STORM UPDATE: POTENTIAL FOR HEAVY SNOW TOTALS OVER EAST-FACING MOUNTAINS AND HILLS IN THE BERKSHIRES AND WESTERN HILLTOWNS UP INTO SOUTHERN VT AND AROUND MT. MONADNOCK IN NH… WINTER STORM WATCHES CONTINUE… SOME ISOLATED OUTAGES DUE TO HEAVY SNOW AND WIND IN SOUTHERN VT WEST OF BRATTLEBORO AND THE NORTHERN BERKSHIRES AND NORTHWEST WHILTOWNS… DAMAGING WIND EXPECTED IN SOUTHEAST MA WITH GUSTS TO 70MPH OR SO, ALERT YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY OF WIND DAMAGE AND POWER OUTAGE POTENTIAL IN SOUTHEAST MA… 7:20pm Saturday…
Good evening everybody, a powerful storm system is going to cause moderate to major impacts over a large swatch of the northeastern U.S. Monday morning with snow, sleet, freezing rain, rain, high wind, and coastal flooding.
The storm track of our Miller A storm system is gathering consensus, and looks to run northeast over the Hudson Valley of eastern NY into Bennington County VT and up into northern New England and into Canada.
A potent southeasterly low level jet will develop and be gusting over 90mph just a HALF mile up into southeast MA, and with temps slightly warmer near the ground, I would imagine most of the wind, or at least a substantial majority of it will reach the ground, which is why gusts of 50-75mph are possible on the Cape and Islands.
Folks, if you are down that way, or know anybody who lives there, you must tell make them aware of the 6am – 10am timeframe when the strongest winds are likely to rip through that part of New England.
By the time you get to the WMass region, southeast gusts are likely going to be tamped WAY down, reaching 25-45mph, with some 50mph gusts possible.
Snow will arrive by 11pm in northern CT and progress rapidly into MA, VT And NH through 1am or so.
Snow will fall heavily at times before sleet starts mixing in before dawn over northern CT and southern valley portions of WMass and CMass south of the Rt. 9 corridor.
Heavier snow is possible because a lower level jet streak (which just refers to a faster-moving river of air aloft) will be strengthening as the storm gets closer.
It will blow out of the southeast and east-southeast, toward the northwest and west-northwest, rising up and into the Worcester highlands, descending down into the CT River Valley, and then rising even higher and more intensely over the east-facing mountains of the western hilltowns and eastern Berkshires and southern Green Mountains of VT, including eastern Cheshire County and Mt. Monadnock.
This rising air creates heavier precip which drags colder air down to the surface, causing heavier snow during the pre-dawn hours over the aforementioned areas, and the sinking air (also called “Shadowing”) causes lighter precip, which means less snow in the CT River Valley and the western Berkshires and Taconics, including the Housatonic and Walloomsac River Valleys of Berkshire County MA and Bennington County VT.
As the storm lives north of us, it will swing a squall line of very heavy rainfall, with possible thunder into southeastern CT, RI and southeast MA, and that heavy rain may mix down very strong winds and cause wind damage and outages in that part of the world, especially in southern Bristol, southern Plymouth Counties, the Cape, MV and Nantucket.
The entire storm lifts north by noon, and then rain showers will turn to snow showers in the afternoon, with additional coating to 3″ over SVT and the Berkshires into Monday night.
I will update in the morning, and will present my report in a more clear manner, but for now, here are amounts.
AMOUNTS
A quick 1-4″ will fall in these areas then sleet/rain, with 3-7″ expected in the western Berkshires, northwest CT, and western Bennington County VT into the Taconics of eastern NY.
However, 5-10″ looks more likely now for all of the eastern Berkshires, the western hilltowns (higher end of that range as you travel north toward the VT border in the western hills) and southern VT, with a jackpot zone over 10″ possible in the southern Greens and potentially into northwestern Franklin County.
Updates coming in the morning, this is going to be potent storm system, for some of us with heavy snow over the high east-facing terrain of northwest MA and SVT, and damaging wind gusts and outages in southeast MA, with a mess in between.
Have a great night, and stay tuned, thank you…
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MILDER AIR WILL LIKELY TURN MONDAY’S STORM INTO A SNOW TO RAIN EVENT, HIGHER TOTALS RELEGATED TO EAST-FACING HIGH TERRAIN OF WMASS, SVT AND N. WORCESTER HILLS UP INTO EASTERN CHESHIRE COUNTY NH… WIND CHILL ADVISORIES CONTINUE UNTIL NOON TODAY, VERY COLD BUT SUNNY… MORE SEASONABLE TEMPS TOMORROW… MONDAY STORM GONE BY NOON, UPSLOPE SNOW IN THE BERKSHIRES, LITCHFIELDS, TACONICS AND SVT MONDAY EVENING/NIGHT… FAIR WEATHER NEXT WEEK, BUT COLD BY LATE WEEK… 7:45am Saturday…
Good morning everybody, I hope you slept well, I hope you have a pep in your step, and I hope that your morning warm beverage puts the sprite in your tights and (symbolically speaking) ants in your pants – as my good friend Al Johnson used to say, let’s get down to business kids!
