Winter has finally arrived in New England! We had a good snowstorm last week with some spots picking up a foot to foot-and-a-half of snow, but other than that one storm, winter has been pretty tame. We’ve had our snow, now it’s time to get the winter cold. Temperatures today struggled to make it above freezing, but we weren’t alone! A massive dome of arctic air came plunging out of Canada and has put much of the country in the ice box. In fact, you could argue Boston was one of the nicer places to be today! Below are the air temperatures and wind chills as of 3pm this afternoon… brutal all the way down to Dallas where the wind chill was below zero this morning. Minneapolis and Chicago had wind chills near -40°!
While the bright colors in the Midwest may grab our attention (and for good reason), it’s the clash of the cold with the warm from DC to Tennessee and Atlanta that is where we focus our attention. That storm system is inbound to New England, and bringing with it a fresh coating of snow. Right now, that snow is blanketing parts of the Mid South. Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi picked up anywhere between 4-6″ of snow. For us that’s a decent snow, not overwhelming, but for areas that average just 4-5″ of snow each winter, the impacts will be felt for days.
We have the cold so the stage is set for the snow to arrive tomorrow morning. This is, in general, a sunrise to sunset snow tomorrow. Out the door tomorrow morning we’ll have scattered snow showers around, and maybe a coating on the ground. With snow falling, watch for isolated slick spots and I’m sure traffic will be a bit slower so plan a few extra minutes on the road.
The snow will become steadier, but not necessarily heavier, by mid morning. From there it will snow light but steady for several hours, and that’s where we’ll pick up the bulk of our accumulation.
There is a rain/snow changeover that areas south of Boston will contend with and that will cut back on snowfall accumulation.
The evening commute will also be impacted tomorrow as the snow continues to fall, but is on its way out. Boston traffic always has a way to prove me wrong, but I would guess the evening commute will be impacted more than the morning one. Snow not only continues to fall, but at this point it’s been falling and accumulating all day versus just getting going in the form of snow showers for the morning commute. Either way, watch for slick spots at any point you might be on the road tomorrow. These nuisance storms of just a couple of inches are sometimes more problematic than the big ones. With the big storms, people stay home and drive slower. The smaller ones can sneak up on you!
Total storm accumulations aren’t overly impressive. And keep in mind this is falling over the span of several hours. It’s just enough to remind us that it’s winter and just enough to keep you from putting that shovel too far away. There’s no wind or coastal flooding concerns like the past few storms have brought, just a good old fashioned snow globe New England snow.
What’s on deck after the snow? More cold… in fact, it’ll be even colder this weekend. So while you keep that shovel close by, keep the winter gear even closer! If there’s anyone rejoicing about the cold, it’s the ski resorts. The colder the air the more bang for your buck when making artificial snow. So with colder days, and even colder nights, ski resorts will be able to crank out a good amount of snow after so much of it was wiped out after the last few rain storms.
