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Second Nor'easter In A Week Moving In

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Mid-to-late autumn is more than capable of stirring up some strong gales, and this year is no exception. After a very quiet (and record dry) start to fall the weather pattern has kicked into high gear and we're expecting another significant storm over the course of this weekend. Some will be affected more than others, but we'll all be getting a dose of cold and wind as the calendar page turns to November and the evenings get darker with the end of Daylight Saving Time.

The Setup:

An extremely potent bundle of energy is diving down into the southeast, and will be the main player for this weekend. How unusual is this one? For the science geeks, it'll produce a cold pocket about -5 SDs (standard deviations) as it digs into South Carolina. That's about a 1 in 50 year event, according to the WPC. Flowing in behind this is plenty of early-season cold that will bring an end to the growing season for a wide swath of the country. Chicago felt that on Friday with 60mph winds, 22' waves, flooding of Lakeshore Drive, and snowflakes flying. Wicked nasty Halloween for the Chi-town crowd. Those freezing temperatures will make it all the way to the Gulf Coast by Sunday am. And there isn't too much escape even in Florida - Miami is expected to see its coldest temperatures since February with lows in the 40s. For them, that's like Antarctica.

Eastern U.S. Water Vapor Loop from NOAA. The curl diving into the southeast is a potent shortwave that will help spawn our nor'easter.

This energy will swing up the East Coast and get an explosively developing area of low pressure going off the shore of North Carolina. Fortunately for us, this will be about 50-100 miles east of a 'maximum' impact track. Be that as it may, we may get a low in the 978-985mb range heading into the Gulf of Maine by Sunday afternoon, more than capable of pumping up the winds and driving down the cold.

The Timeline:

Expecting some areas of light showers/drizzle across The Cape, Islands, and South Shore in particular overnight. Nothing too heavy should come down, but enough to make it damp in spots. And that's the way we'll kick off Saturday morning. May be some light showers/drizzle near SE Mass and the coastline, but that's it for rainfall. If you need to get some things done outside, I'd pick the first half of the day to do it. There could even be some areas of sunshine for central MA/southern New Hampshire and much of western New England. One thing will already be starting to tick up by the morning though will be the wind. Especially near the coast, you'll feel some of those chilly gusts up to 30mph to start things off.

As we head toward midday, rain should start to approach and fill in from the southeast. By the afternoon, that rain should start backing its way into the central part of the state. And by evening we'll see our heaviest rainfall starting to come down. There's not a ton of tropical moisture with this system, which is a good thing. PWAT (precipitable water) values aren't too impressive like some of our recent events, so I'm not expecting the huge totals we saw with the last storm. The Cape/Islands & South Coast may pick up 1-2", with 1/2" to 1" for the Boston area and Metro West. But there will be much lower totals not too far to the west. A sharp cutoff should exist as dry air fights in from the west. So this shouldn't be a 'soakah' for the western half of the state.

raintotals

How about the SNOW lovers? Well on Saturday night, we'll see some steady rainfall to start. Then it's looking possible that some wet snowflakes will start to mix in. While temperatures aloft should be sub-freezing, the temps at the surface will still be relatively warm (upper 30s). So it will be difficult for flakes to survive the whole trip down. That being said, I can envision a situation where wet flakes make it to the ground across the higher elevations. A coating to an inch is the worst case scenario at this point, *maybe* but to 2" for highest elevations of the Monadnock.

Then to Sunday we go, as this low really wraps up and drags in the cold air. It should also wrap around moisture on its back edge, so there's still a risk of rain/wet snow through about midday. We may see some snowfall all the way down into the North Shore and Boston area Sunday morning. Will be a close call. This could be enough to coat up the ground, but not enough to make for hazardous travel or additional power outages. Farther southeast, rain showers may linger on Cape Cod/Nantucket through the early afternoon before drying out.

The Main Impact - Wind

We're in for a long duration wind event, especially on Cape Cod and Nantucket. I'm thinking that sustained winds of 25-40mph are likely from Saturday evening right on through much of Sunday...so about 24 straight hours. But the gusts are what often bring down trees and cause damage, and they should be in the 55-65mph range. The strongest of them will hit the Outer and Lower Cape Saturday night into Sunday morning. Since there are still quite a few leaves on the trees for shoreline communities, we should see tree damage and along with it - power outages. Would be a good idea to have some batteries around and have a plan for a lack of electricity for a while.

windwarning

Current High Wind Watches/Warnings of this posting. Get the latest and any changes from NWS Taunton Here.

The wind on Saturday will be due to a strong low-level jet cruising in above the mild ocean water. It will be easy to mix these winds down, and they'll point right into Cape Cod Bay. Some of these strong winds (slightly slower) will likely buffet the South Shore to Cape Ann as well, causing power outages and tree damage in those locales.

The wind on Sunday will be more pressure-gradient driven as the low intensifies to our east and strong high pressure builds in from the west. This will make the wind more region-wide on Sunday vs a mainly coastal event on Saturday. Inland gusts should be in the 35-50mph range on Sunday, which could cause some more trees/limbs to come down across the state. They'll keep blowing through the evening, and even on Monday we'll see frequent gusts to 35mph. So much for our leaves! Stick season will have officially gone by the time this one heads on out of here.

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12z GFS showing the focus for strongest winds right across Cape Cod and the Islands. You can also see the  'eye' of the storm passing by (really just the center of its circulation). It's that blue dot just to the east. Source: Weatherbell

Big Snow? Maine!

Mainers are going to win this round (if you're a snow lover). The best shot at a half foot or more will be across northern Maine. That's a heavy wet snow, plus wind, that could bring down some trees too. The biggest snow totals aren't expected to be in the ski area towns, but nevertheless the cold and *some* snow has Sunday River out in front! They've announced a 'planned opening' for Monday of next week.

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Patriots - Not Quite Frozen Tundra, But Cold Enough

Even though good old Bill doesn't have much faith in us apparently, here's the forecast for Sunday's match-up against the Broncos. There may still be some areas of rain showers for the early tailgaters, but it should be dry by kickoff. The big factors here will be wind and cold. Gusts to 25-40mph look likely during the game, which combined with the cold temps should make for wind chill values falling into the upper 20s after sundown! Dress for December if you're lucky enough to be going to this one.

Also keep in mind that Daylight Saving Time ends Saturday night, which means our sunset is at 4:36pm on Sunday. Most of this game will be played in the dark, adding an extra element of chill. I'm thinking the Foxboro area Dunkin Donuts will be selling plenty of boxes of joe to go along with your other beverages of choice on Sunday.

patriots

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