING once again. (OK Tk had up to 45, so this doesn’t apply to you, just EVERYONE else
    who had highs of 40 today)

    I’m at 46 with one thermometer and 43.5 with the other.
    46 is the AcuRite one.

  16. Merry Christmas to you all.
    I had the rare experience of celebrating the first night of Chanukah with my wife’s Catholic family at Christmas Eve dinner. And yes, I couldn’t resist asking for extra presents….To no avail, I might add.
    Also my apologies regarding us all going to the Museum of Science for the weather movie. First, TK took ill, and then my wife had
    knee replacement. She was able to leave the house for the first time this last week. I will try to see the movie this week and report back to you all.
    Lastly, as I get older, I still love a good snowstorm, but would love to have it melted by the next day to I can walk the dogs without the slushy, salted mess.
    Have a great day everyone!

    1. Happy Holidays to you! Always glad to see when you can check here. We’ll make up for that movie. There will be others I’m sure. If not we need to all get together at some point in 2017. 🙂

    2. Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah, Weatherbee. Really nice to see you here. I am sorry to hear your wife needed surgery but very happy to hear she is on the mend

  19. Regarding our lack of snow, the water temp of 47F isn’t helping either. We would need a LOT of cold air and no wind off the ocean whatsoever especially inside 128 S & E…a perfect track in other words. Just in time for spring, probably.

  20. Thank you, TK!

    Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all!

    Weather pattern is not thrilling, but at least it has the appearance of winter north of us, and it’s not bizarrely mild like last year. The trend is not our friend if we like big winter storms. Nevertheless, it looks like a very progressive (fast-moving) pattern of events that should produce snow in central and northern NE. Alas, I’m not seeing much snow or even consistent cold in SNE for the foreseeable future. The ridging is one reason, the persistent positioning of the jet stream over the top of us is another.

    My daughter returns to Ireland tomorrow. She lives and works there now. For her the sunny crisp days in Boston were a blessing, given that she’ll likely see very little sun between now and March in Ireland.

    1. Euro 24 hour snow totals for 12/29 (click on image to enlarge)

      http://imgur.com/a/eBGbm

      It has been consistent with these theme with run-to-run differences in placement and snow amounts, but the scenario has been there for about 6 runs.

      1. Redevelopment waaaaay too close (talk about coastal hugging) for any snow around here. NNE as usual should do quite nicely.

      2. Ultimately I think the ECMWF solution is not correct, but also understand the snow map you are showing is not the ECMWF solution. The data provider you are using is employing some sort of souped-up snow algorithm. Also it is variable. Yesterday it was as much as 18-23:1, today it has moved back to about 13-16:1. Pretty robust with the model showing 540 line hovering around the mass / nh border and surface temps around 35

        I am not sure if the error is a programming error or an intentional error to drive interest in the site, as we all know that snow season is big draw for model watchers. Big snow predictions draw big interest.

        1. Sadly, I am afraid you may be correct. Placement of low is from euro, but the snow is the provider’s algorithm. Ironically, they “fixed” a bug recently.

  25. Merry Christmas everyone!
    Would really like some cold so I can get the hockey rink up to thick enough… I’ll be out a few times tonight adding layers but you can’t rush it or it ends up like a pond with ice on top and water below. My rink is probably 6 inches off level as well which makes it even more challenging…
    I actually saw some guys ice fishing on Thursday in Harold Parker which is quite early….up and down temps will be a challenge though.

    Tom

  26. Hmmm, things continue to get interesting. Looking at the 0Z GFS, see
    that rather than the Euro coming around to the GFS, the GFS has now come around
    to the Euro for 12/29. Have a look.

    http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2016122600/gfs_mslp_pcpn_frzn_us_16.png

    Not only that, the 850mb temps are marginal for Snow (below freezing), so it is the boundary layer that may be the issue. However, it is close enough to monitor watching. Now with this run the total qpf is only .4 to .5 inch, so not a big deal anyway.
    Still needs to be watched just in case.

    Here is the 850mb map for the same time period:

    http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2016122600/gfs_T850_us_16.png

    Now I REALLY want to see the Euro, but I am NOT staying up for it.
    Manana!!

  27. Haven’t seen anyone mention it yet, but our Monday storm may start off with some spotty flurries and/or sleet across eastern and northeastern Mass late morning/early afternoon. I did include that in my StormHQ Weekly Outlook (https://stormhqblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/26/weekly-outlook-december-26-2016-january-1-2017/)

    Also, I’m willing to wager that the majority of us see more snow on New Year’s Day than from the Thursday system. Oh sure, the Euro could be right, and I’m not counting on it.

  28. New post is up and I’m going to re-post SAK’s comment and link on it to make sure nobody missed the opportunity to read his outlook.

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