Green up on the way! 3/19/10

It’s a fact that spring advances from south to north approximately 20 miles per day. Some years quicker than others. To me, spring seems to be advancing earlier than usual here in New England. For example, take the three day Nor’easter which battered eastern New England for three days last weekend. In 8 out of 10 years that storm would have had much more snow and ice involved with it than what we saw. We have had similar storms in April and even May which had more frozen precipitation involved in it than this one. After all the flooding which we endured (including me at my store), I think many people would have preferred more snow. For times sake, I can’t explain to you why there wasn’t more snow, other than that it just wasn’t darn cold enough!

Getting back to green up. As I said, spring is advancing north with each and passing minute. What this actually means is that at 1:32 p.m. Saturday, March 20th (tomorrow) spring arrives. This is called the spring equinox because on this day we have equal daylight and night. At this point the earth’s axis is tilted equally towards the sun. From this point forward until we get to the summer solstice, the earth’s axis will be tiliting more towards the sun, and we will be gaining sunlight and increased radiation. This extra warmth promotes green up! Grass starts to turn green, trees begin to bud, and flowers begin to bloom. Green up starts in coastal southern New England first usually around the beginning of April, then spreads north into New Hampshire around the middle of April, and finally into Maine by the end of April or even the beginning of May.

Here in New England, spring can be severely delayed or not even come some years! Many people say that we just go from winter to instant summer by June! This tardiness can largely be blamed on the cold Atlantic ocean to our east. This is called latent effect. The ocean takes longer to warm up and cool off with the change of the seasons, thus the delay of warm and cold weather here in eastern New England.

Now on to the forecast. No latent effect in the forecast for the first day of spring. Tomorrow, spring will invade into New England in glorious fashion. There will be no sea breeze tomorrow, so expect temperatures to soar to possibly record levels, which is 70 degrees or a little better across much of central and southern New England tomorrow. Thereafter, expect a cold front to slip through N.E. Saturday night, cooling us off by 15 or 20 degrees on Sunday.
With clouds increasing Sunday and a chilly wind off of the ocean, you will notice a change in the weather has arrived. By Monday a storm will be approaching N.E. from the south and will likely bring us yet another rainstorm. Although not near the strength of last weeks storm, any additional rain may aggravate the flooding situation. Expect 1 to 2 inches of rain. Looking further ahead, we will dry out for a time with mild temp.’s midweek. Last week I talked about possibly one more comeback with winter. There is a posibility that March may go out like a lion, with a possible Nor’easter here at the end next week. I know this would be a shock to many people, but there may be a good chance for wet snow to be involved with that storm. Then again, this is New England, and this should not surprise us, just amaze us.

I will be updating this post at the beginning of next week, or when time allows. In the meantime, soak up the sunshine tomorrow, go to the ocean, go for a hike,or get an ice cream. Whatever you do, just do it outdoors! Next week at this time, we could be shoveling snow!!

Pete

Storm to continue… 3/14/10

The major Nor’easter which has been battering eastern Mass. with wind and rain since Saturday is going to continue into Monday night. When the storm finally winds down, 3 to 6 inches of rain will have fallen across the area. Had it been slightly colder, this would have been a snowstorm for the record books. As a general rule of thumb, for every inch of rain that falls, usually translates to 10″ of snow. There are many variables which factor into that equation, as sometimes the snow is drier and can “fluff up” quite a bit, sometimes doubling those ratios! However, it’s rare for us to get such a moisture laden storm falling as all snow. Some storms that come to mind with this amount of moisture in it with snow would be the April 1st, 1997 Blizzard. We also had a tremendous storm back on Dec. 11-13, 1992. During that storm, some higher elevations (such as Mt. Wachusett) received up to 48″ of snow!

As stated above, expect the storm to continue into Monday night. Thereafter, the big storm will begin to move eastward. In it’s wake will begin a stretch of beautiful dry spring weather. Starting on Tuesday through at least next Saturday expect sunny weather with a warming trend. By weeks end temperatures could be well into the 60’s away from the coast. Looking further ahead towards the first day of spring (March 20th), there may actually be one last gasp of winter (not surprising!) to come through. Some computer models are hinting of one more cold shot with maybe even a little snow? Not to worry if it does snow again, it usually melts right away this time of year.

I will be updating this post sometime early in the week with the prospects of that possibilty, as well as other interesting weather info. In the mean time, keep dry and have a great Sunday!

