Snowstorm Update, And Late Season Snow Facts

We have two birds to kill today. We have the Sunday/Monday snowstorm, and- in the spirit of things- we have a bit of Knowledge to share regarding late-season snowstorms in Massachusetts.

The ever-changing nature of the storm means that we'll leave the discussion of the forecast until the last possible moment. It'll be more accurate this way. If that's what you came to this page for, scroll down until you see the NWS graphic.

March 19th isn't that late in our winter season. Note that I define winter as generally starting with the first snow and ending when the last one melts. March 19th is Spring, but it's early spring.

The latest I have seen snow in Massachusetts is April 28th. That was in Worcester, and we'll get to that in a moment.

I'm going to work with the village of Buzzards Bay for weather stats, because A) it's where I live, and B) it's a nice midway point for our coverage area. I'll also use Boston, as they are easier to find stats for.

Monday is not only a potential snow day. It is a special day as far as historical average temperatures go.  It is the first day where historical average high temperatures will be 50 or above, and the average low temperatures will be 32 and above. 32 degrees, as you know, is freezing. Snow needs that 32 degree benchmark for the most part. There's no law that says it can't be zero degrees tomorrow, but it is unlikely when judged by history.

April 22nd is when our historical daily high temperature gets to 60 degrees, so hang in there.

Late-season snow facts:

- According to WBZ, Boston has had snowfall of 12 inches or more after March 20th once, in 1997. More on that in a sec.  Boston has 6 instances where 6 or more inches of snow fell after March 20th. Worcester has had 12 such events.

- Spring starts at 12:30 AM this Sunday, March 20th.

- The latest measurable snowfall for Boston was a half inch on May 10th, 1977. The latest we've had non-accumulating snow in Boston was June 10th, 1955.

- This source tells me that New York and Atlanta both have the same day, in different years, for latest snowfall... April 25th.

- Most of New England had frost on August 23rd in 1816, and lake ice was seen around the Bay State into August.. This was due to the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which gave everyone red, smoky skies and drove worldwide temperatures down. New England had her corn crop fail, and all sorts of food prices skyrocketed. June snow fell in some parts of New England. It is known as The Year Without A Summer. They had one period where it went from 95 degrees to 35 degrees in a half day.

- Three late-season snowstorms stand out in our history. One was that May 10th, 1977 one from The Farmer's Almanac. The record is a bit later in the year for the Berkshires. The other late-season trace snow events of note in our history are the ones I was yapping about up above.

- Our second storm of note was the 1997 April Fool's Day Blizzard. Over 25 inches of snow fell on Boston, and coastal flooding tore apart the shoreline.

- Our third late-season storm of note was a 17-21 inch blockbuster that hit Worcester and areas north on April 28th, 1987.

I was a freshman at Worcester State College for that storm, and had just picked up a girl from West Boylston High School for a date... because that's how I rolled in 1987, playboy! We went to a movie, came out, and there were 6 inches of snow on the ground. We had an Italian dinner somewhere, and there was a foot on the ground when we came out of the restaurant.

I had only been driving for a year, and had zero savvy. We nearly hit a plow when we skidded all the way down a hill on Route 9. We also drove into a drift in some guy's yard in Berlin, Massachusetts. It ended well... the homeowner called his sons out to shove my car from the drift, and they came out single file... and each one was bigger than the last. "Don't worry about it, just steer" is how the father replied when I offered to make Katie drive so that I could get out and help shove the car. They literally lifted my car and threw it from the drift.

I got zero (0) play from that date, too. The only time I even got a hug as when we nearly crashed into the plow, and that may have been a case where she was trying to wrestle me into a position where the plow blade hit me first. I really can't blame her.

Anyhow, 17 inches of snow is about as much as we get that late in the year. If you get snow on your lawn after May 10th, you just saw a regional record.

Snowstorm Forecast Notes

As we publish when we wish, we had no need to keep updating our forecast. TV stations did not enjoy that luxury. They had to have something up every 6 hours or so, and it caused their forecasts to be all over the board.

Here are a few WBZ updates, just to show you how they flail about in the wind.

- March 13th... "Winter Is Over"

- March 16th... "Storm coming, worst of it west of 128"

- March 17th... "Danielle Niles tries to avoid giving a forecast for a March 20th storm on March 17th," although they do have the beginnings of a cool March Madness "Worst Storm Eva" bracket. I see a Blizzard of '78/1991 Halloween Gale final, although they forgot to put in the worst storm we have had in modern history, the 1938 Great New England Hurricane.

