Dangerous Blizzard Still Targeting New England

Sign of the times near Boston this week. 

Even in buried and battered eastern New England, most of us probably think that a snowfall of anywhere from two to 20 inches is something we can handle.

But this is different. The storm forecast for Sunday looks, at this point anyway, like it will be a real horrible monster.

A wicked pissah, if you want to use the New England venacular.

Winds will be stronger than most storms, even well inland, away from the coast. This storm will also be much colder than most of them, with temperatures falling through the single numbers and on into the below zero levels.

Wind chills will drop into the teens, 20s and 30s below zero.  Even 40s below in a few areas.

No wonder blizzard watches are up for Saturday night and Sunday in eastern New England.

Even more to the west, where not as much snow is expected,  there's a lot of powdery stuff on the ground, and that will blow around badly, cutting visibility and clogging roads with deep drifts faster than plows can keep up with them.

With that in mind, we should probably repeat some ground rules for this weekend:

BEFORE THE STORM:

Make sure you have plenty of heating fuel. If it's low, arrange for a delivery now if not sooner. Make sure you also have food on hand, and flashlights and such in case the power goes out.

In areas with tons of snow, now is also a good time to shovel off your roof if there's a lot up there. But if the roof is steep or otherwise dangerous, get somebody who knows what they're doing to take care of it.

DURING THE STORM

Stay home! You'll probably look out your window Sunday, in a neighborhood full of trees, houses and garages, protecting the area from the wind. You'll think, "Oh, that doesn't look too bad."

Then you'll set off on the road, get into an open area, and the wind is so ridiculous, the visibility in blowing snow is nil, the drifts are so ridiculous that you get stuck. Amid subzero temperatures. Not fun. So really, stay home.

One forecasting model, the NAM, focuses the heaviest
snow in the upcoming storm on eastern Massachusetts
and coastal New Hampshire and Maine. Actually
results may vary, of course. A

There's probably a lot of skiers in New England and in the Adirondacks and Catskills on Sunday. Make that an off day from skiing. It'll be cold Saturday, Monday and much of next week, but relatively reasonable. Go out then.

Sunday? Fuggettabout it. Even with super duper ski clothes, it won't be that fun. Plus, it will be dangerous A lot of ski areas will have wind holds on the lifts anyway.

If you insist on going out Sunday, stay on the trails! If you go off and get lost, they'll never find you in that weather. And you'll freeze to death amid the incredible wind chills and deep snow in the woods. Plus, you'll be endangering the lives of the people out looking for you.

So don't be stupid, capische?

While you're hunkered down from the cold and wind Sunday, give your elderly relatives, friends and neighbors a call. Are they OK? Healthy? Warm enough? Not hungry? It's worth the check.

AFTER THE STORM

Once it stops snowing, it will still be windy and cold, so be very cautious about going outside. Dress in layers.

If you have to shovel snow, be especially careful. Studies show that people who suffer heart attacks while shoveling snow are more likely to have the attack if it's very cold out.

If a lot of snow accumulates and there's a lot of snow on the roof, be alert to warning signs of structural failure. (This could be a problem in eastern New England. I'm not so worried about western New England and New York.)

The signs you need to get out of a building - fast - are pretty obvious. New cracks, groaning or popping sounds, interior doors that don't fit in their frames correctly anymore. Run!

THE FORECAST

All that aside, what you really want is the forecast, isn't it?  

Many New Englander are starting to
have a murderous attitude toward winter.  

In the Northeast, if you haven't been outside yet this Friday morning, it's damn cold. Widespread subzero readings in the north, subzero wind chills all the way  down to the Mid-Atlantic states.

The wind will calm down this afternoon, but it will stay cold.

As that's happening, a really wound-up disturbance is still making a beeline from the North Pole to a spot in the eastern Great Lakes by tomorrow morning.

Snow, mostly light, will blossom across the Northeast as this disturbance takes an abrupt right turn and heads to the coast on Saturday.

Then, the disturbance will blossom, BOOM! just like that, into our big powerful nor'easter blizzard.

