UPDATE: Heavy Snow To Hit SE Massachusetts Saturday

4 PM Update

Shawna Costa, on the cam...

Uhm, yeah, about that "not too bad" snowfall forecast for Saturday that we issued yesterday.

Ooops.

As it turns out, Saturday's storm may have a bit of the hot sauce on it, if you know what I mean. The National Weather Service has a Winter Storm Watch up for Saturday.

Snowfall totals, previously thought to be in the 2-4" range, are now in the 9-12" range. The 9-12" is actually a scaled down version of the 8-15" that the National Weather Service dropped in their morning forecast.

The fun should start around noon tomorrow, and it should snow through midnight, easily. There could be some ocean enhancement along the coast, and some ocean effect flurries could hang around on Sunday morn.

In all, the Canal area of Cape Cod could have a stretch where someone gets 20" of snow this weekend. Bourne, for instance, picked up 5" today, and are forecast to be in the epicenter of tomorrow's entertainment.

I haven't heard an actual weatherman (or Cindy or Shiri) say that coastal flooding is a concern. However, the winds should be whipping up from the NE at a 15-20 mph clip right around when the afternoon high tide hits. The Irish Riviera, the Cape and the Islands could get NE wind gusts up to 40 mph, so keep an eye on the sea, coasties!

We'll pop back in for an update tomorrow if the forecast then is as radically different from today's as today's was from yesterday.

BARNSTABLE:

...WINTER STORM WATCH FROM SATURDAY MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY
MORNING...

* LOCATIONS...INCLUDE COASTAL PLYMOUTH COUNTY...CAPE COD AND THE
ISLANDS.

* ACCUMULATIONS...SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 6 TO 12 INCHES POSSIBLE
SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING.

* TIMING...SNOW OVERSPREADS THE AREA SATURDAY MORNING AND LIKELY
BECOMING HEAVY AT TIMES SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING...THEN
TAPERING OFF LATE SATURDAY NIGHT.

* IMPACTS...UNTREATED ROADS WILL BECOME SNOW COVERED AND SLICK.
VISIBILITY WILL BE REDUCED. TRAVEL WILL BECOME HAZARDOUS AS
SNOW BECOMES HEAVY AT TIMES ALONG WITH GUSTY NORTHEAST WINDS
RESULTING IN CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING WITH NEAR WHITE
OUT CONDITIONS POSSIBLE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A WINTER STORM WATCH MEANS THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT
SNOW...SLEET...OR ICE ACCUMULATIONS THAT MAY IMPACT TRAVEL.
CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS. BE PREPARED TO MODIFY
TRAVEL PLANS SHOULD WINTER WEATHER DEVELOP.

Buttermilk Bay

SOUTHERN PLYMOUTH:

...WINTER STORM WATCH FROM SATURDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE SATURDAY
NIGHT...

* LOCATIONS...INCLUDE EASTERN AND INTERIOR SOUTHEASTERN
MASSACHUSETTS...NORTHEASTERN CONNECTICUT...AND ALL OF RHODE
ISLAND.

* ACCUMULATIONS...SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 4 TO 8 INCHES POSSIBLE
SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING.

* TIMING...SNOW OVERSPREADS THE AREA SATURDAY MORNING AND LIKELY
BECOMING HEAVY AT TIMES SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING...THEN
TAPERING OFF LATE SATURDAY NIGHT.

* IMPACTS...UNTREATED ROADS WILL BECOME SNOW COVERED AND SLICK.
VISIBILITY WILL BE REDUCED. TRAVEL WILL BECOME HAZARDOUS AS
SNOW BECOMES HEAVY AT TIMES ALONG WITH GUSTY NORTHEAST WINDS
RESULTING IN CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING WITH NEAR WHITE
OUT CONDITIONS POSSIBLE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A WINTER STORM WATCH MEANS THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT
SNOW...SLEET...OR ICE ACCUMULATIONS THAT MAY IMPACT TRAVEL.
CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS. BE PREPARED TO MODIFY
TRAVEL PLANS SHOULD WINTER WEATHER DEVELOP.