- March 17th, 6 hours later, different forecaster... "6-12 inches"

- March 18th, 12 hours later... "2 to 4 inches"

- March 19th, noon... "Storm will not form until it is past us, little or no snow"

- March 19th, 11 PM... "8 inches"

It's 2 AM on the 20th, and I can not finish this section yet... I have no idea what they will be putting in their 5 AM and noon updates. They may be calling for a heat wave or a hurricane for all I can tell.

(Update) 7 AM, today... possible "mammoth amounts" Their snow/rain line only touches the Islands and Chatham.

Our own March Madness brackets for Worst Massachusetts Storm Ever, Top 16 Seeds:

1) 1938 Great New England Hurricane

2) 1635 Great Colonial Hurricane

3) Blizzard of '78

4) Hurricane Bob, 1991

5) Worcester Tornado, 1953

6) Halloween Gale, 1991

7) Blizzard of 1888

8) 1898 Portland Gale

9) April Fool's Blizzard, 1997

10) Hurricane Carol/Edna, 1954

11)  Hurricane Donna, 1960

12) The Great September Gale Of 1815

13)  Winter of 2015

14) 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane

15) The Triple Storms of 1839

16) Blizzard of 2005

Honorable Mention/Lower Seeds:

2008 Ice Storm

1698, reported 42 inches of snow in Cambridge

1831 Snowstorm, 3 feet on the Cape

1978 pre-Blizzard January snowstorm

2011 Springfield Tornado

Blizzard of 2013

1993 Superstorm

Saxby Gale, 1869

1969 100 Hour Storm

Winter of 1717

1996 South Shore microburst

Hurricane Belle

Hurricane Gloria

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Sandy/Post-Sandy Wareham microburst

1960 snowstorm

Our Forecast For Sunday/Monday's Entertainment Along The Coast:

There is a Winter Storm Warning for Plymouth County. Barnstable County only has a Winter Storm Watch..

As of this AM, it looks like the worst of it will fall along the Cape Cod Canal area through Hull or so..

Accuweather, which has also held to a consistent forecast, gives the village of Buzzards Bay 5-10 inches, and they settle on 5.3 inches if you add up their projected daily totals.  I added up Duxbury as well, and they get 5.1". A lot of it hinges on where the heavier snow bands set up.

(3:45 PM Update... 7 inches now forecast for Buzzards Bay by Accuweather)

I'm thinking that the Outer to Mid Cape gets 1-3 inches. The Upper Cape gets 3-6". The South Shore, South Coast and Rhode Island get in the 5-10" range. Middlesex and Cape Ann go to the 3-6" range, and Worcester is the drop-off point where you start clocking 1-3" again.

So, all of Plymouth, Bristol and Norfolk Counties get to share this one. Note that this current track cements a winter total where Cape Cod (or at least the Upper Cape) had more snow than Boston did. There is a very good chance that schools in this area will be cancelled tomorrow. You can blame that Al Nino motherf***er.

Winds should be gusty at the coast. It could be worse. The wobble in the track that gave the South Shore the higher snow also draws the worst of the winds back out into the ocean. An approaching full moon is happening, but we foresee nothing worse than some splashover. There's an 11 AM high tide on Monday that we'll watch for you... we might go to Sandwich for it.

The timing of the storm should be 6-9 PM Sunday through about Monday afternoon. Don't be shocked if you see some rain when it starts, or if the snow doesn't really drop until midnight.

The long-range forecast shows no more snow for this season, and it also seems to say that this weekend will be the last of the below-freezing weather. We'll be at 50 degrees on Wednesday.

February Snow

WINTER STORM WATCH

I think that even the wimpiest of us would agree that we have had a mild winter so far. That may or may not change in the coming weeks, but that's not what we're here to discuss today.

We're at roughly what I consider to be mid-winter. I may not be correct officially or technically, but it's a good working model. A little bit of November, all of December, January, February and March, plus a bit of April... early February is smack dab in the middle of that.

With that in mind, let's sort through some weather facts and speculation that may get you some proper mojo for those times when you ponder the weather at great lengths.

There will be a bit of a Boston focus, as I have a lot of Boston weather data handy. Your town may be different, but it's good enough to work with. I'm leaning heavily on a Weather Channel page. I refuse to use Winter Storm Names.

