Thursday Forecast

59 Comments

7:10AM

DAYS 1-5 (JANUARY 2-6)
Fast happenings in the weather department early this January, but we start out with a nice day today under the control of high pressure. Quickly, things go downhill tonight and Friday morning as one wave of low pressure comes across the region but with mild enough air for some light rainfall, mainly in central and southern MA southward, while the MA/NH border and southern NH may miss out on the initial rain. As this low strengthens while exiting via Maine and the Canadian Maritimes Friday afternoon and night, a quick punch of dry air will partially clear the area, but clouds will come right back in as a second, more potent and moisture-laden low approaches by early Saturday. This low is likely to make its away right across southeastern New England Saturday evening and quickly exit into the Gulf of Maine Sunday morning, but there will be a quick shot of cold air probably before the moisture has fully departed, so a switch to snow and/or snow showers is quite likely. For now, I’m not going with widespread snow accumulation, perhaps just some minor accumulation favoring northeastern MA and southern NH, but it’s a tricky situation based on exact timing, so it’s something needing to be closely monitored. Nevertheless, that system will be gone with fair weather back for Sunday afternoon, but quickly on its heals comes a clipper low with a risk of snow showers for Monday as colder air will be established at that time. Onto the day-by-day breakdown…
TODAY: Partly sunny early, then mostly sunny. Highs 38-45. Wind SW up to 10 MPH.
TONIGHT: Clouding over. Lows 30-37. Wind SW under 10 MPH.
FRIDAY: Cloudy morning with light rain favoring southern areas, and less of a chance northern MA and southern NH. Partly sunny afternoon. Highs 40-47. Wind W 5-15 MPH.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Clouding over. Lows 33-40. Wind variable under 10 MPH.
SATURDAY: Cloudy. Periods of rain. Highs 40-47. Wind E 5-15 MPH.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Cloudy. Rain, possibly mixing with or turning to snow portions of southern NH and northern MA. Lows 30-37. Wind N 10-20 MPH, higher gusts possible.
SUNDAY: Mostly cloudy with snow or snow showers except rain showers ending as mix/snow showers southeastern MA and RI during the morning. Mostly sunny afternoon. Highs 35-42. Wind NW 15-25 MPH, higher gusts possible.
SUNDAY NIGHT: Clear. Lows 20-27. Wind NW 10-20 MPH, higher gusts possible.
MONDAY: Variably cloudy. Chance of snow showers. Highs 30-37. Wind NW 5-15 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (JANUARY 7-11)
There are some significant differences in medium range guidance which has the potential to drive a forecaster nuts, but I’ve found the best thing to do is to not make many changes to the previous forecast, so for now I am leaning toward another low pressure system to affect the area later January 7 or January 8 with a likely track through the Great Lakes and mix/rain favored over snow. Windy, cold weather would arrive behind this for January 9 with cold and tranquil weather for January 10, followed by a temperature moderation at the end of the period.

DAYS 11-15 (JANUARY 12-16)
A storm system may impact the region with rain/mix/snow early to mid period followed by fair weather later in the period. Low confidence forecast.

59 thoughts on “Thursday Forecast”

  1. It’s funny how with the all the uncertainty in weather we’ve had to monitor for a “sneaky” snow event for about January 5 for several days running so far…

    1. Why is it we never get any “sneaky” rain? In football terms it’s like our atmosphere has to go for it on 4th down to get a snow event and rain events it’s first down and “inches”. 😉

  2. Thanks TK !

    Lets see how enthusiastic my students are this morning 🙂 🙂 🙂

    Inequalities should wake them up, lol …….

      1. Good morning, Happy Day 2 of the New Year and Thanks, TK!

        We’re already doing verb conjugations in first period at 7:45, Tom, so bring on the inequalities!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

      2. You bet Philip 🙂

        If you don’t with 6th graders, it can take another 5 days to get them back into the flow. 🙂 🙂

        Verb conjugations, nice Captain. I’ll need to look that up to know what that means, but sounds good !! 🙂 🙂 🙂

    2. My wife had a lot of trouble with inequalities when she took high school math in the early 1980’s. She had a Trig teacher who kept saying, “Girls are no good at math!”

      Is that the kind of inequalities you are pushing on them?

      1. Oh my, that’s awful …….

        More like, it was at least 65F in Bermuda. Write the inequality and graph it.

        1. Tom, I don’t recall “math inequality” when I was in the 6th grade or otherwise. Is this a kind of new math? I looked it up and the examples seem more suited for high school and/or college.

