As far as nor’easters go, this one was pretty tame. Waited almost all day for the wind to kick in (thank absent high pressure for that), and although the snow hit hard this morning, it didn’t drag its feet at the tail end of the storm like with many other nor’easters.
It’s all over but the cleanup tonight. Bands of light snow continue to push offshore and partial clearing will take over tonight. Notice I said ‘partial clearing’, not total clearing. There’s a cold front moving through first thing in the morning, and it has major implications for the setup into Monday night and Tuesday.
We’ll get to that in a second. First, we have a decent Sunday forecast and a lovely Monday ahead.
OK, now onto the storm. It’s what you’ve been waiting for anyway right? Aching to hear me preach about staying off the roads, watch me throw around dirty words like ‘blizzard’ and ‘white-outs’?
Well, you’ll get that and more. What’s coming is a winter classic – and I’m not talking about the hockey game on New Year’s. Classic setup, classic meteorology: gravity waves, sucker holes, thundersnow, banding, ocean-effect, coastal flooding…whew.
But what about the amounts?
Oddly, this is the easiest part of the storm. Broad brushed 15-24 inches across all of our viewing area. Lesser amounts are possible on the Cape/Islands, but I think we’ll be near a foot. Why are we so certain? The sheer size of this storm and the way it hammers us is burned into our memories since we opened our first meteorology books in school. The biggies are well chronicled, so we just go down the checklist.
Prepare to hunker down. The governor and mayor will probably have press conferences, telling us to stay home and hunker down. The airport will not ‘shut down’ but will likely halt all flights (technically a shutdown, but not really). For that reason, get out now or Monday, if you can. If you can’t, prepare for a loooong wait.
Don’t take this one lightly. Tempests like this only come around once and a while. Heed the advice of the authorities and chill out at home. Get your Netflix, Facebook and Twitter on. Seriously, though. Travel is not recommended on Tuesday. If you know me, I don’t usually say this unless I really mean it. It’s that kind of storm.
We’ll be here every step of the way.
Pete