- Some of our worst storms, like the Blizzard of '78, came in the shortest month of he year.

-Top Boston Snowstorms
1. Feb. 17-18, 2003: 27.6 inches
2. Feb. 6-7, 1978: 27.1 inches
3. Feb. 24-26, 1969: 25.8 inches
4. Mar. 31 - Apr. 1, 1997: 25.4 inches
5. Feb. 8-9, 2013: 24.9 inches
6. Jan. 26-28, 2015: 24.6 inches
7. Feb. 7-10, 2015: 23.8 inches
8. Jan. 22-23, 2005: 22.5 inches
9. Jan. 20-21, 1978: 21.4 inches
10. Mar. 3-5, 1960: 19.8 inches

- Three of Boston's five snowiest months (including #1 overall, with a bullet) were, as you'll see, various forms of February.

- People looking at Top Boston Snowstorms charts in the future will be like, "Damn, it must have sucked in 2015 to get 24.6 inches of snow on January 28th and then get 23.8" on February 7th," and they could quite possibly be completely unaware that there was also a Groundhog Day blizzard in 2015 that did like 18". We just fail to mention it, because History of any sort is full of these little nuances.

- Top Snowfall Totals For A Month in Boston, and remember that you lose about 10% of the calendar with February:
1. February 2015: 64.8 inches
2. January 2005: 43.3 inches
3. January 1945: 42.3 inches
4. February 2003: 41.6 inches
5. February 1969: 41.3 inches

- It's odd that December or March didn't force their way in the mix up there in that list. I suppose that Spring is asserting herself by March, and that the ground is too warm in December.

- April, which has had some heavy blizzard-type snowfalls, just doesn't get enough follow-up events to break into that very close (one inch of snow stands between the second worst month of snow ever and the fifth worst) pile of months that make up rankings-2-5.

- March had a 19.8 inch head-start in 1960 and failed to get near the top 5. April had about 24" by April 1st of 1997, but couldn't generate enough powda to be a true player.

- Barnstable, which is in the middle of Cape Cod and gets Gulf Stream water, has had a worse winter so far than more-northern Boston has chalked up. Boston has had 10" of snow this winter, while parts of Cape Cod took in 15" of snow from just that last storm.

- Boston does about 43.6" of snow per winter. I think that Barnstable clocks 25" or so per winter.

- Boston's 10 Worst Winters:
1. 2014-2015: 110.6 inches

2. 1995-1996: 107.6 inches
3. 1993-1994: 96.3 inches
4. 1947-1948: 89.2 inches
5. 2004-2005: 86.6 inches
6. 1977-1978: 85.1 inches
7. 1992-1993: 83.9 inches
8. 2010-2011: 81.0 inches
9. 1915-1916: 79.2 inches
10. 1919-1920: 73.4 inches

- Notice that nearly 2 feet of snow stand between #2 and #5 on this list, while 1 inch stands between #2 and #5 in snowiest months. Those were some genuinely awful winters.

- Boston got 94.4 inches of snow in the thirty days between January 24th and February 22nd, 2015. It would be the third snowiest winter overall, just those 30 days.

- Any kid about 25 years old or so who has lived here all of his life can hold his own with any old-timer, no matter how salty he may be, in a discussion about difficult Boston winters. Even a 105 year old man will have only seen three other winters that would place in the top ten.

- A 128 year old man would have seen the Blizzard of 1888, albeit as a child. However, at that point, the 128 year old man would be more interesting than Blizzard of 1888 discussion.

- Old folks would have recourse against whippersnappers in things like Ice Storms and Really, Really Cold Weather. It generally goes without saying that this current generation has better plowing and forecasting. It also generally goes without saying that old people have a better feel for the weather, and always will.

- In 2015, Boston had a Boston-record 37" snow pack. We had 6 feet of snow fall between January 24th and February 10th, and 90" between 1/24 and 2/15. We had 4 days where we had at least 12 inches of snow (a record shared with 1978 and 1960-61). Boston had 6 days in a row with at least a half-inch of snow. They also had 28 straight days where the temperature didn't get above 20.

