Southeastern Massachusetts is right on the edge of what will be a history-worthy blizzard just a bit down the coast. Snowfall is possible, while coastal flooding is more of a certainty.
The Blizzard of 2016 is coming. It's going to hit the mid-Atlantic harder than it is going to hit us. This is a bit unusual, as there will soon be cities in North Carolina that have had a greater one-storm snowfall total than cities in Massachusetts can boast of. Areas in the mid-Atlantic could pick up 3 feet of snow.
They already have a Blizzard Warning there (it's snowing in Charlotte, NC right now), and we have a Winter Storm Warning in SE Massachusetts.
We're not getting that much snow up here in southeast Massachusetts. We are currently forecast to get 3-6" on the South Coast, Cape Cod, and southern Plymouth County. That "three to six inches" thing is a bit touchy, as a slight wobble in the storm path could screw mightily with those projected snowfall totals.
I have no problem at all morally saying something to my readers along the lines of "We could get anywhere between rain, flurries, five inches of snow or two feet of it." Have a wide array of responses at your disposal for Saturday and Sunday.
It should be interesting to see Carolina dealing with bona-fide blizzard. Washington DC was ground to a halt Wednesday by an inch of snow. They have no means of dealing with the snow they're getting. There should be a lot of wrecked pickup trucks once the F-360s start, a C&W sort of Ice Capades.
New England, should we end up getting socked as well, may have some power outage issues. The mid-Atlantic is going to be commanding the lion's share of the restoring-power resources. This delays their response in Massachusetts. It has happened before, my friends, and it will happen again.
However, our share of the storm could be nothing at all. This is one of those situations with high variety between Best Case and Worst Case scenarios. Accuweather has changed my forecast from 3-6" to 6'-10" and back in just the last 24 hours.
We could even hear that B Word used in our forecasts. Blizzards only need 3 hours of certain conditions to qualify, and we are currently forecast to have all of those conditions at some point between Saturday and Sunday.
Our big concern with this storm will be coastal flooding. This storm will have a small blizzard area, but it will have a much larger area of high winds. Those winds will almost certainly hit Massachusetts, and we could have a long stretch of 35-50 MPH winds.
Those winds will stir up the ocean mightily. We will have problem tides Saturday night and especially Sunday morning. Sunday's tides might be mollified somewhat by the wind shifting to the N/NW direction.
The flooding will be influenced by the full-moon high tides, which are astronomically inopportune this weekend.
Here's a nice link to check tides.
The wind shift makes even coastal flooding a tough call, but it is a bit easier of a sell than predicting the snowfall totals.
The fun should start Saturday AM, and should grind to a halt at some point Sunday.
It goes without saying that you should know which taverns have a generator if the power should go out during the Patriots game.
Here are some more maps:
The map is from Monday, but still interesting
Good Luck!
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