Saturday Forecast

37 Comments

9:57AM

DAYS 1-5 (DECEMBER 1-5)
And so this is December. Welcome to the 12th month of the calendar year, or the 1st month of Meteorological Winter. What will the first 5 days be like? Read on… The month begins with a tranquil day, light wind, not too cold but a seasonable chill in the air as a small area of high pressure starts overhead then slides away to the east. A broad low pressure area will be moving into the Great Lakes region and stretching out north of the region as its elongating center eventually redevelops across the Canadian Maritimes by Monday. The morphing of this system will send a warm front into the region tonight and Sunday with a period of rain except possibly starting as snow/sleet in interior northern MA and southern NH. But most of the upper level support for steadiest rain will be offshore by early afternoon Sunday, so the morning hours will be wettest. South of the surface boundary will be warmest during the day, and that boundary may hang in the region just north of the Mass Pike for a good portion of the midday and afternoon without making much more progress, so this makes the temperature forecast a little bit of a challenge for areas closest to the boundary. The boundary gets a northward kick Sunday evening when areas to the north may reach their warmest readings of the day and this mild air hangs around Monday before a trough line, remaining from the old stretched out low, and a cold front come southeastward across the region. This will return colder air to the region by Tuesday and Wednesday, a period of time we have been watching for a potential precipitation threat. Most reliable indicators show the bulk of this system passing too far south of the region for any significant impact, but there may be enough upper level energy coming across the region for snow showers Wednesday. At 5 days out this is not a super high confidence forecast but will add the chance in for now and tweak as needed.
Forecast details…
TODAY: Mostly to partly sunny. Highs 36-43. Wind light variable to SE.
TONIGHT: Becoming cloudy. Rain arriving west to east late night probably starting as sleet/snow with a possible coating interior northern MA through southern NH, and possible brief freezing rain higher elevations north central MA to southwestern NH. Lows 30-36. Wind light E.
SUNDAY: Overcast through early afternoon with rain and areas of fog, but rain tapering off early afternoon rapidly from west to east. Cloudy southern NH and northern MA with patchy drizzle and a chance of rain showers remainder of day while southern MA, eastern CT, and RI are mostly cloudy with a slight risk of rain showers. Highs 42-48 north, 48-55 south. Wind E shifting to N 5-15 MPH in northern areas, SE shifting to SW 10-20 MPH in southern areas.
SUNDAY NIGHT: Breaking clouds. Lows 35-42. Wind W 5-15 MPH, higher gusts.
MONDAY: Partly cloudy. Risk of a passing rain shower afternoon or evening. Highs 46-53. Wind W 10-20 MPH, higher gusts.
TUESDAY: Sun to clouds. Risk of brief very light snow at night. Temperatures fall to the 30s day and into the 20s night.
WEDNESDAY: Clouds to sun. Risk of snow showers. Lows in the 20s. Highs in the 30s.

DAYS 6-10 (DECEMBER 6-10)
Fair, cold December 6. Disturbance brings snow shower risk December 7. Watching for potential snow/mix threat late December 8 into December 9. Fair, cold December 10.

DAYS 11-15 (DECEMBER 11-15)
Overall pattern drier, but minor systems may bring brief precipitation. Temperatures near to below normal.

37 thoughts on “Saturday Forecast”

  3. I should note that in my 6-10 day it’s worded as if I’m 100% sure on timing but I’m not. Just guideline timing for potentials there. We are transitional and heading into split flow, fast streams, which is the most nightmarish cold season pattern to forecast in.

  6. Thanks TK and thanks Vicki for that post. A true patriot who responded to the call of his country and had a great devotion to his family.

  7. My basement just hopes that tomorrow will be the absolute last in a series of these prolific rain events until at least 2019.

    9.26 inches for November (#2 or #3)?
    1.0-1.5 inches for tomorrow…a broken record 😉

  8. No Sooner does TK post to not write off especially the 12/8 system
    and does the 12Z GFS listen to him. Amazing!!!!

      1. Once again, nice snows for up North.
        Let’s see what the FV3-GFS, CMC and of course the Euro
        have to say with the new set of 12Z data.

  9. The storm is not suppressed on that run for next weekend but need it to track a little further southeast to get into the snow. A week away it could certainly do that.

  12. From Bernie Rayno
    I will have a periscope early this afternoon. Western energy a lot flatter and weaker than i anticipated for tue/wed. Looks like that will be a bust ( from what I thought) All ingredients are there for snowstorm late next week

  13. Thanks TK. In very good agreement with your thoughts right now. Upcoming rain event transitions us into a colder and drier pattern. At this point looks like only one credible storm threat through mid-month around 12/9-12/11, with the potential 12/5 event pretty safely off the table at this point. So all in all a fairly quiet stretch as we wait with plenty of time to see what that one threat will do.

    And then, from a sub-seasonal perspective, we move on to the mid-month warm-up. No way around it, it’s coming. But the question is, is it short lived, or does it have the legs to last into 2019? To me, teleconnection trends increasingly suggest the latter. AO/NAO return to positive phases, MJO moves towards the traditional warm phases. North Pacific pattern locks into a state roughly opposite of where it will be for the cold stretch. All as a weak to moderate El Nino continues to settle in and starts to look more traditional as opposed to Modoki. So from my current read on things not a great long range pattern for East Coast cold/snow. But as always, room for change going out that far.

    1. This would figure. I probably should have LOWERED by snow totals.
      This will probably be a LOSER snow season around these parts. 😀 😀 😀

    2. Been trying to remember which year we had what looked like Modoki only to go “normal” then back to Modoki. Want to say 1990s somewhere.

      Been eyeing the teleconnections. MJO has been a weak player and not always pulling the influence we often see it pull. Let’s see what happens. Some of the forecasts out there are based on models that are struggling anyway, so while it’s impossible to argue with the reasoning, I’m not convinced we warm up for a long time, though I don’t think we go deep freeze persistently either.

  14. Thanks, TK…

    Last time I had time to check in here you were reporting yourself as being “loopy.”
    How are you doing?

    Happy December and Meteorological Winter to all!

    Now the First of December was covered with snow
    And so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
    Oh, the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting
    With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go

  18. As expected, a variety of solutions run to run. Hence, other than looking at models “for fun”, don’t put any stock in them as far as details go. This will be going on for a while and also factors into my skepticism about a significant lasting warm-up down the road.

  20. euro ensembles and gefs ensembles are all over the place, like others have stated and Tk has alluded to the models are having difficulties

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