- Some perspective:

Heaviest One-Day Snowfall (inches and centimeters)
Georgetown, Colorado 63 160 Dec 4 1913
Thompson Pass, Alaska 62 157 Dec 29 1955
Giant Forest, California 60 152 Jan 19 1933
Mount Washington, NH 49 125 Feb 25 1969
Millegan, Montana 48 122 Dec 27 2003
Gunn's Ranch, Washington 48 122 Jan 21 1935
Deadwood, South Dakota 47 119 Mar 14 1973
Watertown, New York 45 114 Nov 15 1900
Heber Ranger Station, Arizona 38 97 Dec 14 1967
Morgantown, Pennsylvania 38 97 Mar 20 1958
Wolf Ridge, Minnesota 36 91 Jan 7 1994

Snowiest Average Winters, (inches and centimeters)
Mt Rainier, Washington 671 1704
Alta, Utah 546 1387
Crater Lake Park, Oregon 483 1226
Brighton, Utah 411 1044
Echo Summit, California 407 1035

Most Days With Snowfall 
Mt Rainier, Paradise Station, Washington 121.4
Mt Washington, New Hampshire 118.5
Climax Mine, Colorado 104.4
Crater Lake Park Headquarters, Oregon 101.3
Shemya Island, Alaska 98.3
Yellowstone Park South Entrance, Wyoming 94.5

Snowiest Large US Cities, Average Year, (inches and centimeters)
Rochester, New York 99.5 252.7
Buffalo, New York 94.7 240.5
Cleveland, Ohio 68.1 173.0
Salt Lake City, Utah 56.2 142.7
Minneapolis, Minnesota 54.0 137.2
Denver, Colorado 53.8 136.7
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 46.9 119.1
Boston, Massachusetts 43.8 111.3
Detroit, Michigan 42.7 108.5
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 41.9 106.4
Hartford, Connecticut 40.5 102.9
Chicago, Illinois 36.7 93.2
Providence, Rhode Island 33.8 85.9
Columbus, Ohio 27.5 69.9
Indianapolis, Indiana 25.9 65.8
New York, New York 25.1 63.8

- Boston, and Massachusetts in general, rules 'Merica in one weather-related category... Wind Speed. Boston has an average wind speed of 12.4 mph. Massachusetts owns 4 of the top 5 spots when ranked among cities with more than 50,000 people. Weymouh, Brockton, Framingham, Newton, Peabody, Waltham, Quincy, Lowell, Brookline, and Lynn are all in the top 20.

Windiest US Cities (>50,000 people)
1. Weymouth Town, MA (housing) (pop. 55,419) 14.7 mph
2. Brockton, MA (housing) (pop. 94,089) 14.3 mph
3. Framingham, MA (housing) (pop. 68,318) 13.6 mph
4. Amarillo, TX (housing) (pop. 196,429) 13.3 mph
5. Weymouth, MA (housing) (pop. 54,393) 13.2 mph
6. Cheyenne, WY (housing) (pop. 62,448) 12.9 mph
7. Fort Collins, CO (housing) (pop. 152,061) 12.8 mph
8. Newton, MA (housing) (pop. 87,971) 12.7 mph
9. Casper, WY (housing) (pop. 59,628) 12.7 mph
10. Waltham, MA (housing) (pop. 62,227) 12.6 mph
11. Loveland, CO (housing) (pop. 71,334) 12.6 mph
12. Quincy, MA (housing) (pop. 93,494) 12.5 mph
13. Greeley, CO (housing) (pop. 96,539) 12.5 mph
14. Rochester, MN (housing) (pop. 110,742) 12.5 mph
15. Great Falls, MT (housing) (pop. 59,351) 12.5 mph
16. Peabody, MA (housing) (pop. 52,044) 12.5 mph
17. Brookline, MA (housing) (pop. 58,732) 12.5 mph
18. Lowell, MA (housing) (pop. 108,861) 12.5 mph
19. Lubbock, TX (housing) (pop. 239,538) 12.4 mph
20. Lynn, MA (housing) (pop. 91,589) 12.4 mph
21. Boston, MA (housing) (pop. 645,966) 12.4 mph

- Viewed in the Year Without A Sana Claus weather logic that I use in lieu of any formal meteorological training, New England is often brought up in arguments where people propose that there are actually several Misers involved in our weather. You could make a case for Warm Miser, Mild Miser and/or Seasonably Cold Miser.

It my be a case where Heat Miser and Cold Miser are General Grant and General Lee, and Seasonably Cold Miser is a subordinate, Jubal Early-style figure.