Thursday Evening Update On Our Huge Nor'easter

Today's massive, historic and deadly nor'easter is a thing of
beauty if you look at it via a satellite image from GOES-16.
I'm amazed by how vast an area it covered.
Click on the image to make it bigger and easier to see. 

Here where I am in St. Albans, in northwestern Vermont, things aren't nearly as chaotic as they have been today along the East Coast, especially New England.  

As of 4:30 p.m., we've received just 1.7 inches of new snow so far, and it's still snowing lightly. The winds are picking up, there's blowing and drifting snow, and the roads suck.

Meanwhile, in Boston, full blizzard conditions were still ongoing, as they have been since 11 a.m this morning.

The severe storm surge flooding in Massachusetts is slowly beginning to recede, and the good news is flooding will either be non-existent or minor at the next high tide cycle.

The damage is done, of course. There is property damage galore along the coast, with many cars flooded, homes damaged, streets blocked. It was surreal down there this afternoon. Water cascaded down the stairs of a subway stop in Boston as the storm surge, well, surged into the subway station.

These cars in Gloucester, Massachusetts were
flooded out by an unexpectedly severe
storm surge from today's nor'easter. 

Jim Cantore, reporting live for the Weather Channel, had to guide a woman in her SUV out of rising floodwaters. The National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts, which covers Boston, had to warn people not to ride or stand on icebergs floating on the storm surge flooding. These little icebergs could have easily fallen apart, plunging people into the icy water. Strange.

At the bottom of this post, storm chaser Simon Brewer, who usually does tornadoes, captured some amazing storm footage in Scituate, Mass. he took some real risks, I would NOT suggest trying to replicate his work the next time a wicked bad nor'easter comes around.

The worst effects of the storm, except for the Arctic cold, will die down in southern New England over the next few hours, but continue in Maine and the Maritime Provinces of Canada.

Nova Scotia and surrounding areas are dealing with wind gusts over hurricane force, heavy rain, heavy snow, and the type of storm surge flooding that hit Massachusetts. In both Massachusetts and the Canadian Maritimes, power failures are occuring even as subzero Arctic air rushes toward both regions

Here in Vermont, the storm is playing out pretty much as expected. As of late afternoon, most of the state had gotten between one and four inches of new snow, the most in southern and eastern parts of the state.

The story going forward now will be strong, gusty winds, a lot of blowing and drifting snow, and a plunge into some very awful Arctic air

Snow will continue falling, at least off and on through Friday, with the most accumulations in eastern and southern Vermont. We're still looking at total accumulations of three to 10 inches, with the most in eastern Vermont.

Storm surge in Barnstable, Massachusetts today 

While the winds might be strong enough to bring down power lines, I don't think these outages will be widespread or especially long lasting in Vermont. That's a good thing, since we would freeze pretty fast in our houses in the power went out.

It's still going to be miserable outside, to put it mildly. Leave LOTS of extra time to go to work tomorrow morning.

Black ice, light falling snow and oodles of blowing and drifting snow Friday morning will make things on the highways very, very challenging indeed. And it's going to be below zero, so it'll take time to get dressed, warm up the car, etc.

By the way, I know the snow is pretty light and fluffy, but don't shovel it if you're older, or have health problems. The extreme cold makes us more vulnerable to injuries, heart attacks, that sort of thing

Cover up, too! It doesn't take long for wind chills that could reach 40 below to freeze your skin. I've had frostbite in the past, luckily minor. Still, I feel lingering effects from that relatively minor frostbite three decades after it happened.

We're still looking at one of the coldest days in nearly three decades on Saturday. After morning lows in the teens and low 20s below, combine with nasty windchills in the 30s and 40s below, daytime highs are still expected to stay well below zero on Saturday.

Forecasts haven't changed much for early Sunday morning, either. Expect lots of lows across Vermont in the 20s and 30s below. That's not wind chill. that's' actual temperature, folks!

We're still expecting a decent warm up for Monday and Tuesday, when highs will reach the seasonable 20s to low 30s.

And here's a glimmer of possible good news. Computer models had been suggesting another terrible Arctic blast during the middle and end of next week. The latest projection is that cold air will be quite a bit less intense and not as long lasting as originally thought. We'll end up with run of the mill January chill, nothing the least bit unusual. Let's hope that forecast holds.

Here's Simon Brewer's take on the storm today from Scituate, Massachusetts:
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