Remember how we hit 73 degrees 2 weeks ago?… Yeh, that memory is fading fast as we continue to get buried deeper and deeper into winter weather. Just as soon as this storm wraps up, bitter air arrives for the weekend, and then all eyes focus on a potential coastal storm for Tuesday and Tuesday night.
First thing is first, this storm was an easy clean up type one, if you had to clean up at all. With the recent mild days, the ground was warm and with the March sun angle high in the sky, pavement still remained above freezing for many towns, yielding wet roads and not white. With that said, locations in far Southeast Mass that picked up 5-8″ of snow did have snow covered roads/driveways.
In addition, some late-day snow squalls also fell hard enough to coat the roads, and a few scattered snow showers/squalls into this evening will create reduced visibility, and slick spots with coated roads at times. Icy spots also develop tonight too as temps tumble back through the 20s and into the single digits and teens.
The weekend is cold, there’s no way around it with highs running into the lower 20s Saturday and upper 20s on Sunday. A lot like last weekend overall. Add in a gusty wind, and wind chills hover around 5 tomorrow afternoon and drop to about -10 tomorrow night.
I suppose you’re also reading this for the word on Tuesday…
While I can’t sit here on a Friday and lock in snow/wind/flooding #s this far out, I will say the potential for a strong coastal storm (nor’easter) is high. A complete miss is a relatively low chance at this point, as the challenge now will be pinning down any rain snow/line details, if there is one, and wind/coast impacts. Give it a couple more days for that clarity.
What kind of potential are we talking about?…. If the storm passes near the “benchmark” location just south of Nantucket, 1-2 feet of snow is possible. However, if the storm is pinned closer to the coast, it’s heavy snow to heavy mix to rain and snow #s would be lower. If the storm is a bit farther east of the benchmark, then snow #’s aren’t as high either as the core of the snow banding stay east. In the first 2 set-ups, coastal flooding and strong winds would also be a big concern. Bottom line… it’s a high stakes game with this one, the potential is there, at least enough to keep a close eye on and follow up one.
In the meantime, enjoy the weekend and stay warm! Oh yah, clocks go forward 1 hour too. Check/replace the batteries in the smoke and CO detectors too.
@clamberton7 – twitter