Snowstorm Thoughts

Alright, I am going to organize my thoughts into bullet points to make it easier for both me and you.

- Snowstorm will affect the area from Thursday through Friday. This much I can say with 100% confidence.  I've mentioned this time frame of Jan 2/3 for a few weeks now as having very good potential for a coastal storm and things appear to be playing out as planned.

- I do not think we are talking about a "blockbuster" event. This piece of energy is going to have a lot of juice with it and it will be feeding off some amazing temperature contrasts. But the track of the storm appears to be trending further south east and away from New England.

- Despite an offshore track, temps will be plenty cold, which will result in a higher snow to liquid ratio. Perhaps as high as 20:1 in some spots. (1 inch of rain = 20 inches of snow)

-Early indications are anywhere from 0.3-0.6 inches of moisture will fall, which translates to a 6-12 inch event. Snow will be light and fluffy. Easy to shovel.

- This appears to be a long duration event, as the developing storm runs into an Arctic front draped across SNE. Snow will likely start early on Thursday morning and lasting through Friday morning. That amounts to a 36 hour snow event. 

-Snowfall rates won't be particularity heavy, with the exception of overnight on Thursday night into Friday morning, when the storm undergoes rapid intensification. As such, much of Thursday should be manageable in terms of snow removal. The early half of Friday looks troublesome. Likely a no school day for Friday. 

- Wind direction and wind speed will be a factor with this storm. Very tight pressure gradient will result in strong NE winds to develop on Thursday. Combined with astronomically high tides, coastal flooding is a concern.

- A north east wind direction will allow for some ocean enhanced snowfall totals as well.Typically, areas around Cape Anne, the South Shore and Cape Cod get more snow in these events. 12+ inches looks very plausible in these areas.

- Perhaps the most overlooked part of this timeframe will be the immensly cold air that rushes in on Friday night into Saturday. We are talking record cold, with many areas seeing surface temps well below 0. Even in Boston, we could be talking about low temperatures that some of us have never seen in our lifetimes. Combined with gusty winds, wind chill values on Saturday morning will be DANGEROUSLY cold.

As we are still over 48 hours away from this event, plenty of time for things to change. This afternoon's model suits are in and seem to be coming into agreement on the storm timing and track. Now all that's left is to sort out the finer details. I will try to get an update up later, but as it is NYE I can make no promises!

Happy 2014!