Freezing rain advisory until 3:00A.M. for most of Massachusetts, expect Southeast Mass.
Night number two for the salt, sand and ice scrapers.
That shallow, cold air mass in place got the better of us today with many towns not even cracking the freezing mark. That obviously meant the ice in the driveways and sidewalks had little chance to melt. Essentially, with little wind today, the atmosphere couldn’t "mix out" the coldest air near the ground. Believe it or not, about 1,000 feet up, it’s above freezing this afternoon/evening. When the atmosphere is inverted like that (warmer higher up), it’s a stagnant air mass and if you can’t get the breeze going the cold goes nowhere. Not only that, since dew points are close to the air temperatures, relatively humidity runs around 90-100%. That’s allowed for areas of freezing fog and light freezing mist to form. A glaze on untreated surfaces is likely this evening so watch your step and careful on the roads! In addition to freezing fog and mist, more precipitation works after 9pm tonight, providing a steadier freezing rain where temperatures are still at or below freezing. That’ll give an additional coat of ice to those surfaces that aren’t salted or sanded.
The tendency is to have the temperatures slowly rise overnight, and it’s likely that many towns go above freezing by early tomorrow morning. That should alleviated the icing issues early Thursday. While I could see a few early morning showers lingering, I do expect much of the day to be dry with some sun returning in the afternoon. As highs run past the 40 degree mark, we’ll watch those driveway skating rinks finally thaw back out, ending the "walk like a penguin" business.
New Year’s Eve looks great with 7pm temps near 40 in Boston, falling to 35 by Midnight. A bit of a westerly breeze provides wind chill factors about 10 degrees cooler than those air temps, but with partly cloudy skies, it’ll be an enjoyable night to be out. Have fun!
Winter Classic at Gillette features nice weather too. Upper 30s at kickoff…. oops, I mean when the puck drops.
Cold air and recent snow has also allowed for much improved ski conditions across the mountains. They’ll be making lots more snow in the days ahead as well as Mother nature providing occasional snow showers up there.
Have fun, enjoy the New Year! We’re major storm free the next 7-10 days in Southern New England. Longer range, maybe something can get brewing a couple weeks, but we’ll have to wait and see how the pattern can shake out. It at least has a colder look to the pattern.
@clamberton7 – twitter