Pete

Rainy weather ahead! 3/11/10

Today marks the date for two anniversary dates. The first was the Great Blizzard of 1888. This storm is considered the worst blizzard ever to strike New Engalnd. This storm dumped as much as 50″ of snow in western New England with bitter cold temperatures. The second storm was the March 1993 “Superstorm.” It was called a superstorm because in meteorlogical terms it was super. this storm broke all sorts of weather records from Georgia straight up through Maine. It also marked a benchmark in computer model forecasting, as the storm was actually predicted many days in advance. All the models agreed that a historical storm was coming, which is rare even in today’s technology. All three jet streams, the polar, sub-tropical, and the tropical jet “phased together” to create this massive storm. Blizzard warnings spanned from Georgia to Maine, tornado’s ripped through Florida, and coastal flood and high wind warnings were posted up and down the east coast. Many people may not remember this storm here in eastern Mass. as the center of the storm passed right through Boston, turning blizzard conditions into a burst of tropical weather for a time!

No superstorm on the way for this weekend. However, our stretch of fantastic early spring weather will come to an end today as a slow moving storm system begins to affect us. Beginning Friday, some showers will begin to develop and be with us on and off through Monday. It looks like the heaviest of the rain and wind will come through Saturday night and the first part of Sunday. Unsettled weather may continue into Moday and possibly even into Tuesday. Our fine March weather may resume once again by the middle of next week. Still no snow or cold weather in sight, which is quite suprising to me, considering it’s still officially winter.

I will be updating this post sometime over this weekend so check back for an update, because we all know it will change again!

Pete

Is winter over?

Although it has not been a harsh winter here in New England this year, the spring weather which overwhelmed the region this past weekend was a welcome sight for many! Temperatures soared well into the 50’s, some locations even touched 60! Along with plenty of sunshine. So this begs the question, is winter over for good? The short answer is no. For sure the worst of the winter is behind us, however it’s still too early to declare it dead. The weather which we experienced this past weekend can’t really be called unusual. March is notorious for having very changeable weather as spring tries to advance north and winter wants to hold it’s ground.
This clash of the airmasses can sometimes brew up intense storms. Some of our biggest snowstorms have occurred in March, even April. Boston’s Logan Airport avg.’s about 8″ of snow in March.
Some years there’s no snow at all. However other years, such as the famed March of 1993, we had a whole season’s worth in one month! There was so much snow, that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade was actually cancelled that year!

Expect the nice weather to continue for a couple more day’s this week. As of this writing temp.’s are skyrocketing again, and we should have another warm afternoon with spring fever abound! A dry cold front will slip through the region tonight cooling us back off to seasonal levels (mid 40’s) for the remainder of the week. Later this week, we’ll realize that we’re still in March as a slow moving storm system begins to move into our area. This storm will likely bring several day’s of wet and cool weather beginning Friday and possibly continuing through the weekend. So far, it looks wet not white.

Well that’s about it for now, I will update this post again around mid week. Enjoy the spring like weather today, because we all know around here, it’s two step’s forward one step back!

Pete

Welcome!

Welcome to my first edition of Pete’s weather blog! I hope you find the blog interesting, fun, and useful! So let’s get started!

March 1st marks the three month period beginning of meteoroligical spring. Astronomically, spring officially begins on March 20th. For simplicity, they like to break it down into 3 month periods. Thus far, this winter has been quite benign for New England standards. For more technical reasons, it has been much worse in the mid-Atlantic region. Expect this trend to continue for about another week or so. Although it may not seem it, the Boston area has seen close to it’s normal snowfall this winter! Logan Airport averages approximately 42″ per season. This “average” varies considerably from one year to the next, and across the metropolitan area. With that said, expect a taste of spring to arrive this weekend with temp’s near 50 degrees both Saturday and Sunday along with sunshine. A brisk wind at times will make it feel somewhat cooler than it really is.

Looking ahead, expect fairly quiet weather to continue with temp’s generally at seasonal levels (low 40’s) with little precipitation. At the end of next week there are some signs that the weather may take a turn to stormy conditions. Some computer models are predicting a possible strong slow moving Nor’easter with coastal flooding and heavy precipitation. Whether this is a wind driven rain or heavy wet snow is to early to determine from now. It’s definitely something to be aware of. However, this year, it seems like something always fouls up a good snowstorm around here!

Well that’s about it for now, check back for more updates on our ever changing New England weather. I will update this blog frequently, especially during stormy periods!

Pete