Not One, But Two Storms on the Way

wxmanscottk

Back in our Weekly Outlook on Monday, we warned you that even though Meteorological Winter ends on February 28, that March can still be a wintry month. Well, today is March 1, and we’re looking at two snowstorms in the first four days of the month.

You can see that this is a fairly fast-moving storm. In by daybreak Saturday, out before dinnertime. Loop provided by Tropical Tidbits.

Technically, there’s actually 3 storms, as the first one is passing south of the region this morning. It brought in some clouds, and a few stray flakes across southeastern Massachusetts, but otherwise, had little impact on us. The first storm we need to pay attention to is moving across the central Appalachians this afternoon. It will move off the Mid-Atlantic coast tonight, then pass south of New England on Saturday. A few days ago, it looked like this storm would pass harmlessly to our south while a a system to the north brought in some snow or rain later on Saturday. Well, this storm became the more dominant of the two, and will pass closer to us than originally thought.

Snow will develop Saturday morning, maybe before daybreak south of Boston. It may even start as some sleet or rain across Cape Cod before changing to snow It will snow steadily during the morning hours, and then taper off and end during the afternoon, possibly lingering along the coast until evening. Despite the hype from some of the media, this will not be a big storm. Oh sure, it’ll be disruptive to your Saturday morning/afternoon plans, but it’s not a major storm.

So, the big question – how much?

Central NH/Southern ME (Concord/Portland) – Less than 1″
Southern NH/Seacoast/Cape Cod (Manchester/Nashua/Portsmouth) – 1-2″
Merrimack Valley – 2-4″
Metro Boston/MetroWest/Southeastern MA/ Rhode Island – 3-6″

Would be we shocked if a few spots, especially south of Boston, pick up 7 or 8 inches? Nope, not at all. This won’t be the fluffy snow we had a few days ago, so it won’t pile up as quickly.

We’ve stuck with the high-resolution NAM for most of the winter and it’s served us well, so we’re going to do it again. Image provided by Weathermodels.com

OK, so the snow ends Saturday afternoon/evening, and we’re all set, right? Nope – the next storm, follows fairly quickly for Sunday night and Monday. This one looks a little strong, and will pass a little closer. This will allow for the rain/snow line to penetrate a little farther into southeastern Massachusetts. However, with it being a stronger storm, it will have more moisture to work with, and that means more snow. There’s still many details that need to be worked out, and some things will depend on what the first storm does, so we’re not going to go into too much detail yet. We’ll have another blog post Sunday morning focused on that storm. But, there are several models showing the potential for up to, or even more than a foot of snow in spots from that storm.

The NAM model indicates that we could get a pretty good wallop early Monday. We’ll see if things stay that way over the next day or two. Image provided by Pivotal Weather.

After that storm goes by, it looks cold and dry for a few days. But let’s take it one storm at a time for now. Look for an update from us Sunday morning.

Leave a comment