Don't Get Used To It
Posted by Chris Lambert
Let's be honest, the past winter and a half, hasn't been tough to take across New England. Cold doesn't sustain itself, what snow falls, melts fairly quickly, and temperatures have averaged 4-5 degrees above the norm.
It all has to do with how pressure patterns across the northern hemisphere set-up. When the Arctic has a strong polar vortex (low pressure across it), cold air tends to stay bottled up across Alaska, northern Canada and the Arctic. That's what we've seen quite a bit of recently, with only brief breaks in that pattern. When high pressure builds across the West Coast, Alaska, Greenland and much of the Arctic, cold air is displaced toward lower latitudes, including the central and eastern United States. That's similar to a pattern we saw in Jan and Feb of 2011, parts of the 2009/2010 winter and in mid Jan-Feb of 2007. This is also similar to the set-up next week, and perhaps more often than not, over the next several weeks.
In this more wintry pattern, the obvious: the cold is coming. What's tough to pin down, is the storm track. Meaning, while I'm highly confident in cold air blasting into New England this week, with perhaps more early February cold spells, I'm less confident in guaranteeing big snow storms. Although, you need the cold to get the snow, so at least that's in place. Sometimes it can just be cold and dry though, like much of the mid Jan-Feb of 2007 we had. With the snow... we'll wait to see what happens.
A couple chances of snow are in the forecast with some snow late Monday night and Tuesday morning, steadiest over SE Mass, and perhaps a more widespread and heavier storm possible Friday.
The coldest stretch of weather will be Tuesday night - Thursday morning. Expect near 0 degrees readings in the morning, and teens for highs Wednesday afternoon.
So don't get too used to the milder air this weekend, it's days are numbered. Oh... and go Pats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just In Time
Posted by Chris Lambert
Summer officially starts Friday at 1:04 A.M., and Mother Nature's sending in summer weather for us just in time. Mid to late June averages highs near 80 degrees, and we'll be there temperature-wise over the next few days. Mostly dry too!
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:
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!
We'll Take Average
Posted by Chris Lambert
Well, we had a lot of clouds this afternoon, but at least not a lot of rain. Sure a few showers were out there, scattered about, but hopefully they didn't ruin any plans you had with dad. Temps made it into the mid to upper 70s, which is close to the average for this time of year. In fact, the whole 7-day forecast is within 5 degrees of average each and every day. That means lots of upper 70s and lower 80s on the board. Not bad being average this time of year, huh?