Frigid To Flakey
After today's highs in the lower to middle 20s, the temperatures are falling at the rate of 2 to 4 degrees per hour this evening. Clearly, the next 24 hours will be classified as frigid. The National weather Service has issued a WIND CHILL WARNING for most of the area near and west of the I-95 corridor. This warning is issued when the wind chill index is projected to fall to at least -25 degrees for at least 3 hours. Please know that a wind chill index below -30 can cause frostbite in 10 minutes. Check out these safety rules for extremely cold weather. Despite the dropout to the subzero zone, thankfully, this will only be a quick-hitting arctic blast. I expect Boston's temperature to bottom out at -2 which matches the reading the last time it went below zero back on January 22, 2005. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Boston occurred on February 9, 1934 at -18 degrees. Interestingly, on this date in 1971, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the United States occurred at Prospect Creek Camp, Alaska at -79.8 degrees! Now, do you feel warmer tonight? By the way, do you remember what happened in January 2004? It was the second coldest January on record with a protracted spell of frigid air on the 9th-15th. So hunker down and dress warmly through this brief blast. Enough of the cold cha-cha-cha-chatter.
The cold arctic high pressure system will provide plentiful sunshine tomorrow with a west-northwesterly wind generally under 10 mph most of the time. As this system shifts offshore, the temperatures will actually rise later tomorrow night as a warm advection pattern sets up and a weak frontal boundary grows into New England. This will create a clouded sky with some patches of light snow on Tuesday. It may actually become mild enough for some sprinkles or light rain showers on the South Coast and Cape Cod! The maximum temperatures will be close to 20 degrees higher than those of tomorrow. Once a weak short wave passes in the afternoon, the precipitation should shut down and it will be quiet into Wednesday morning.
Now for the nitty-gritty... the midweek storm. Will it be a direct hit, a miss or a fringe job? To me, this forecast is fraught with failure at this time. I reiterate that noboby can confidently predict the specifics of this upcoming threat tonight. The problem is that we have a split flow in the atmosphere. It is not clear if there will be phasing of the streams. The model that I rely upon the most continues its amazing continuity from run to run in projecting a major storm in the region Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning. Normally, I would jump on the bandwagon and buy its solution. However, in closely analyzing the upper air perturbations, I am not convinced that this solution is superior. I do believe that the southern stream short wave will intensify. As a result, a low pressure system does develop along the Gulf Coast and it taps into a rich moisture supply. Meantime, it appears to me that a northern stream short wave in tandem with a deep vortex proceeding steadily across Hudson Bay will force the rather potent southern stream short wave more on an east-northeasterly path. With that setup, I cannot justify the Euro's game plan of lifting that southern stream short northeastward toward Cape Cod. With all of this in mind, I suspect that the storm exiting the Carolina coast will at worst only brush the area with some light to maybe moderate snow over southeastern MA possibly up to the Boston area. That is my best call currently but it is definitely not etched in stone. The stakes are again high and with a degree of uncertainty remaining, it would be, in my opinion, irresponsible to release snowfall amounts at this time. Latest guidance available at midday tomorrow should reveal a much more definitive portrait of this potential storm. Forecast confidence should ramp up on tomorrow evening's weathercasts.
Melissa Mack delivers her latest AccuWeather Forecast tomorrow morning and Todd Gutner follows later in the day.
Make it a great week!
