A very windy afternoon has translated into a windy night.  Portland and surrounding areas have seen wind gusts over 50 miles per hour and this from a storm which stayed hundreds of miles off our coastline.

This year marks 23 years since Hurricane Bob hit New England.  That’s the last time a hurricane made landfall anywhere in the area.  I bring this up  because the storm that is now moving into the Canadian Maritimes has winds as powerful as a hurricane. Had this storm been 150 to 200 miles closer to the coast,  it would be created major or even catastrophic damage and brought the region to a standstill for days.

It’s only a matter of time before a monster storm  like this does hit the New England Coastline and it’s likely to be a hurricane.  If you go by averages, we should have had at least one hurricane hit the area during the past decade.  We’ve now gone longer than at any recorded period without an official hurricane making landfall along the New England coastline.

While today’s monstrous nor’easter isn’t a hurricane, it’s big.  The reason it’s not a hurricane is because hurricanes are born over warm tropical water and respond negatively to the kind of upper level winds and energy that created today’s storm.

Both types of storms are indeed low pressure systems and as such will rotate counterclockwise. Today’s storm even looks like it has a central “eye” of sorts, but the clear center isn’t formed the same way as its tropical cousin.

The storm is now battering Nova Scotia and when you look at the central pressure of the storm is certainly one of the stronger storms in this area during March.  There are a lot of superlatives thrown about concerning this storm, but there are also a variety of ways to measure the intensity of any storm.  One can evaluate how much snow or rain they bring, the strength of the wind, how low the pressure becomes, the areal coverage of the storm and even number of people affected.   While this was and is a big storm, it’s not a sign of an increase in these types of events.  

 For a storm to be classified as a meteorological bomb the pressure needs to drop with a drop 24 millibars in 24 hours.  This storm nearly doubled that rate and fell an incredibly in 43 millibars in less than 24 hours. This more than met the criteria of rapid intensification known as “bombogenesis.”

Although the center of the storm remained hundreds of miles off the coast, blizzard conditions were met at several  areas Down East.  Snowfall totals aren’t that impressive, but the wind has really been the story.

Wind gusts reached hurricane strength across Nantucket this morning and several hours later, just off the coast of Jonesport, a gust reached 119 miles per hour.  The image below is from a buoy located 23 miles offshore.

The wind will slowly stop being as fierce overnight, but it will still be blustery and very cold.  Temperatures will fall into the single numbers and teens, still way below average.  Sunshine returns for Thursday with a blustery day.  Milder and wetter weather with some showers is on tap late Friday. 

Saturday looks like a nice day with perhaps showers arriving late. Saturday night another coastal storm will bring precipitation, but right now it looks too warm for anything but a cold rain.    That said there could be some wet snow in northern and western areas.

I’ll be updating the forecast on Twitter @growingwisdom. Follow @growingwisdom

While thinking about this storm we mostly missed,  I am reminded of a comment I got Monday.  A person berated me for wishing for spring and warm weather.  It went on to say how happy I must be we were going to miss the upcoming storm an even included a suggestion I move south.  While I do love winter storms no one needed something like this to hit us, especially with 5 days until the end of March. We are very fortunate this storm mostly bypassed the area, at some point we won’t be so lucky.

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