Now that the snow has started across southern Maine it will become increasingly heavy and continue that way through the evening.  At times the snow may fall at nearly 3 inches per hour making driving close to impossible.  In southern New England, when these bands of snow occured some spots saw nearly 6 inches in 3 hours.  The radar below is from just before 3PM, but you can see the motion of the snow.  The snow continues heavy until between 6 and 9PM.  The remainder of the blog below is from earlier today.

The reason for the snow is a weather system moving eastward this morning from the Great Lakes area, but then redeveloping in to a new storm just off the coast.  As the storm then moves northward into the Gulf of Maine an area of snow and rain will occur.

This most notable piece of today’s weather event, besides it being the third time in a week we’ve had snow, is the intensity it will snow during the afternoon through the early evening.  I’ll update the progress of the heavy snow here and also on Twitter as usual.

Snow amounts are not going to be large.  Portland could see as little as 5 inches, but I don’t expect the city itself to go above 8 inches because the system is moving so fast.  While it’s cold this morning, with several areas close to zero, it will be less cold as the snow arrives this afternoon.  Highs should reach close to freezing.

I mentioned there are still a few questions with this storm.  When you have a storm redevelop off the coast, the precise position and timing of the redevelopment play a big role in the snow to the north of the new storm.   The two maps below show how the secondary storm will take shape later today.  In the second map, the storm is just east of Portsmouth with the heaviest snow in the blue area to the west of the storm.  If the storm develops just a bit slower than anticipated, it will spare the extreme southern sections of Maine the heaviest snow exceeding 6 inches.  The reason for the winter storm warning today is all based on the exact strengthening of this low pressure area.  You might ask what if the storm gets stronger earlier.  While less likely, if the storm did get stronger earlier, it will bring more snow to the coast, but I don’t see this happening because the atmosphere is moving very quickly and there is nothing to block the storm from chugging along.

The snow will end in York around 8PM and then Augusta around midnight, travel will be most difficult heading home from work or trying to drive this evening. The storm will end early enough tonight so the morning commute will be fine.

Milder air

Tomorrow will be an unsettled day with a few periods of snow  and showers, temperatures reach the mid-30s so  a bit of melting will occur.  Thursday is my pick of the week as high temperatures get into the mid-40s with sunshine.  Rain, not snow is the forecast for Friday and that is going to be our mildest day of the mini-thaw.  It’s not cold this weekend, but the cold does return next week. Temperatures will likely stay well below freezing for several days next week.

Winter Musings

No matter what your profession, I’m sure it’s interesting listening to the general public who aren’t in the field talk about your vocation.  I’ll bet you’ve heard someone say something about what you do that made you cringe or perhaps even laugh. It’s not differnet if you’re a doctor and people are speaking about medical procedures or maybe you build houses and your neighbor is pontificating about the proper way to do a renovation.  Perhaps you’re in technology and you hear someone say how bad a piece of software was developed and of course if you coach anything everyone else knows which plays you should have run.

We all know the jokes about meteorologists and it being the only job you can be wrong and keep,  (btw a professional baseball player can strike out 6 out of 10 times and still be a star) but aside from all this, it is amazing this winter hearing so many people talk about the weather.  Here in New England weather has always been a number one topic of conversation, but it’s off the charts this year.

This has been a cold and snowy winter for the vast majority of the population in the United States.  This fact, combined with all the talk on climate change (I’m not going down that path) has created and interesting dialogue between the media and general public.  I am only observing, not judging or concluding.  I just find it fascinating, from a sociological standpoint, to see how the media portrays the weather and climate and then listen to how the public speaks about it.  I find the two are often at odds or have very different perspectives from one another.  Some make sweeping generalizations or conclusion which I suppose is symptomatic of this period in our collective history.  I’m not sure I have a brilliant conclusion about any of this; it’s just something I notice, perhaps you have as well. 

 

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