FREEZE FALL
Winter 2018 starts with a blast of bitter cold, followed by year’s first snowstorm Thursday
WOONSOCKET – Finally, a reprieve from what seems like an interminable blast of arctic air arrives today, but it comes with a caveat, and it’s a four-letter word. Hint: it begins with S. The first snowstorm of 2018 is just forming off the Florida coast this morning, but the fast-developing Nor’easter arrives tonight and it’s shaping up to be a doozy, with plowable snow, potentially damaging winds and possible coastal flooding, according to National Weather Service Meteorologist Bill Simpson.
The exact impacts depend on where the storm’s low-pressure center sets up off the coast as it races up the Eastern Seaboard, said Simpson.
“Right now, it looks like the low is going to pass 50 to 100 miles east of Cape Cod,” said Simpson. “What happens is it’s going to really intensify and when it does it kind of grows. Even though it’s passing us, it’s going to be moving a bit back to the west.”
Meteorologists often refer to the kind of intensification that Simpson is talking about as “cyclogenensis” or “bombogenesis.” It describes the phenomenon of where and when the low-pressure center actually forms. The process depends on multiple weather variables, but when it occurs the formation can be quite sudden and explosive, so even a minor change in the forecast track can dramatically alter the local impacts.
A little jog to the west, and the storm could be significantly more violent, with higher snow totals and more destructive winds – the kind that bring down tree limbs and power lines.
Despite the uncertainty at 36 hours out from the storm’s arrival, Simpson said it was a pretty safe bet that the storm will dump 6-12 inches of snow across the region. Even though the storm has been portrayed as a coastal grazer, Simpson said those totals will be widespread across the state and easterly parts of Massachusetts, with perhaps locally higher amounts in loftier elevations and traditional jackpot zones, like northwestern Rhode Island.
And it’s going to drift, pushed by winds that could gust up to 50 mph, creating blizzard-like conditions at times.
The snow is expected to start falling around midnight or shortly thereafter, ramp up through the day Thursday and begin tapering off in the afternoon.
Along coastal Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, especially Cape Cod, the combination of high tides, heavy winds and precipitation, possibly mixing with rain, are raising concerns about beach erosion and localized flooding along low-lying areas.
The southerly air flow carrying the storm up the coast will bring the region its first relief from the bone-chilling cold that’s gripped the area since Dec. 27 – the last day temperatures in Greater Woonsocket rose above 20 degrees, according to Simpson. Temperatures are expected to reach well into the 20s today and, possibly, break the 30-degree mark on Thursday.
But don’t get too excited. As the relatively warm air associated with the snowstorm pushes away from the region, markedly colder air will rush in right behind it, thrusting temperatures back into the single digits again at night and early morning.
The deep-freeze redux will last at least through the weekend, according to Simpson.
The severity of the cold is indeed unusual, with a number of new records set in the Greater Providence area for low daytime “high” temperatures. But the duration of the cold snap hasn’t been particularly out of the ordinary.
Simpson said that Tuesday was only the fifth day in a row that temperatures had failed to rise above the 20-degree mark. That might be longer than many might like, but it didn’t break the record.
That belongs to 1979. Temperatures stayed below 20 for nine days in a row that winter – Feb. 9-18.
“We’re not even close,” he said.
While the forecast for next week and beyond isn’t etched in stone, Simpson said longrange guidance models are pointing to at a warm-up that may actually last longer than a day or two.
“Next Monday we’ll probably reach freezing,” he said. “We don’t get to this extreme cold, that’s for sure. Some of the common prediction models have us in one to two weeks of near normal temperatures.”