One Storm To Rule Them All?

Posted by Pete Bouchard

"The board is set, the pieces are moving."

We're on the eve of what could be the biggest snowstorm in almost a decade.

We're drawing comparisons with the Blizzards of 2005 and 2003 (22.5" and 27.5" - greatest all time in Boston). Yes, that much snow will hammer the Commonwealth. Confidence is high, the models are jiving and you need to take this threat seriously.

With such a large, long duration storm, where do we get started? How about the timeline?

Startup: Early morning tomorrow. Pacing is intermittent and light. 2-4 by afternoon. There will likely be mixing - or even plain rain - along the South Shore much of SE Mass. including the Cape and Islands. This is where a lot of us will be standing around saying "what storm?"

Phase two of the storm will then engage after dark tomorrow evening. Heavy bands will erupt from our developing offshore nor'easter/blizzard and snowstorm "feeder bands" (these nor'easters are cousins of hurricanes...sharing some similar characteristics like wind and wave generation) will start wrapping back over New England.

As snowfall rates increase beyond the point where plows can keep up, roads are likely to become impassable near or after midnight Friday night into early Saturday morning. If you attempt to travel, it is possible you may become stranded. Don't be that person.

Snow will continue - intense and unyielding - through Saturday morning and into the late morning hours. Thereafter, we can emerge and start cleanup.

Things we're working on:

Who gets three feet?!? Tough call. In storms like this, the convective (Huh? Think t-storms) nature makes it impossible to tackle ahead of the event. When we're in it, we'll know. Keep in mind folks, there may be multiple sweet spots or bullseyes. That happened in the Blizzard of 2005.

The REAL endgame of the storm. We'll leave it at Saturday afternoon, but the last flakes may not fly until Saturday EVENING.

Cape Cod snowfall. Always a moving target. Mix/rain early Friday will cut down on amounts, but we'll really make hay when the storm cranks on Friday afternoon/Saturday AM.

More later.

Pete

Like A Waterfall

Posted by Pete Bouchard

If you were caught in those 'cloudbursts' today, you had more than you could handle in the rain department. Torrents fell in a short amount of time - what we deem 'flash flooding' in the weather biz. Since it happens suddenly, the National Weather Service has adopted the acronym TADD:

Bam! Pow!

Posted by Jeremy Reiner

Bam. Pow! Those were some nasty storms last evening with some towns in metrowest & the city itself blasted with locally heavy rain, hail, lightning and strong wind gusts. A cool front is the culprit and that front will linger across the region again today. That means another round of some scattered showers & t-storms likely.

Thunderous Start to Workweek

Posted by Pete Bouchard

Heat and a bit of humidity fed a strong - and sometimes severe - line of thunderstorms today. By the time the dinner hour rolled around (6pm-ish), the storms had consolidated into a line. Everyone got a drink of water and a big drop in temperatures - some falling nearly 20 degrees in minutes!

Rear-view Mirror

Posted by Jeremy Reiner

As we exit our recent soggy pattern we do so with one more weather system capable of producing scattered showers & t-storms. This cool front is a slow mover (aren't we all on Monday mornings?!) up in northern New England right now. This slow moving front will settle into our part of the world very late this afternoon bringing a chance of some scattered t-storms between 4-pm. Until then you have a great day with mostly sunny skies along with temperatures in the low 80s. For some, a bit on the humid side for much of the day.