Welcome to the weather blog! While the web address has changed, the blog will still be the same Monday through Friday discussion - with some improvements! Over the course of the next few weeks and months, you'll find me experimenting and adding new features. Maps, pictures, and other multimedia are enhancements I'm hoping to be able to make as I learn more about how to maximize the new site. Format will be similar to the old version - you'll find a general non-technical weather summary below, and when available (most days) a detailed technical meteorological discussion will follow. If no technical discussion is available when you check in during the morning, check back later as it often comes after the Weather Summary - I try to indicate at the end of the general weather summary when/if a technical discussion is coming. My email is contact@mattnoyes.net. This blog is for you, so I hope you enjoy it! -Matt Noyes
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Matt's Weather Summary: A quick note first: I'll be out of town and away from internet access this holiday weekend, so this post (Wednesday Morning) will be the last post until I'm back Monday morning. Have a wonderful holiday!
If you're traveling today by air, check out the travel section of my main homepage for links to airport travel delay information. Snow showers have greeted some of us this Wednesday morning as we've stepped outside. These morning snow showers were certainly a surprise, but not at all inexplicable. A trailing disturbance at the jet stream level which kept the rains going Tuesday afternoon finally moved through Wednesday morning, and brought one last gasp of snow showers as it moved overhead. As snow showers draw to a close through the morning, feel free to track them for yourself on my main webpage at www.mattnoyes.net. Though snow showers depart, chilly air sticks around for Wednesday, with most of New England finding plenty of high-altitude cirrus clouds riding overhead as lower altitude clouds slowly break up for some filtered sunshine and temperatures stuck in the 30's across the board. This same cold airmass will allow temperatures to fall well below freezing in most spots Wednesday night as clouds thicken and precipitation nudges into the Northeastern U.S.
The increasing moisture that produces clouds and eventually snow and rain here in New England by Thanksgiving day, comes courtesy of a significant swirling center of energy that has been dropping southward out of Canada and across the Great Lakes. This energy is actually the heart of cold air - which has been swirling near the North Pole for the past few weeks - and will bodily move across New England for the end of the week. While bone-chilling cold air is found with this swirling "vortex", the counterclockwise flow of air around it will usher warm air northward Wednesday night and Thursday morning, and as this warmer and more moist air crashes into our cold airmass, clouds and precipitation will be the result. With temperatures in most spots well below freezing Thursday morning, this will mean snow developing for most of New England Thanksgiving morning. Disturbances like these often come devoid of much moisture, but as the low level winds turn onshore, more moisture will be drawn in off the Atlantic. The result should be a couple of inches of snow Thursday morning into early afternoon in most of Southern New England, with lesser amounts along the immediate coastline - especially the South Shore, Cape Cod and the South Coast of New England, where ocean waters still near 50 will combine with the onshore winds to bring warmer air to the seashore. At some point in the development of this storm center, a heavier band of snow is likely to develop. While pinpointing this heavier band is tricky and depends heavily on where the intense upper level moisture and feed of low-level Atlantic moisture meet, we're getting increasing agreement on the idea that I've been sharing with you the past few days - the State of Maine, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire would be most likely to receive heavier snowfall amounts totaling from 6 to 9 inches on average.
Regardless, Thursday night brings the cold air associated with this strong disturbance, and temperatures across Northern New England will dip to near zero in some locales, while most of New England bottoms out in the teens! This sets us up for a cold day on Friday with sunshine between plenty of clouds that will pop up underneath the slowing center of energy overhead. A few snow showers and heftier snow squalls will be possible in the mountains of New England.
At this point, it looks like mostly dry weather should persist through the most of the weekend as an area of surface high pressure moves over New England. Aloft, however, another disturbance will race across our area Saturday night and may serve to squeeze out a few flurries or brief period of light snow, especially for Northern New England. Sunday, though right now I expect to be dry, will bring increased cloud cover as warmth tries to return to New England high in the sky and clashes with the cool wintry air that will be in place. Our next potential storm system approaches for the beginning of next week - likely to affect us on Tuesday - with rain and snow overspreading New England.
Indications to me are that this below to much below normal temperature regime...and higher than normal threats for coastal storms...will continue through the first half of December!
Have a wonderful, safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving. I'll be back on Monday morning and looking forward to sharing more on the weather with you.
Matt
Matt's Technical Meteorological Discussion: Updated Wednesday, November 23 at 1:00 PM
Yikes! Completely understandable how this morning's snow showers shaped up, just an unfortunate miss in the forecast. Trailing vort max swinging thru was accompanied by strong 300 mb diffluence, and when the shortwave encountered this diffluence, the rapid blossoming of snow showers was the result. 1" accums reported to NECN from Bridgewater and Hingham, MA.
Snow continues to diminish as it gradually moves east and northeast through Maine in conjunction with that area of upper level diffluence. Elsewhere, sunshine that's been coming out in parts of Southern and Western New England will continue to poke through for many areas with mixing increasing and allowing drier air to filter in. Cold temps today breed cold temps tonight and most areas drop into the teens and 20's with single digits in the far north.
I understand that the guidance has been insistent on bringing warm air far inland off the ocean, but you know my thoughts on this from the past couple of days, and that's for a coastal front to develop with mostly a snow event. I've gone 9" jackpot for Northern Carroll and Coos County, NH, running northeast through the foothills and mountains of Maine. 6" outside this includes most of Northern NH and interior Maine. Amounts drop to 2" by the time one reaches the Maine coastline, 4" in the suburbs north of Portland, this decrease due to warmer ocean modified air along the coastal plain. Most of Vermont ranges from 2-4". Local amounts will be higher in all of these areas where I'm more certain of a higher ratio snow event on the order of 16:1. Farther south and in lower elevations, there's just too much uncertainty over the thermal profile to get too tricky on ratios and have gone with about 12:1 interior and obviously much less closer to the coast. Widespread average of 2" for most of Southern NewEng, though only a dusting to 1" inside I-95 corridor of Eastern MA and for MA South shore, Southern CT and Southern half of RI. Farther Southeast over Cape/South Coast, I'd expect a coating of snow early Thu AM to go to rain and therefore any snow there probably goes down the drain. Overall, weighted precip amounts toward NAM - did see GFS hole in precip over Eastern MA is mirrored but out over the ocean on SUNY SB MM5 and this is of concern, which was part of my hesitancy for inside the 95 corridor of Eastern MA.
Rest of forecast should hold - I'm going below MOS for Fri and Sat by almost 10 degrees. The H85 air is not tremendously cold in the progs (most of the deep cold is deflected north and the models are modifying it), but the synoptic flow from the northwest and the air behind the polar vortex is frigid. Additionally, the models are likely modifying the airmass too much.
Have a safe and wonderful holiday - I'll be posting again when I return on Monday.
Matt
