Archive for month: February, 2015

It looks like the first snowflakes in March will happen less than 24 hours into the month as a storm arrives late this weekend. So, after the snowiest February on record, March will get off to a snowy start. A lot of people may not be aware of this, but we typically see more than 6″ of snow after March 1 in Southeastern New England. As unwelcome as it may be, the snow Sunday night is not unusual. It does not look like a big storm, however, and the early outlook is for less than 2-4″ in Southeastern New England by the time it ends around dawn on Monday.

There will likely be another storm on its heels in the middle of the week. Right now, that is being portrayed as mainly rain by the computer models, but, with deep snowpack and cold air in place on Tuesday, we expect that storm to trend colder. It may not be all snow, but snow and mixed precipitation could be a sizable part of it in the middle of the week. After that storm the pattern may evolve to mainly dry and cold into the middle of March. There are no signs of a warm-up ahead, and if you watch the video, you will see that the CFSv2 model insists on relatively cold weather into the middle of April!

Go big or go home, right? Well, this February is going very big. It will likely be the snowiest on record in all of Southeastern New England. While it will most likely not be the coldest month on record, odds are it will be the second coldest – and we’re not just talking about February. The temperature has not reached 40° since January 19, and there has not been a warmer than normal day since January 25!

Providence is averaging 18.6° through first 19 days of February. On track for second coldest of ANY month on record. Feb 1934 (17.4°) #RIwx

— Fred Campagna (@FredCampagna) February 19, 2015

The pattern in the next couple of weeks looks very cold, but one day may be the fly in the ointment for keeping some of these streaks going. A storm system arriving late Saturday has the potential to end the below normal streak and possibly drive the temperature above 40° in Providence. At this point, I’m hoping it continues to trend colder and we somehow keep both streaks intact! Go big or go home, right?

The storm will likely bring accumulating snow Saturday evening followed by a wintry mix after midnight into Sunday morning. We’ll cover that in depth on rightweather.com in the next couple of days. It will be followed by (what else?) another Arctic blast early next week. Some models want to bring a storm north from the North Carolina coast to New England in the midweek. That looks plausible to me, and it could be another significant snow event in Southeastern New England. Still a long way out, though…

The trough of cold air in the Eastern United States will persist into March, and you can count on more snow threats through the first week of the month, and probably longer than that. I have heard some “where’s spring?” comments lately. Are you kidding me? It’s still February! In a normal winter that’s a ridiculous thought. In this winter, I would not hold my breath waiting for a warm-up. Cold breeds cold, and with two feet of snow on the ground, this pattern has legs for a while. If anything, count on a late spring in Southern New England…and don’t shoot the messenger!

If you’re a winter weather lover, then you best savor this pattern because you may not see another one like for a long time. Boston is well on its way to smashing a record that I thought I would never see broken. 1995-96 is the benchmark for snowfall in Southern New England with 105+” in Boston and Providence. Boston is closing in on 80″ and with storms lining up, they may break the record before February 20th! Providence is not even halfway to the record, but the second highest season snow total on record is 30.5″ less than the epic 106.1″ in 1995-96. Providence may make a strong run at the second snowiest winter since 1905. That, too, could happen before February ends!

We are, of course, looking at a potentially big storm this weekend. It will be followed by a bitter blast early next week, and then a southern streamer that could bring another substantial snow Tuesday night through Wednesday. That storm is trending south, but still comes close enough for mixing issues near the south. If it continues trending south, it may become more of a glancing blow. That cannot be ruled out, at this point.

It will get cold and dry again late next week. The models are hinting at another storm sometime around February 22-24, and when looking at the longer range, the hits keep coming right through the end of February into early March. The temperature will be running extremely cold for February, and this should be a top-5 coldest February on record in Southeastern New England.

What more is there to say?

If you have been following the Pro Live Blogs this week, then you know we’re watching the potential for a snowy stretch from Saturday evening through Monday night. The jury is still out on how snowy it will be, and it’s possible a lot of the action will be in Northern New England. We’ll continue to update the finer points of that forecast in daily Live Blogs.

As for the overall weather pattern through mid-February….you can expect plenty of cold weather. In fact, this month has the potential to be among the five or ten coldest Februarys on record in Southern New England. It does not look as stormy after a clipper comes through next Thursday or so. There could be a mainly dry stretch from the end of next week through most of the following week. It will, however, stay quite cold, and relative to normal, the coldest may be yet to come.