Let’s get the bad news out of the way for snow lovers – this storm continues to look milder, messy and un-snow-productive. The track is just not swinging our way, so if you’re a snow detester, this is a jump-for-joy moment for you, rejoice! Meanwhile, me and my brethren and sistren will be crying in our respective corners, and we will need more Kleenex, thank you very much! :-(
I will get more into Monday in a bit, but for now, it’s freaking cold out people!
The wind gusts have tamped down to about 20-25mph at times, though calmer for others. However, wind chills still bottomed out into the 20-30 below zero range, and will slowly come up today, but remain in the -10 to 5 above range for all of Saturday, with highs only reaching the mid singles to mid teens from northwest to southeast across the greater WMass region (which is SVT east to SWNH, south through CMass into northeast CT west into northwest CT, north through the Berkshires/Taconics and back to SVT and the rest of WMass).
It’ll be sunny, and clear tonight in the valley and points south and east, though more of a partly cloudy day/night combo for the Berkshires, high terrain well west of the I-91.
Lows tonight will be super frigid, below zero just about everywhere. I’m not sure -2 feels much different than -12, but it’ll be in that general range.
In other words, don’t stick your tongue on any metal poles, friends.
For Sunday, it’ll be a Sun Day, with highs in the low to mid 20s and mid to high level clouds building in from the southwest late and into the early evening.
STORM SETUP
–Lows will bottom out Sunday night into the teens, so it will be plenty cold for precip to start as snow everywhere
–As of today, our upper low is digging south-southeast into Oklahoma, so this thing is well west of where you want it for a big WMass snowstorm
–The surface low will track southeast into the Deep South
–Our blizzard in Nova Scotia will continue to track north and get out of the way for our Arctic high pressure to continue to track through Quebec and southeast into Atlantic Canada
–This is NOT where you want the high positioned for WMass all-snow events… you want it NORTH, not east, where it will be by Sunday night, which will help draw south to north flow into the region, as the high’s circulation is clockwise
–Our surface and upper lows will track northeast and likely pass somewhere between the Berkshires and northern Catskills, most likely over the Hudson Valley or Taconics of eastern NY
–With a ripping east-southeasterly jet streak gusting 80-90mph a mile above our heads, this will ram moisture-laden air into the Berkshires, western hilltowns, southern Greens and north Worcester hills
–Southeast winds should gust 25-40mph at times, if it gets milder more quickly at the surface, it could gust above 40mph
–It will also blow milder air aloft, such that it is likely to be above freezing a half mile to a mile above our heads around 7am
–This milder air will ensure that where we see a longer duration of snow, it will likely be wet and heavy, which means more compaction, and less prodigious accumulations as it takes more moisture to make an inch of accumulation than when it’s dry, cold and fluffy
–I know some of you may be thinking that cold dense air is hard to scour out of the valley, and while that is true, that is the case normally with A) high pressure to our north or northeast draining surface sold south and southwest into WMass, and B) storm systems that track more west to east
–Neither of those pre-conditions will be in place, as the storm is tracking more south to north, is going to be west of us (putting us on the milder side of the storm) and high pressure will be more east of us, helping produce milder southerly and southeasterly oceanic flow
TIMING AND AMOUNTS
–Snow arrives everywhere by 11pm to 1am late Sunday night into early Monday morning, and then starts to mix with or change to sleet or rain before dawn in northern CT and possibly into the southern Berkshires
–Snow holds longer the further north and west you go, and changes to rain more quickly the further south and east you go
–The storm is out of here by noon as the dry slot punches through the region
–For now, I’m changing amounts to a widespread 1-4″ across much of WMass, CMass and northern CT, except for 3-7″ in central/northern Berkshires-Taconics, NW hilltowns of Hampshire and Franklin Counties, and SWNH down into northernmost Worcester Cty. 5-10″ southern Greens
–If The Frontogenetical Precipitation Band (yes, that’s the name of my new music band, btw) is more powerful than modeled, these amounts could end up being 1 to 2″ more in all ranges (1-4 turns to 2-5″, and so on)
That’s how I see it playing out now. I will keep you updated. Remember, it’s the future and it hasn’t happened yet, so stay tuned for updates.
As for post-storm conditions, the storm tracks north of us by afternoon, and west winds will wraparound the back side, gusting over 30mph at times.
Highs will be in the 30s, and then fall into the teens with new cold air advection, and upslope snow showers will develop in the Berkshires, Taconics, Litchfields, western hills and SVT, with light accumulations possible.
The rest of the week looks seasonable and fair, with a new Arctic outbreak by late week.
Have a great day and stay tuned for updates on our incoming storm, thanks for reading!