Sunday Storm??

After beautiful weather early in the week, storminess returns on Thursday through Sunday. You really should enjoy this weekend because it is very likely that late winter and early spring will be filled with unsettled weather and cool temps. Its just the way it is around here.

Anyways, the above image serves as nothing more than a hype picture. It is a model run from yesterday that shows a huge winter storm affecting our area next Sunday. Obviously, this means little at this point, but part of the love hate relationship the public has with weather and weathermen is storm hype. So let the games begin!

Either way, bad weather returns on Thursday. Two storms in 4 days. The first one will probably start Thursday night into Friday and take the shape of the last few storms we have had. That is, cold rain at the coast and some snow/rain mix at higher elevations.

The second one is the one to watch. Long time between now and then, but plan for a much worse weekend next week. Sucks for those of us participating in the Ras Na Heireann 5k next Sunday, but good news for those of us who have a physics test to study for.

What a Day!

High pressure galore! Beautiful weather for today and tomorrow. Highs in the mid 50's and plenty of sunshine.

Cold front brings temps back to normal on Tuesday and we have a shot at some storminess late week.Long term forecasts show us getting back into a stormy pattern but I think we are going to be lacking some cold air, especially at the coast but I will have more on that in another post.

On a side note , I want to start an astronomy section on this blog so because I am president and CEO of this blog, I get to make these decisions. So be on the look out.

Soooo Close!

The above images are from the latest NAM run and you can see that we justtttttt miss the heavy stuff as far as precipitation goes. It's getting beyond frustrating now with these storms.

Cape Cod and portions of the South Shore will actually get a decent sized snow storm with totals ranging from 3-8 inches. Some areas on the outer Cape could even be over 8 inches.

In Boston, 1-2 inches at most. It won't even stick until after the sun goes down.

On a side note, the Boston Public Library is an interesting social fishbowl. At one table, I saw an obviously drunken man on the verge of passing out onto his book on day care! You can't make that stuff up.

Another Near Miss

Seems to be the story of the winter. BIG ocean storm is forming down around Virginia as we speak. As with every storm this winter, it will move almost directly eastward and then to the north, leaving us with a glancing blow.

This storm is quite big and it will slow down once it moves closer to New England. Because of these reasons, we will get a decent chunk of precipitation thrown back our way.

Light stuff during the daytime. The storm is still far south so don't expect anything beyond some light rain and snow for now. Our temps at the surface are too warm for snow to stick, but the air just above us is pretty cold, so if you get a stronger burst of preicip, it will probably fall as snow and just stick to grass and cars.

Tonight, our temps drop and the storm gets bigger and moves closer. Translation, accumulating snow. I would expect generally 1-3 inches in the Boston area, but more down on the South Shore and on the Cape. The snow showers stick around through Thursday as the storm slows its movement.

That's it for now. I am very sore from Pilates last night. That shit hurts.

Weather Picture of the Day

A spectacular thunderstorm reaches the mature state in June 2005 in York, Nebraska. Notice how the top has reached a point where it cannot contiue verticle growth and has begun to spread out, creating a flat top.

Totals for February

WEATHER OBSERVED NORMAL DEPART
VALUE DATE(S) VALUE FROM
NORMAL
................................................
TEMPERATURE (F)
RECORD
HIGH 70 02/24/1985
LOW -18 02/09/1934
HIGHEST 50 02/20
LOWEST 14 02/07
AVG. MAXIMUM 38.6 38.7 -0.1
AVG. MINIMUM 27.7 24.2 3.5
MEAN 33.2 31.5 1.7
DAYS MAX >= 90 0 0.0 0.0
DAYS MAX <= 32 2 8.0 -6.0
DAYS MIN <= 32 22 22.0 0.0
DAYS MIN <= 0 0 0.0 0.0

