Record Boston Snow and Two Punch Arctic Blast

This is the weekly forecast that I promised yesterday on the site, so I want to mainly hit the high points in this article. I typically get a bit more detailed in my medium and long-range forecasts, but I’m going to start doing some shorter-term forecasts that cover more regions, in addition to what I’m already doing. If you find these weekly forecasts useful, I’ll keeping doing them as often as I can and try to have them out each Sunday.

Anyways, let me get right into everything. Places like Boston and the Northeast have continued to get slammed with high amounts of snow, and like I posted on Facebook today, this will be something that will be talked about for years to come. Boston has gotten 68.4 inches of snow in 17 days (it may be more than that by now), which breaks all kinds of records. It’s really amazing considering just a few weeks ago it didn’t seem like the snow was ever going to come. It was later than I thought, but the “snowpocalypse” that I said would likely come for the East Coast this winter back in July has partially come true. Amazingly though, the Mid-Atlantic and southern U.S. have dodged a huge bullet so far. Barely.

This was taken in Wakefield, MA! Just insane amounts of #snow! Photo courtesy @MicheleLauriat

Let’s Break All This Weather Down For This Week Going Into The Weekend:

As many of you know, temperatures have been quite warm across much of the United States with the exception of the core of cold located over New England. Much of the western United States was hit pretty hard with heavy rain and flash flooding, and most of those areas should begin the dry throughout this week.

Another storm system is going to be moving from the Northern Plains into the Great Lakes and Northeast. This energy will be transferred to the coast late this week, where this system will rapidly strengthen and could dump even more snow across parts of New England, including Boston and surround states. Basically, the exact same areas that have already been hit will get hit again. Well over a foot of snow could easily fall with this system in many places. Much of this will depend on the track of the low pressure system up the coast.

Behind this system, a strong Canadian high pressure system will dive south and usher in the first punch of Arctic cold that will stretch from the Northern Plains and Great Lakes/Northeast and expand into the Deep South, even including Florida. This has the potential to be quite a severe Arctic blast and will impact a large area.

Behind that, another system will develop and move towards the Northeast followed by another very strong Canadian high pressure system. All of this will take place over the weekend, but this second Arctic blast has to potential to be the coldest air we’ve had all season. Some regions may even experience colder air than last winter, but those details will be ironed out with time. Records could be challenged or broken.

Latest Sunday Morning Temperature Forecast from the GFS model

The big question right now is how close the second storm system will move along the East Coast. This has the potential to be a big blizzard for those same snow-buried areas, but hopefully, this system will move just far enough off the coast to spare most of those areas. If it doesn’t, the same areas could get buried by even more snow. We’ll watch one storm at a time thought, and I’ll provide details in future updates.

The weekend cold could even bring a big freeze to Florida, and temperatures may not get out of the 20s and 30s for parts of the Deep South on Sunday. Again, this could be a dangerous Arctic blast that has the potential to bring the coldest air so far this season. I’ll have a separate article for this in a day or two.

It’s worth mentioning that the western United States will continue to stay warm and will warm up even further as a strong ridge pumps up over the West Coast and eventually over Alaska.

Timeline:

• The first storm will move across the Northern Plains and Great Lakes this week and will eventually bring heavy snow to the same areas in New England. Once again, places like NYC will be on the line for heavy snow or barely a miss.
• Strong surface high pressure will dive south behind this system and will bring the first push of very cold Arctic air late this week all the way into the Deep South, including Florida.
• Another low pressure system followed by a strong high pressure system could potentially bring the coldest air so far this season and could be comparable to some of the coldest Arctic blasts we’ve experienced in recent years. Much of Florida may get a deep freeze.