It'll move southeast New England into the Gulf of Maine, all the while strengthening. It might slow down for a time or even briefly stall or do a little loop de loop in the Gulf of Maine Sunday.

We know there's going to be a LOT of wind with this, and incredibly cold temperatures and snow. What we don't really know yet is how much snow along the coast.

THE SNOW QUESTION:

Since the storm will be to the east of New England, obviously the most snow will come down there. That's why there's a blizzard watch for the southeastern half of Maine, coastal New Hampshire and much of coastal Massachusetts.

With this type of storm, a band of particularly heavy snow often sets up to the northwest of the storm center and forecasters think that will happen with this one.

This snow band would almost exactly follow the curve of the coast from Maine down through Massachusetts.

The question is, will that heavy band set up just inland, really affecting everybody, or the worst of the heavy snow all just offshore?  Forecasters aren't sure.

In Portland, Maine, for example, different computer forecast models early Friday morning gave a range of two to 40 inches of accumulation.

The best guess is six to 14 inches in coastal Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and up to two feet in parts of Maine. But the forecast has a pretty big bust potential.

By the way, parts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada can expect a horrible blizzard out of this, too, with more than a foot of new snow in some of those areas.

Further inland in New England, winter storm watches extend into Massachusetts, much of Maine and all of New Hampshire. (Except for coastal New Hampshire, which is under that blizzard watch.)

Those areas could get six or more inches of snow. Even more to the west, in Vermont, western Massachusetts and the eastern half of New York, accumulations are a bit uncertain, but two to six inches seems like a good bet.

First guesses on snow accumulations (Big time subject to change though):
Eastern Maine 16-24 inches
Portland Maine/Coastal New Hampshire/Massachusetts including Boston: 10-20"
New Hampshire away from the coast, central Massachusetts, Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut: 6-12 inches.
Vermont: 2 to 8, inches heaviest east, least in the far northwest.
New York: 2-8 eastern part of the state, 1-3 inches west.
New York Metro area/New Jersey: 1-6", most east, especially Long Island.

THE WIND:

The strong gusts are going to be the big story with this dangerous storm. Even places well inland, where only a few inches of snow are forecast, this will be interesting.

Even in areas that won't get much snow from the upcoming storm,
open areas like the Champlain Valley and the flatlands south
 of Montreal in Quebec might end up looking
like this on Sunday.  

Normally, a storm packing two to six inches of snow is a yawner, but not this time.

There's already a lot of powdery snow on the ground. With winds easily gusting past 40 mph Sunday, open areas will essentially have ground blizzards.

A note to people who want to go ice fishing on big Lake Champlain, or any other lake for that matter: Don't do it on Sunday.

The blowing snow will easily disorient you, you won't see the shore, or even your shanty if you wander too far away from it

With the subzero cold and the 30+ below windchills, your chances out there aren't good.

Driving in open areas will also be a challenge, as I noted. Windblown snow will cut visibility, and big drifts will form on roads wicked quick.

In the zone under the blizzard watch, near the coast, things will obviously be even more extreme. Winds on exposed coastal locations could gust to 70 mph on Sunday. I worry about power failures and resulting very cold houses as temperatures plunge outside.

The storm will pull away Sunday night. It will remain frigid, but winds should slowly relax on Monday. But the Northeastern United States remains locked in a pattern that will continue to send cold wave after cold wave, and more possible snowstorms through the region for the next couple of weeks.

BOTTOM LINE

For eastern New England, I don't know what else to say. This is among the most extreme bouts of winter weather in centuries. After this storm, snow on the ground could reach five or more feet deep in eastern Massachusetts, and more than eight feet in eastern Maine.

In the interior northeast, away from the heaviest snow areas, intense winter plods along, with no signs of any real break through the end of February, possibly into March. By late February, there are usually the first signs that winter is beginning to loosen its grip.

Often, every other day is just above freezing, bare patches sometimes appear on steep southwest facing embankments where the strengthening February sun goes to work. Not this year.

It almost makes you afraid that this arctic wasteland surrounding us is permanent.