A March Lion

Scenes from around New England

Sea smoke at Brewers Boatyard, South Freeport, Maine.
Temperature at the time -20 degrees

Sent in from John Hutchings from Cumberland, Maine

Winter in Nantucket

Sent in from Ellen Hansen from Taunton, MA

What's the Forecast?

Weekend Snowstorm

click image to zoom

Overnight edit: Changes at this time would be to shift the map 20-40 miles further north. Models have come into better agreement further north than was previously expected. This shifts the area of max accumulations from basically 20-30 miles either side of the Mass Pike. Looking like still a few inches (2-5" on the islands), 3-6" along the immediate coast, 4-8" N CT, N RI, and into the Boston/Norwood/Taunton area. 

Another winter storm on the way

We just haven't had a break yet this winter in SNE. And this upcoming weekend won't be any different. On the horizon is yet another snowstorm, coming late Saturday into Sunday.

Setup is rather similar to most of our storms this season. Low moves into the upper Midwest tomorrow, diving through the Great Lakes and into SW PA late Friday into Saturday. The clipper then works over the upper Mid Atlantic, off the coast of New Jersey, and develops south of LI as it pushes through the Islands and throws a swath of precipitation over southern New England. Basically a classic snow dump scenario for the area. 

The problem this time is a rather uncertain track due to model discrepancies. Basically we have three different model camps. Furthest to the north is the Euro, which is pushing the low basically over SNE. It is, by far, the warmest of the models and has a change to sleet at least to the Mass Pike, and rain along the coast hampering snow totals. Good news, it has no other model support. Bad news, it has been the best model thus far this season especially when it comes to SW flow events. What I'd like to see if at least a minor shift to the south on the 00z run of the Euro tonight. If we see this I think we are setting up for a heavy snow dump, highest totals probably south of the Mass Pike. 

The second camp also stands alone for the most part, and is the GFS. It is by far the most southern solution, with the low exiting the coast somewhere near the Delmarva, and barely scraping SNE with snow. It has about a half inch of QPF into S CT, S RI, and SE MA, with significantly lesser amounts up towards Boston. The GFS has been slowly nudging north, though, and has not exactly been the most stellar model this season. So I would expect to continue to see a bit of a shift north of the GFS.  

The third camp is sort of the middle ground, and lies in the NAM. It basically has the low exiting off the NJ coast and blowing up as it moves just south of Nantucket. It has a heavy snowstorm for all of SNE, and even down into the NYC metro. Two things to note with the NAM. The 18z run went bonkers on precipitation, dumping around an inch for CT/RI/SE MA, which would equate to a foot of snow. But NAM tends to model too high a QPF in this range, and I'd be more comfortable doing about 60% of that. I think, though, a compromise around the NAM and Euro Op run (which was a bit further south than the Euro itself) is the way to go. What does this mean for SNE?

Basically it should be an all snow event. We should see some mixing, maybe plain rain for a time, on the islands, and a mix of sleet perhaps working onto the immediate south shore (New Haven-Groton-Westerly-Narragansett, etc.). Heaviest snow at this time, I think, will be along and south of the Mass Pike. Snow totals should be in the range of a half of foot, perhaps a bit more in the heaviest band and a bit less further to the north in New Hampshire. 

Winter Storm Watches should be up in the morning for much of the region, and if we see a bit more model consensus overnight a better picture on where the heaviest snow will fall and where the rain/snow line may set up.  So probably a map tomorrow. 

In the clear.

After record cold temperatures, snowstorms, record warm temperatures, and a litany of other weather events, for now we're in the clear. Expect seasonal temperatures over the next few days, and nothing really in the way of significant weather impacts.