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Sub Zero Weather - Looks like potential has waned


Bostonseminole

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Any time we get strong CAA cold shots, it is going to be "meh" for the radiators who are used to getting -15 on a clear night when everyone else is 25 degrees warmer.

But places like BOS and ORH will put up impressive numbers. The more noticeable aspect of those kind of cold shots tends to be the daytime highs.

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Friday could be one of the coldest day we've all experienced in a while. Possible lows ranging from -20 to -5 across the area and some may not see 0. Figure we can start discussing possibilities here.

Sent from my iPhone

Are you talking about today or next Friday?

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The 2/6/2015 6z GFS forecast a temperature of -29.0°C (-20°F) for Boston on 2/14. To put things into perspective, Boston's all-time record low temperature is -18°, which was set on February 9, 1934. Moreover, such a temperature would be just over 4.7σ below the 1981-2010 mean temperature for the 2/13-15 timeframe. Such an outcome, assuming temperatures are normally distributed over the long-term, would be a 1-in-1,000 year event.

 

Either the GFS is off or an extraordinary event is poised to unfold. Odds strongly favor the former, though the air mass could well be the coldest of the winter and possibly for a number of winters.

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The 2/6/2015 6z GFS forecast a temperature of -29.0°C (-20°F) for Boston on 2/14. To put things into perspective, Boston's all-time record low temperature is -18°, which was set on February 9, 1934. Moreover, such a temperature would be just over 4.7σ below the 1981-2010 mean temperature for the 2/13-15 timeframe. Such an outcome, assuming temperatures are normally distributed over the long-term, would be a 1-in-1,000 year event.

 

Either the GFS is off or an extraordinary event is poised to unfold. Odds strongly favor the former, though the air mass could well be the coldest of the winter and possibly for a number of winters.

 

 

Yeah the GFS looks overdone for sure.

 

However, I noted in the model thread about the cold being forecasted by the ECMWF ensembles, and it looked to me like it would be the coldest February outbreak here in at least 20 years (2/6/95) and possibly longer than that. Most of our big arctic shots in the past decade to 15 years have been in the month of January.

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Yeah the GFS looks overdone for sure.

 

However, I noted in the model thread about the cold being forecasted by the ECMWF ensembles, and it looked to me like it would be the coldest February outbreak here in at least 20 years (2/6/95) and possibly longer than that. Most of our big arctic shots in the past decade to 15 years have been in the month of January.

I agree with your description concerning the possible magnitude of the cold at the end of next week.

 

In the past, February had relatively more severe Arctic shots than it has in recent years. In terms of subzero days, 75% of such days have occurred in January since 1980. For every day in February that had a subzero low, there were 6 such days in January.

 

During the larger 1900-1999 period, the distribution of such days was more balanced. January accounted for 44% of days with subzero low temperatures and February accounted for 36% of such days. For every day in February with a subzero low temperature, there were 1.2 such days in January.

 

Finally, for those who are interested, the last day on which the temperature fell below zero in Boston in February was February 15, 1987 (-1°).

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It's interesting Boston's record is Feb 9th.  I would think it would start getting harder to get super cold after about now.  Sun angle is increasing and length of darkness is decreasing markedly.  Having deep snowcover helps.  Bring on this weeks snow and one record cold shot then it's mid February and I am ready for the arctic air to be gone.  

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That's a little cold, but there's amazing support this far out for something extreme. GFS, EC, EPS...

 

Oh yeah, the cold is going to be really impressive I think...agree on that. But even ORH hasn't had a high of 0F since 1980...so I'd bet against that kind of output right now.

 

The trajectory of the cold is awesome though...drilled almost from the due north out of Quebec. That's pretty rare for arctic airmasses this cold.

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Whatever happens ... this next week is likely to be winter's nadir week, after which we begin the long claw out ... during which there's likely to be additional cold and cold-profiled storm types, of course, but the curve of difficulty flips signs after next week.  

 

It seems to vary year to year; sometimes the seasonal turn around sniffs later or earlier; I get the feeling though that post a 70-hour snow and day at 0 approaching mid Feb, it's going to be difficult(er) to approach that again going forward.

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