Thursday Forecast

55 Comments

7:13AM

DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 7-11)
A frontal boundary will remain just to the south during the day today as a little wave of low pressure along it helps hold a light northerly air flow in and colder air at the surface. This front will push northward tonight in advance of a stronger low passing west of the region, but this low’s cold front will follow quickly. All this means unsettled weather with areas of drizzle/fog today and a period of rain tonight, then a round of rain showers Friday morning and midday. After the cold front goes by a drying-out process will get underway along with wind Friday afternoon, and by Friday night cold air will be coming back in noticeably after a fairly mild day. We then will see a cold/dry weekend with blustery conditions Saturday between departing low pressure and approaching high pressure, and more tranquil Sunday as high pressure moves overhead. We’ve been watching for a stretch of unsettled weather beginning about Monday, but at the moment it looks like the initial push of moisture will be suppressed to the south with just a risk of a little very light snow to start the new week.
Forecast details…
TODAY: Overcast. Chance of drizzle. Areas of fog. Highs 35-40 north, 40-45 south. Wind light varying from E to N.
TONIGHT: Overcast. A period of rain. Areas of fog. Steady temperatures 35-45 evening may rise slightly overnight. Wind light varying from N to E evening, E to S overnight.
FRIDAY: Mostly cloudy with rain showers likely through midday then becoming partly cloudy from west to east by late in the day. Highs 45-52. Wind S to SW 10-20 MPH shifting to W 15-25 MPH with higher gusts by late-day.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 20-27. Wind W 10-20 MPH with higher gusts.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 28-35. Wind NW 10-20 MPH with higher gusts.
SUNDAY: Mostly sunny. Lows in the 10s. Highs from the upper 20s to middle 30s.
MONDAY: Partly sunny. Risk of very light snow early favoring southern areas. Lows from the middle 10s to lower 20s. Highs in the 30s.

DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 12-16)
Potential storminess later February 12 into February 13 but early indications are that this system will travel through the Great Lakes and produce mix/rain here. Will keep an eye on it. Drier, seasonably cold weather follows for February 14-15 and we may be watching another storm threat with cold air in place by February 16 but early odds favor a suppression of this system south of the region. Again anything beyond a few days is quite low confidence so will have to watch for changes in the outlook.

DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 17-21)
Dry start and end to the period, watching for a system mid period but no feel for any detail this far out. Temperatures near normal overall.

55 thoughts on “Thursday Forecast”

  7. I was looking at/reading some facebook posts last night and parts of interior New England really had a tough late evening/overnight with freezing rain. Many parts of Vermont had a nightmare evening with slippery conditions and the normal interior valley locations of inland Mass had some icy conditions as well.

  9. Thank you TK.
    To follow-up on the Blizzard of 78 discussion, here is a photo of our daughter
    the day after the blizzard. She was 5 1/2 at the time. Also included is a blizzard snow map(I make no claims as to its accuracy)

    https://imgur.com/a/tMhyKrw

      1. Probably not until next year (2020). And even that is no guarantee as TK hinted the same pattern will return again next winter.

  11. Most interesting. Now we wait and see what the Euro Brings us?
    Probably a System tracking up West of the lakes through Manitoba!!!!!

    2. The Euro doesn’t need to shift all that much to match the GFS and Canadian. Even on the 0z run, it kept precip entirely frozen roughly NW of a line from Hartford to Worcester to Lawrence.

  13. This is probably the model’s transitioning to what TK and WxWatcher have been writing about the last 24 to 36 hrs

    Initial wave that gets suppressed to our south, followed by the main primary eventually going well to our west.

    The models just dont have the initial wave suppressed enough yet.

  17. Meant to post this yesterday… not to stir controversy but because I like to post this every year around this time. NOAA and NASA both confirmed yesterday that 2018 was Earth’s 4th hottest year on record. Typically these reports come out earlier, in January, but were delayed due to the government shutdown. The first link is the NASA report, followed by NOAA’s global report and their US report. There’s a lot of really interesting stuff in here looking back on last year and I have a lot more of it to go through myself, but wanted to share for any others who may be interested. In terms of the 4th place ranking, no big surprises there. The three warmer years were all three years directly preceding 2018. I would predict that 2019 will end up in the top 5 as well, and I think it has a decent shot to beat 2018 given a weak El Nino.

    https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/2018-fourth-warmest-year-in-continued-warming-trend-according-to-nasa-noaa

    https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201813

    https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201813/

  18. While I realize it’s not spring yet…today’s weather here in downtown has that early spring feel to it. A chilly and somewhat raw NE wind…a little drizzle and the front just hanging to our south.

    2. They seem to have forgotten “False Winter” and “Fools Winter”, the only two seasons we have actually been in since November!

  23. Regarding the snow map posted earlier for the 1978 Blizzard. It’s close, but it leaves out a 30+ inch strip that stretched through the northwestern suburbs of Boston, connecting the Cape Ann and northern RI bullseye areas. I believe the Northeast Snowbook map takes this into account. I know here there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 36-40 inches measured in the middle of a large open field with 2 yard sticks taped together and the measurement taken by a person wearing snow shoes (my brother). This took into account a patchy, frozen 2 inch snowcover leftover from the January 20 storm, after which there was a major rainstorm followed by an arctic outbreak.

        1. TK…
          Awhile ago, you mentioned you have a book with official snow depths from the Blizzard. Have you had a chance to look for it?

          1. I know where it is, it’s just a matter of digging through a pile to get to the correct box. 🙂

  24. What a difference five miles can make in the same town.

    The ice we had on the trees when I went to sleep last night was melted when I woke up. It was 34. When I drove five miles toward the center of town (back roads), I was shocked that each limb on each tree was coated with ice. Fog was much thicker also. It was 32 degrees and this was 11:00 am – still frozen after my meeting ended at 12:30.

    1. Nah …. the models would have probably called for the PRU to be fully buried and he’d be unimpressed 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

  26. TK,

    Do you have an idea what next Wednesday maybe like? I realize it’s 6 days away but I’m flying out mid morning with my family and just thinking ahead.

    Thank you
    TJ

    1. It’s in the window of opportunity for some storminess but my current feeling is it’s a relatively minor system similar to the one going by us now.

  27. Thank you, TK.

    So much interesting stuff in today’s post.

    Models are more favorable for snow next week than they were 24 hours ago. Let’s wait and see what it looks like 24 hours from now. Of course, the snowier the better.

    TK, love the notion of 11 seasons. Definitely a New England thing.

    JPDave, love the picture of your daughter standing between the snow banks in 1978. What I notice is something that shows up in almost every post-blizzard picture from 1978: How bright and sunny it was. As I recall it was bright and sunny for an extended period of time.

    On a sports note, I was surprised to see the negative headline posted in the LA Times: Lambs, Not Rams. That is unfair to the Rams. They belonged on the same field as the Patriots. Their defense was very good. Sure, their offense had issues, but that had a lot to do with the Patriots’ defense. Plus, a play here or there would have caused a very different outcome. There’s also no shame coming in 2nd. I’ve always been baffled by this in the U.S. Sure, it’s great to win it all. But, it’s really good to be 2nd, too. Somehow being 2nd doesn’t count. That was a culture shock for me when I returned to the U.S.

    1. It didn’t snow again (except a few flurries on February 12) for the rest of the month. It was one of the only times on record that Boston never recorded a drop of rain during the course of a month, and I believe it only precipitated (snow), on 4 calendar days.

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