Stowe Mountain Resort Sunrise Feb 20 2012, 48" at the Mount Mansfield Stake
A Fascinating weather pattern, Sunday February 19, 2012 ~ Record high temperatures were reached in Florida, 87 in Miami beat 86 from 1988. In Boston 46 is another day 6 degrees above the climatological average, matching the running pattern all winter. But the real interesting part is what happened between the Massachusetts and Florida warmth. A Major Snow Storm has struck from Tennessee and Kentucky to Virginia and North Carolina.The air mass from North Carolina is cold enough for snow, and if this storm had tracked up the coast we would have had snow. The temperature on Mount Washington has been 5 degrees all day. With with sunshine and down-sloping west wind, Boston warmed nicely.In this winter of a repeating weather pattern week to week, usually we have our coldest weather of the week on Sunday, but this week we have it today Monday President's Day. The powerful Nor'easter pulling off North Carolina will pull in the slightly colder air from eastern Canada for a sunny, seasonable President's Day. Wind 200 miles south of Nantucket will gust to 60 mph as seas build to 20', Surf is up in Rhode Island Tuesday. That storm then runs due east to north of Bermuda mid week, a storm track we have not seen in weeks. Most of our recent storms have been tracking toward Greenland, setting up the little block that has caused all the recent weekend storms to miss us to the south. So now we are back to our December and January pattern. The next storm, bringing snow to Utah & Colorado will weaken and cross New England as period of inland snow and coastal rain Tuesday Night. Think of that as another Early week warm front. On Wednesday we get wind from the west feeding modified Pacific air (read very warm for February) into New England ahead of a more powerful Pacific storm that hits on Friday. The Friday low goes back to the track of earlier this winter, up through New York. That means we get the south wind, warmer air and a rain snow line possibly as far north as the Canadian Boarder. temperatures may be near 60 in southern New England Friday with rain and thunder. Though the European weather model keeps the door ope for a slightly more eastern track, that model also deepens the low to 964 millibars, lower Barometric Pressure than Hurricane Bob. If that verifies, then we may have some colder air, enough for snow in Vermont, but we also get 60-80 mph gusts Friday Night and Saturday. By the weekend we will be back to the coldest air arriving on a Sunday, but Canada is not too cold, so we should expect a return to only Seasonable chill. The following week we will have colder air filling Canada, so if we keep this repeating weather pattern, another storm will be here around Thursday March 1st. The possibility of colder air with that storm keeps the door open for a Snowy Lion Roaring as we begin Meteorological Spring (March-May). Meteorological winter ends February 29th, we are on track for the second warmest and least snowy winter on record at Blue Hill Observatory in Eastern Massachusetts.Ski areas are taking unprecedented steps to make sure our skiing is nice this week.. Snow Guns that are usually shelved by this time of year are roaring. Here is a nice picture sent to us by Laura Tuveson at Attitash Resort in New Hampshire.