PRECIPITATION (INCHES)
RECORD
MAXIMUM 7.94 2008
MINIMUM 0.45 1877
TOTALS 3.34 3.30 0.04
DAILY AVG. 0.12 0.12 0.00
DAYS >= .01 7 10.0 -3.0
DAYS >= .10 4 6.0 -2.0
DAYS >= .50 3 2.0 1.0
DAYS >= 1.00 2 1.0 1.0
GREATEST
24 HR. TOTAL 1.28 02/25 TO 02/25
02/25 TO 02/26

SNOWFALL (INCHES)
RECORDS
TOTAL 41.6 2003
SNOW DEPTH 1 02/07/2004
TOTALS 7.0 11.2 -4.2
SINCE 7/1 35.5 32.6 2.9
SNOWDEPTH AVG. 0
DAYS >= 1.0 2 3.0 -1.0
GREATEST
SNOW DEPTH 0 MM
24 HR TOTAL 5.3 MM


.................................................

WIND (MPH)
AVERAGE WIND SPEED 13.3
RESULTANT WIND SPEED/DIRECTION 7/309
HIGHEST WIND SPEED/DIRECTION 47/070 DATE 02/25
HIGHEST GUST SPEED/DIRECTION 60/090 DATE 02/25


NUMBER OF DAYS FAIR 7
NUMBER OF DAYS PC 10
NUMBER OF DAYS CLOUDY 11



Here is the summary of our weather in the Boston area for the past month. Obviously this past month was strange as geographical properties became much more important than they usually are for winter weather. Case in point, any area to the north and west of Boston that has a little elevation got a lot more snow and had a much different weather pattern than a city only 20 miles away. Even areas to the south of the city ended up with different weather because of proximity to storm centers.

Nevertheless, a few things to note here:

-First off in the temperature department, we stayed prehttp://www.blogger.com/tty consistent. Never getting above 50 and even more surprising, never getting below 10. Our average high was right in line with normal values but our average low was much warmer than normal values. An indication of why we got so little snow, no cold air.

-Precipitation wise, we were actually right at our average, with the big total at the end of the month helping us to catch up. We are still running a deficit of about an inch for total precipitation, but that is much better than the drought like conditions we were experiencing a few weeks ago. Good news for spring vegetation.

- Snowfall was obviously below average at 7 inches total, but again, our seasonal total is 35 inches, which is a little above our normal value. Early season snowfall saved us in this category.

- We have definitely missed out on some good snow storms. Compare our modest 35 inch snowfall seasonal total to Worcester's 63 inches, New York City's 52 inches, Baltimore's 80 inches, DC's 73 inches and Philly's 79 inches, you can see that we are the odd man out.

- I highlighted the peak wind speeds and gusts just to show again how strong that storm was on Thursday night into Friday. Pretty impressive wind speeds.

- What is next for us? March is a tricky month. The Vernal or Spring Equinox is on March 20th, so we are just a few weeks away from our next season. Long term forecasts show a break in the stormy weather this weekend, but winter is not over yet. Next week could bring more storms to the east coast with some potential for rain and snow.

I am back!

I took a hiatus these past few days. I was lazy. But our odd pattern comes to an end finally!

Our good old storm friend, the same one that gave us big winds and rain on Thursday and our unsettled weather over the weekend. Now it has finally moved off shore and has turned into a HUGE ocean storm. Take a look at the above satellite image. What a big storm. Almost looks like a hurricane. Nova Scotia is going to get a pretty hefty snow storm and we will see some fringe effects. The closer to the coast you are, the better chance you have of seeing some snow showers. I think the estimates of 1-3 inches are a bit much, but that is just me.

Our weather looks to be improving though as we have a close call on Wednesday with another ocean storm but it looks too far out to sea to cause any problems. After that, slow moderation to some nice warm temps and what looks to be a beautiful weekend. Sunshine prevails Friday through Sunday with temps close to or above 50! We are officially in meteorological spring with it being March 1st, so we can only go up from here.

I am writing this blog instead of doing my lab reports or getting cat food for an increasingly hungry cat so I hope you people enjoy it.