ORH_wxman

Kind of hard to see how it doesn't finish below normal with the current model progs....could always change, but it would have to be pretty drastic. CON was +0.2F on the month coming into today and we have 2 pretty big cold shots on the models over the next 10 days.

58.6 and mist here.

Update: We've reached the minimum on NSIDC area....area on 9/18 was 3.47 million sq km which is 270k higher than the minimum so far this year. Losing 270k after 9/18 hasn't happened in the record and there's no reason to think this year will be different looking at the weather up there. So the minimum will go down as 3.2 million sq km on 9/12. Extent may or may not have reached the minimum yet. Extent on 9/18 stood at 4.68 million sq km. This is currently 60k above the minimum of 4.62 million so far this month, so there is still a low probability we fall back below that 4.62 million sq km number, but it's becoming more unlikely by the day. If extent rises over the next couple of days, we can probably safely call it.

That GFS cold shot is ridiculous for later next week. Prob record cold in a lot of spots. Would prob have a lot of first flakes of season in NNE too and even down into Berkshires/Monads/etc. Euro isn’t quite as crazy and is probably more reasonable. Still quite cold though.

2020 had that ridiculous stretch around the equinox. CON set 3 consecutive record lows (almost had 4)

First frost on the forum?

I’m on the NW edge of that gradient in Holliston. It rapidly decreases southeast of me. Between here and like Wrentham or Plainville is only like 15 miles but the difference can be night and day. Snow cover often rapidly decreases. Even between here and Norfolk/Walpole…though Walpole does a little better since they have some sneaky elevation.

Sometimes I feel like the longitude at which storms most rapidly deepen south of us plays a role. You start seeing that dryslot wrap in while it’s still over E LI into S RI but by the time it migrates eastward, the rapidly deepening midlevel centers are collapsing everything E and SE and it fills in by the time it reaches, say, TAN to PYM corridor.

I think it’s a fluke. Dec ‘92 didn’t screw N RI like Mar ‘13 did. Woonsocket over to Burrilville got annihilated.

You’d do well on a more easterly flow like a Dec ‘92. Regular coastal with winds more NNE don’t provide enhancement there….the rare westerly flow event does well there too.

Yeah some of those scrapers can give PTSD in the interior. But in my long experience with central MA wx, I feel like as long as you are on the east slope of the ORH hills, higher elevation is going to equal more ice and more snow. The extra elevation outstrips any other variable when you are still on the east side of the spine. Once you go west of the spine far enough, things change since you start to lose the orographic enhancement on easterly and northeasterly flow.

My guess is you get both a little more ice and a little more snow there.

No he must be up by Justice hill in Sterling...i don't think anywhere else is in town is high enough to be over 800 feet.

We had some cold Septembers back then....they show up well on the time series:

Took ORH until noontime to reach 60F under full sun. Pretty decent airmass for mid-September....esp compared to the most recent 10 or 15 years (Sept has been one of the warmest months relative to avg)

Update: NSIDC area stood at 3.28 million sq km on 9/15. There is a good chance we've reached the minimum already, but we're still close enough (80k higher than min) that we can't call it quite yet. NSIDC extent continues to fall though, down to 4.65 million sq km. So we likely haven't reached the min yet on extent. I'll do a full verification of earlier prediction on 7/1 once both area nd extent min have been reached.

Shortwave behind that tracks into Quebec....need it further south for a good SWFE.

To further my point above....this is pretty amazing....look at the difference in winter temps between 2008-2022 and 1991-2007.....where is the warmest region in the US? New England. Coldest? Upper plains. A winter like '02-'03 would def work to reverse that trend. That winter was actually pretty mild in the northern plains but it was frigid over NE.

You could maybe throw in December 2017 into early January 2018 for another semi-sustained period where the cold was centered over us. But yeah, it's been pretty tough on a longer timeline since those early 2000s winters.....most of the cold has been centered over the plain states and into upper Rockies.....theyve had colder winters in the past 10-15 years there than they did in the 1990-2005 period.

Yeah those colder early 2000s winters (sans '01-'02) had the cold centered right over NY/New England. We haven't really seen that since on any sustained basis except maybe for that 8-10 week period in 2015.

Not sure there is anything more insecure than going on a weather forum and chastising people and then bragging about your wealth.....you hate to see it.

I would argue we weren't the center of the cold either in the 2007-2015 period.....we did have the record-breaking cold in Feb 2015, but the cold anomalies were largely centered to our west otherwise

Prior to 2015 maybe that was the case, but not since then....the eastern US has been a torch....only the far southeast US has been warmer than our region.

The northeast has actually been one of the warmest regions relative to average in the entire country since the 2015 snow/cold blitz. So a little regression on that front wouldn’t be surprising.

Maybe we can have a repeat of 9/30/92....only 60 runs to go