Watch CBS News

What's That?! Oh Yeah, My Yard

Find Eric Fisher on Twitter & Facebook

I've never seen people so happy for rain before. Okay that might be an exaggeration, but I didn't hear a single complaint about our wet Thursday. The simple idea of rain instead of snow was enough for most, and we finally had some mild temps to boot! Highs in the 50s, that wonderful smell of mild spring rain in the air, and dew points into the 40s/50s with a snow-eating fog. That's a perfect recipe to start thinking about spring and stop thinking about the snow piles outside.

Ask Eric: Why Does Humid Air Melt Snow Faster?

paper

Look at that date! Yes, it's been a while. Courtesy: Matt Cote

In fact, those piles had a nice big chunk taken out of them over the past 48 hours. We received a few photos revealing the 'secrets of the snowbanks' that started showing up again. Some of them were pretty amazing - like the one from Matt Cote in which a forgotten newspaper from January was finally revealed as the ice melted away. Others were a bit more depressing, like the ice dams that ripped out Anna Klein's gutters or the broken up bushes outside of the MetroWest Daily News. But they all shared a common theme - disappearing snow and ice. This was most striking from areas around the Mass Pike and southward where temps stayed mild for the longest amount of time...shedding many inches of snow cover!

crushedfalling

Falling snow crushes a bush and a bulkhead. Courtesy: Rob Haneisen & Anna Klein

Perhaps the March meltdown has not been fast enough for you, and I wouldn't blame you for feeling that way. It's been another ridiculously cold month - in fact colder than last March which many remember as a frigid stretch. BUT - this is what the doctor ordered. It's fairly amazing when you think about it - over 100" of snow has almost all disappeared without major incident. Yes there has been damage from falling ice/snow, but flooding has not come up once. By means of compaction, sublimation, and melting; the job is getting done. 'DO YOUR JOB' can be applied to the sun, which always comes through in late March and April.

coldanom

Temperature departures from average for the month of March so far. New England sticking out like a frozen thumb. A deep snow cover tends to load the odds in favor of more cold, and we've certainly seen plenty of that. Source: Weatherbell

The cold temps have allowed this snow to gradually disappear, and we've had spotty days of accelerated melt (like yesterday). There haven't been any rainstorms producing more than an inch or so of liquid. Actually (and this is probably tough to believe) we've seen below average precipitation this year! How can that be, you ask? Well even though we endured record snow, almost all of our storms were very cold. That means the liquid to snow ratios were very high, and long story short there wasn't a whole lot of moisture locked up in that snow.

p

Precipitation analysis year-to-date shows we're actually behind average! Source: NOAA AHPS

nsm_swe_2015032705_Northeast

 

Current snow water equivalent across the Northeast (in other words, how much liquid water is inside the snow pack). Source: NOHRSC

Story: NOAA Pilots Fly To Determine Spring Flood Risk

We're not out of the woods yet. There's still snow out there, and there's still snow to the north. There are several inches of snow water equivalent yet to be released. And a big rainstorm any time of the year can bring problems. But the fears of a horrible spring flood setup are slowly starting to wane, and we can only hope that such a trend will continue. We aren't expecting any major precipitation events over the next several days and some more gradual melting will occur.

easter

ECMWF EPS low locations for Easter Weekend. A cluster just off the New England coast is just one of several signs that a storm may be brewing. Source: Weatherbell

Here's the only bad news I have to deliver - we're not done with snow yet. There are several more chances (yes, several) in the wings that could help add instead of subtract to snow cover. The first one up is Saturday as a trough of instability reaches back into New England from a large ocean storm. This should help generate snowfall across the area, although there is still some uncertainty as to exactly where. It looks like a coating to up to a couple inches could fall during this time. Not major, but not exactly spring-like. The next opportunity comes Tuesday night into Wednesday. A clipper may come with enough cold air to bring another shot of rain & snow. And models have pretty consistently been hinting at Easter Weekend shenanigans in the Northeast. There's always low confidence so far in advance, but the pattern suggests a potential storm that could include snow here yet again.

Spring snow doesn't stick around for long, but it slows down our escape from a record winter. Hopefully next week's disturbances trend to a drier and/or milder solution, but they will require a wary eye. If we can lose another 1-2" of snow water equivalent over the next 8-15 days without a major storm, then we'll be on our way to avoiding a spring flood. Fingers crossed that Mother Nature gives us a break after this rough stretch.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.