          1. Perhaps not in this case; but on average, kids are learning content a year or two earlier what we learned when we attended school. In some cases more. Although, the new math is interesting. I know my grands teachers use one or the other approach based on the individual child. I seem to recall Tom has said he does this as well, but do not mean to speak for him.

            1. You have it. I think math material has moved up 1 to perhaps 2 grades compared to our generations.

              Certainly, the inequalities we work with are simple, as compared to more complex ones worked with in higher grades.

  4. December 27th 3:41pm – TK notes need to watch for sneaky snow event in the Jan 4th / 5th time range…..

    Informed blog members are the WHW followers!

  5. Good morning and thank you TK.

    At this point, all I have to say is blah, blah and more blah. So far nothing
    on the horizon to get my blood going. Nothing.

    I was a bit optimistic for Snow Early Sunday morning, but latest guidance brings
    the system just a bit farther North and that makes all of the difference. Will monitor
    for changes.

  6. I work part time for a funeral home except for early December as far as I’m concerned keep this snow less patern going, its much better for the families we serve.

  7. Matt ~ This is my first chance to offer you, your Grammie and your family my sympathy on the passing of your beloved Grandpa. May the wonderful memories that you shared help and strengthen you. My prayers for you and your family at this most difficult time.

    1. My sincere condolences also Matt. I haven’t been keeping up on the blog and did not see that he had passed. Keeping your family in my prayers.

      1. One of the Facebook weather pages I follow stated that last night’s Euro was a big hit. This particular met is out of the north shore.

  11. GFS seems to have a system a few days after 1/5 that rounds the trof. Gets its act together after passing our latitude.

    1. seems like it simulates 3 inches in Boston, to 3-6 in Worcester area.

      I don’t know if this is an outlier or something that’s been on the models for a while. Wasnt watching the new england area on the models much prior to Tuesday and its going to take me a few more days to get into synch with the model runs.

  12. Thank you, TK.

    It’s been an uneventful winter. Blah and ho-hum.

    My predictions for 2020 in the weather event. They’ve proven 100% accurate in my 40 plus years of making predictions:

    – Flowers will bloom in Spring

    – It’ll get hot at some point this Summer

    – Leaves will change color and fall to the ground this Autumn

    – It’ll get cold at some point next Winter

    1. I meant to say “in the weather department,” I’ll blame these lapses on my continued bronchial upset. I sound like a 3-pack a day guy.

  13. 12z guidance was a unanimous “womp womp” for weekend snow potential. A rather large one run shift on much of the guidance, especially the Euro.

        1. A wise man never turns has back on winter, ….until maybe June. 😛

          Oh and to answer your question about why we never get sneaky rain events? We get more of those than sneaky snow events. 🙂

  17. My preliminary idea for Sunday AM is that some areas, favoring the I-90 area northward, could receive 1-3 inches of snow. However this can very easily end up as just snow showers still. It’s going to come down to timing and 1 or 2 hours will make a difference. So don’t lock in as 1-3. It’s preliminary for maximum potential as things stand now.

      1. I didn’t say that. I said the I-90 area northward was favored. That includes the city.

            1. I did how much snow or ice did Boston get Sunday night / Monday How about 98% rain we salted for less than two hours at 10Am for sleet and that timing is generous. Just saying that’s all .

                1. They made the right call that night. They were very close to getting a freeze-up much earlier. What would have happened if they didn’t have a crew there and ready to go? That would have been bad news.

              2. And with people coming and going …often for life saving treatment ….I would find it immeasurably lax for the hospital to do less than what they did since there was absolutely no way to be 100% certain . I can’t imagine you would not agree.

                1. I absolutely agree & it’s my job to provide those services . We make these decisions for the hospital not the hospital . If you ever were there after a big snow storm or even during you would be like wow . After a storm the going Joke is did it snow at the hospital. Need to run jeopardy special is on soon

                2. SSK the reason I know the hospital made rhe right decision is that Mac and I were there…multiple time..for his treatments. Remember, he had several visits to Dana and Brigham in February 2015….and after other storms. I also recall mentioning that to you at the time. So whatever the hospital decides to me can’t be second guessed

  19. The MJO is forecast to suddenly wake up from it’s sleep in very weak territory and rapidly build through phase 4 into phase 5 over the coming days. This is not a favorite snow phase for this area, however we’ve been known to get sneaky measurable snow events when the MJO has been in the 4/5 border zone. It’s happened 2 or 3 times the last handful of winters, including once last winter.

      1. Playoffs are a different animal. It was this way last year too and they got to game 7 of the cup finals.

Comments are closed.