ORH_wxman

There were cracks in the armor starting before Jan 2022….being taken the to woodshed in Feb 1-2, 2021 really started the downhill trajectory. The blizzard in 2022 was a brief reprieve but then the spiral resumed. Lots of furniture broken and Scooter’s kids learning all sorts of new swear words. You hate to see it.

Every run seems to get more wedged. I’d be surprised if the interior even down to SNE doesn’t wedge for a long time. We might eventually warm sector but it could take a while. And up in the CAD capital from like CON to western Maine foothills, prob no warm sector at all…unless the trend reverse back to a much stronger sfc low west.

Looks more like C-1” to me. But if that one trends a little sharper then it could be a bit more.

I’d like to see a better push of the arctic airmass in the low levels for a larger scale icing threat. We don’t ever get back into the real cold after the clipper overnight Saturday night. But it’s not far away so if we trended things further south then it’s possible but I’m not sure how much more we can trend this inside of 4-5 days.

CNE/NNE might actually get a decent SWFE next week if that high keeps trending a bit. Think SNE might be too far south but maybe down to pike region could get a bit if things broke right. It’s obviously going to be a see-saw with the west coast troughs reestablishing itself each round between now and the next two weeks, but there’s also intervals of cold too so can’t rule out something timed well. Guidance has been actually semi-consistent with trying to rebuild the PNA ridge by the 20th or so. Hopefully I doesn’t get pushed back or erased altogether. MJO would kind of support it though going into phase 7 during December La Niña. That promotes Aleutian low.

I wouldn’t be punting the rest of the month when the last 10-12 days has a pretty decent amount of uncertainty. I know weeklies aren’t exactly the poster child of accuracy but here is the 5 day H5 mean ending Xmas (Dec 21-25)…. Then here is Dec 26-30 Doesn’t exactly scream punt. I’m skeptical of any good look these days but there isn’t a strong empirical reason to assume it’s going to fail either.

There’s an extremely low chance that any 30 year period since BOS kept records was snowier than the 1990-2020 period. Snow cover is a different animal but you wouldn’t be able to compare pre-Logan airport to Logan airport obs anyway since Logan is in a munch worse spot for both snow and snow cover than even the old site a little bit inland in the city. But snow cover is definitely more correlated to avg temperature than just snowfall which has a larger precip anomaly component to it.

6.3” on winter hill looks like the final unless there is something from squalls. Had around 2” in Holliston…decent difference. Lower down in town was even less.

That PV lobe vortmax rotating down in Quebec is what would be needed to get a colder solution next week. If you can rotate that down into northern Maine or something then it gets very interesting. But right now most guidance is too far north with it. This is the clown range NAM at 12z

Some big bands coming in now

Winter hill

Moderate snow here and 32.5.

That’s an impressive collapse east after midnight. Really quick.

If you were in the Carolinas was that 12/16/05? I remember a monster ice storm down there on that date. We had significant icing here too in interior SNE but it wasn’t what the Carolinas saw in that event. Actually prob started the day before that far south.

Yeah it’s def low expectation for next week but it’s an extremely poleward ridge and that can sometimes do goofy things to guidance. We’ve seen cutters in the past turn into legit winter storms on models as they get closer with huge poleward ridging. I’m skeptical there’s enough trend in the tank to get us there on this one, but it’s obviously plausible given some of the solutions we’ve seen today.

Yeah there was no major ice storm in 2012. Gotta give Gordon a break…

It’s like -1 to -2 there at 925. You’ll be snow. Might be a bit sloppy to start but it will be snow. You’ll start in the next 20-30 min I think.

Juicy too. Big area of over half inch of QPF.

Should start seeing flakes in western CT soon. Looks like radar starting to blossom a little bit.

Two different scenarios offer a chance at something more wintry next week but we’re def going to be warmer at least for a few days prior to that. The magnitude is still in doubt. It could be 55-60 and rain but there’s a chance it never gets close to that warm either. I’d think it might benefit to torch for a day or two if we can press the boundary down behind it sort of like the Euro had. I’d say we wait and see what guidance does over the next 2-3 days on that front.

RAP and HRRR continue to cool for eastern areas overnight. Pretty good burst of moderate snow for several hours right into Boston on both models. Prob not much accumulation right in city but just outside could see some.

Western spine of ORH hills have a decent shot but they’ll only issue warning if 50% of a given area is high confidence for 6”+. I don’t think the area would be large enough. Could be a situation where a town like Barre MA or Oakham or even North Brookfield gets 6” and Paxton MA at higher elevation gets 4” because of the terrain and SW flow. I think there’s def going to be a terrain gradient in the QPF too.

18z NAM gone wild for ORH hills to Kevin.

I’m still a bit skeptical but 2”+ would be great. HRRR def colder and RAP has trended colder as well all day…it tries to bring accumulating snow to close-in metrowest Boston like near Jerry’s hood.

Euro has a somewaht different evolution…let’s that first system just completely cut while dampening out the southern stream (almost a glorified FROPA) but then behind it is another chance and that’s where we actually get scraped by that coastal at D9. That would probably be a more favorable setup than trying to get that initial high to press down which looks like a much heavier lift.