Potential New England Blizzard

With all eyes on the weather across New England, its going to be a waiting game to see what unfolds as a potential "historic" storm. Areas from Boston to Bangor and points inland along the higher elevations in New Hampshire as well as Vermont could measure snowfall in feet. Get the yard stick out, its going to be a doozy.

Here is what will come together. Two areas of low pressure will merge and energize on Friday creating a monster Nor'easter for New England. By early Friday morning, one piece of energy will parallel the coast, while the other will thrust in from the Mid-West. Typically when this scenario set up, the body of low pressure from the Mid-West will transfer its energy to the coastal storm and broaden the precipitation shield. In addition, the upper levels will play an important role. A "short-wave" will quickly pivot towards the coastal storm Friday afternoon and allow it to "bomb" out or strengthen quickly. Therefore, just to the north and west of the center of circulation, bands of extremely heavy snow along with thunder will produce snowfall rate upwards of 4 inches per hour. Furthermore, during this intensification process, the wind field will expand and crank wind speeds over 50mph at times. Therefore, the National Weather Service in Taunton, MA (outside of Boston), has already issued a BLIZZARD WATCH for portions of eastern Massachusetts.

From part of the Blizzard Watch, the National Weather Service used strong language to communicate this alert to the public:

      "...A POTENTIAL HISTORIC WINTER STORM AND BLIZZARD IS EXPECTED TO

     DROP 1 TO 2 FEET OF SNOW ACROSS MUCH OF THE REGION FRIDAY INTO
     SATURDAY..."

According to many computer models, the center of low pressure during the peak of the event will move just to the east of Boston. This means that Boston, and surrounding locations will be in the harshest portion of the storm with highest wind speeds and snowfall rates. However, locations inland and points towards Maine are not out of the woods because a large shield of snow will move over an extremely cold air mass. Boston and the Massachusetts coastline will likely receive a fluffy to occasionally wet snow due to an on-shore flow gearing temperatures in the upper 20s to near 30°. However, in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, the air will be much colder. Therefore, the snow will likely be dry and fluffy. In this case, snow can pile up quickly, despite being farther away from the heart of the storm. Nonetheless, this will be a storm to watch as computer models can change, as well as the overall forecast.

In the meantime, here is how one computer model simulates the storm in its entirety from Friday to Saturday night.

Again, these numbers can change, but this is a good look at how many locations will pick up between 12" and 24" of snow. FYI, sometimes computer models can WAY over predict these type of events. For example, the NAM (North American Model) predicted over 50" of snow in Boston from this storm. Yeah, that's a bit crazy and will not happen, but shows that a big storm is in sight.Stay home and off the roads, and let the plow drivers do their work. 

For more news and weather you can log onto: www.facebook.com/plushnickweather or www.facebook.com/KAGSTV. You can also check out our twitter feeds: @KAGSweather and @KAGSnews. Furthermore, you can download our new weather app. Search: KAGS Weather, in the Apple App Store or Google Play for Android.