November Wrap & December Preview
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Much like in 2013, November was Snowvember, or Novembrrr if you prefer. Some towns saw snow on 4 or 5 separate calendar days, which is pretty decent by southern New England standards. Many a year passes with barely a flake at all in the 11th month, so the winter lovers got a nice little start to the cold season over the past several weeks. Some got more than that - with a nasty power outage event across New Hampshire and Maine just in time to stress folks out for Thanksgiving. Before moving on, let's look back.
The National Weather Service in Taunton provided an easy-to-read roundup at the local climate sites. Most remember September and October as excellent months around here. Lots of sunshine, generally warm temperatures, no tropical trouble, and generally speaking extremely late occurrences of a 'first freeze' that kept the growing season going strong. It was the latest ever recorded in Portland, ME and 2nd latest on record in Windsor Locks, CT. All the climate sites ran above average in terms of temps (for October in particular).
Raindrops were extremely rare in September and some area streams saw their lowest stream flow on record. Lawns were brown and many were begging for a good rainstorm to come along. Thankfully, October helped us out. A couple solid coastal storms helped to ease the 'drought' conditions that had cropped up. Then November came along, and the rain/snow kept falling. While most towns are still running a deficit for the year, we're in much better shape than we were at the end of September.
November temperature anomalies. Brunt of the cold shown in the 'green' areas where frigid air repeatedly made its way south. Source: Weatherbell
November temperatures were very chilly here, but not too unusually so. We lived on the eastern edge of all these arctic outbreaks which plagued the middle of the country. Winter came early to the Plains, Midwest, and Southeast with major temperature departures. My favorite fun fact from this November - it snowed in every single Lower 48 state except Florida. No easy task! Many record lows (and low maximums) were set over the course of several arctic outbreaks.
My favorite part of this? Only 3 weeks until we start gaining daylight again! The earliest sunset is December 9th by the way.
Now we move into December...and it sure didn't feel like it on the 1st! What a spectacular 'bonus day' to get outside and enjoy. Now it feels a little more like it should out there, and we're likely to stay in that sort of territory for a while. A big warming trend is expected to come to the middle of the country, especially the Upper Midwest, in the days to come. However, much like what happened last month where the core of the cold stayed to our west, I think the core of the warmth will stay to our west too. It looks like high pressure is going to set up camp across SE Canada and persist for quite a while, starting late this week. While high pressure is generally associated with 'good' weather, this pattern should help to keep an onshore flow going many days in the extended. It won't be brutal out by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm thinking we see a lot of days in the upper 30 to upper 40s for highs over the next week or more. So while a lot of warming takes place to our west, we'll more likely stay stuck pretty close to seasonal norms.
Temperature outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for December 7th through 11th. I think they may be a little too optimistic in our neck of the woods, but we'll see how it pans out!
So far as snowfall goes in December, it can really vary wildly. All you really need is one decent event to get our 'average' snowfall of 9" in Boston. Some years we get crushed by a big storm, others are completely benign. Typically our snowier times come later in the winter (Jan-Mar). Here's a look back at just the past 5 years. Last year we had some decent snow, then had our biggest (Boston) storm of the season right after New Year's Day. Back in 2011, zilch. The only real snow we saw that year was the destructive 'Snowtober' storm.
This December, there certainly aren't any major snow events on the horizon. The pattern isn't conducive for at least another 10 days, possibly longer. So if it's going to happen, it'll have to be a back-half of the month event. Maybe we'll end up with both a White Thanksgiving AND a White Christmas this year?
