ORH_wxman

The PAC supports that...huge EPO block north of AK with a +PNA

Yeah true...lol....GEFS has been largely better than the EPS for the past 6-8 weeks. EPS did catch this mid-Feb warmup better IMHO, but outside of that, it's not been its usual dominant self (echoing our criticism of the OP run this winter)

Had a couple of cutters in there (or pseudo-cutters like the 1/17 BGM storm) that kind of took the shine off that period despite the objectively good snow total between 1/7 and 2/14. I did basically have full snow cover since 1/7 though until the 3 days ago when it became patchy before being covered again 2/13....but there were many days it was just a thin icy glacier. Not a true deep winter feel. Still, beats the hell out of December or any period from winter 2019-2020.

That shortwave has been steadily trending south

I was commuting into Boston that year for work on the seaport....I remember the harbor finally froze over during the 2/2/15 storm and it didn't unfreeze until around 3/20....pretty insane that it was completely frozen over for like 6 weeks. In addition, all the snow out on the harbor ice was blown and drifted into various mounds and sculptures and you'd get random ground blizzards out there on sunny days in late February because the snow was staying powdery and couldn't get soft and refreeze due the lack of warmups. Looked more like some city on the arctic ocean rather than a temperate climate.

BOS was robbed of futility 10 days later too....they got like 9 or 10 inches in the 3/16-17 storm when they were sitting on like 7 or 8 inches for the season before that.

Western MA has had a horrific winter....could be top 5 worst out there, though still some time left to turn it into just a mundane turd rather than historic.

When you look at the map of that outbreak, that's how to get it done late in the year. You want that delivery being drilled in from the NNW minimizing any chance of modifying at lower latitudes.

Yeah this year has had a dearth of advisory type events. Part of the reason the interior is taking it on the chin. Even a place like Boston usually needs more than a few events to have 40"+, but getting a 2 footer helps.

Wouldn't be shocked at another arctic outbreak with that -EPO/+PNA look on ensembles late month/early March....though once you get that late, they don't have quite the bite. Though I do remember early Mar 2007 being pretty nasty.

EPS looks like it has a -EPO/+PNA dominating the pattern as we go into the end of February and into early March. So that would be the next period to look for a threat. The next 7 days looks largely mild....though cannot rule out something more wintry for NNE early next week.

Arctic night out there with squeaky snow under foot on front walk with a temp of 11F. Hard to believe it will be in the 50s in a few days if you weren’t paying attention.

Yeah cutters are the worst in the heart of ski season. They are especially infuriating in February which is a climo min for cutters around here….and usually by February the mountains have a nice deep pack so cutters turning everything into a concrete glacier really sucks. Hopefully the one next week trends colder at least for NNE which is still might.

It’s easier to get a big March than a big December. The empirical data backs that up.

Yeah that was insane...parts of the shoreline from Essex county to PYM county had like 20 inches in 6 hours. I had about 14" I think and most of it fell in 3-4 hours.

Weeklies went cold too for the first half of March.

2017 and 2018 had the big Feb torches.

Gonna have to waste some of that energy too on melting pack rather than heating up the surface. Even if the pack melts out near NH border earlier, the air is still going to be traveling over snow pack in MA in RI/E CT to get there.

Yeah it seemed once you got about 10 miles north of the pike in eastern areas, the dry air was limiting some of the efficiency. I did notice the some of that late last night near BOS too...interesting distribution. I wonder if it kind of seeped down the coast a little further south there kind of like a cold tuck does. I would've expected BOS to be at least as snowy as here, but they had a couple inches less and almsot all the difference was probably from overnight...I think they had a little more than me earlier in the day. Then once you went due west into areas like near Jerry, he had more.

Yeah most guidance was probably a little light on QPF (except maybe the most bullish runs of HRRR/RAP)...there was a decent area of over 0.50" QPF on the south shore looking at the cocorahs map. Still, pretty impressive ratios were most of the deal...like I had 8" but all the cocorahs around here are in the 0.3-0.40" liquid equivalent range....that's a pretty big fluff job....20+ to 1 ratios. ALmost every model sounding I looked at had good snow growth too which I probably should have hit harder in my thinking. I was a little worried about dry air filtering in from the north, but that only seemed to be an issue on the northern edge of the band.

We also don't get 65-70F in February on due south winds.

Yep this is literally the worst possible timing too going right into Feb vacation week....just in time to ruin all the ski/snow mobile trails.

Yeah february is definitely the month where we have the least cutters....I expect these more in December.

Couple more pics