It’s a cool start to the morning again, teens and lower 20s, although the winds aren’t as gusty, and that helps! The pattern is quiet the next couple days with temps near 30 in the afternoon. Winds today are 8-15mph with a few gusts near 20… even lighter tomorrow.
Ok, on to the good stuff….
This weekend potential
The storm we’re watching now has energy diving toward the Southeast U.S. before it transfers energy off the Carolina coastline and develops into a powerful Nor’easter. I am confident that a major coastal storm will form, hammer the mid-Atlantic with major coastal flooding, and a wind driven heavy snow from Southern PA to Northern VA with 1-2 feet of it a potential there. Even as far north as Long Island, a blizzard watch is posted. Kinda close for comfort huh?
There’s no doubt there will be a sharp gradient of snowfall from south to north on this one, and the south coast of New England seems to be where that tight gradient sets up. At least that’s the look for now. While Long Island has the potential for a foot of wind driven snow, across the sound, the snowfall drops off to near 6" along the RI/CT coast (higher toward NYC). Across Southeast Mass, it appears 3-6" is the more likely range with only up to a couple inches in Boston and very little, if any across northern Mass and Southern NH. We’ll even battle some sleet/rain across parts of the Cape/Nantucket. That’s the way it looks as of early this Thursday morning. With the onset of snow still 60hrs away and such a tight south to north drop off in snow totals, these amounts are subject to adjustment for better or for worse. In terms of timing, Saturday morning is dry, Saturday afternoon will see snow arrive along the south Coast early afternoon, and by dinner time, some snow starts to reach Boston. Snow ends early Sunday morning, likely by 7-8am.
In terms of the coast, there’s a full moon this weekend and high tides Saturday night around 11pm and Sunday morning around 11am. Those are the tides to watch. Even if the heaviest snow stays south of us, gusty winds develop, especially along the coast with a good bet of wind gusts from the north/northeast of 40-50mph over the Cape and Islands. Pockets of minor to moderate coastal flooding/beach erosion is possible, especially along the northeast facing shorelines of Plymouth County and the Cape.
We’ll keep you updated on air and online… as they say, "stay tuned".
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