Buttermilk Bay Beach Replenishment

Buttermilk Bay is a body of water in the village of Buzzards Bay, in the town of Bourne. There is also Little Buttermilk Bay connected to it. I know, it gets confusing, but bear with us here. I am presently unaware of any name existing for the beach in front of Hideaway Village... "Hideaway Beach" is already taken, by Marco Island, Florida. (Editor's Note: We found a reference to "Hideaway Village Cove" on this site)

People ask "Why don't they just call this part of town Buttermik Bay?" Sorry, but that's taken by Plymouth. "Buttermilk Bay" is the southernmost village in Plymouth. If the Plymouth version of Buttermilk Bay touches the body of water that is Buttermilk Bay, it doesn't touch much of it. (Editor's Note: The Plymouth village doesn't touch her namesake bay it stops at Head Of The Bay Road. Bourne is the only town which touches both Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay)

I'd complain, but I live in the village of Buzzards Bay, which only touches the body of water that is Buzzards Bay in the slightest way. If you need to be more confused, you enter Buttermilk Bay by going through Cohasset Narrows. The actual Cohasset town is about 40 miles north, in Norfolk County. Welcome to Cape Cod.

All of this sand is going to help restore the beach in the Hideaway Village area of Buzzards Bay. HV fronts Buttermilk Bay, if I phrased that proper-like. They get low (3 foot, as opposed to 8-9 foot tides I used to see on Duxbury Beach) tides, and minimal wave action.

However, it doesn't take much tidal compulsion to move beach sand down the line into Wareham. This sand meets with soil run-off from the Red Brook in the Wareham/Plymouth/Bourne tri-corner, and helps form an ever-growing estuary. There is some danger of sanding over a rather nice clam-digging area, but you can always buy some hip-waders and march out into the shallows with a fat rake. There is also a history in this direct area of rapid/total eelgrass depletion following development.

Erosion wins by attrition, rather than in a singular, overwhelming charge. Even if you just lose a few grains of sand with each wave, it all adds up over time. It's perfectly natural, and all good... unless, of course, you want to sit by the shore instead of having the shore move inland past your house. In that case, you need to replenish the lost sand.

Have no fear, Hideaway Village is here! They're dumping all of this sand down, hopefully the X part of a "Beach Remaining After Erosion + X Amount Of Sand = Cozy Beach" equation. By my own conservative estimates, they have enough sand stacked on this beach to fill 873,290 kitty litter boxes.

One thing we always said on Duxbury Beach.... never do work on shoreline property until mid-to-late April. This is 25% because of "the chance of storms," 25% because of "high spring tides," and 50% of "both." The Hideaway people are nowhere near the high tide line, and should lose no new sand to a high tide.

We'll be back with more pics once they've spread it around a bit.

April Snow On Cape Cod, South Shore

Buttermilk Bay, Bourne MA

We're getting a bit of April Snow. This won't amount to much, but it's still notable.

Coastal Massachusetts has a tendency towards not getting April snow... but when we get it, we get a lot of it (see: April Fool's Blizzard, 1997)... this is looking like an inch or two.

If we get a warm spell before a late season blizzard, it's a Strawberry Spring. Most of us know it from the Stephen King story, and I'm not sure if he made it up for the story or if he took it from local folklore. Either way, the event needs a name, and King has sort of meritorious naming rights to whatever he sets his mind to.

We may get snow tomorrow as well. Aril 4th is late for snow, but it does look like the last of the season. This snow is probably not the best of news for the Cape's blooming stuff.

Trying and failing to get pics of the snowflakes, which are getting up to near-baseball card size.

Mann Farm cranberry bog, Buzzards Bay MA... FGW wind turbine, Plymouth MA.... low visibility

From Sara Flynn, off of Pine Point on Duxbury Beach...

Little Buttermilk Bay, Bourne MA

This tree is saggin'...

Little Buttermilk Bay, sad tree, Bourne MA

NWS Snowfall Map for this storm

Snow Delay... Legion Field, Bridgewater, MA (Michelle McIssac photo)

The Great Salt Marsh (Skirt Meadow/Meadows for all of you map freaks), Duxbury MA, also by Sara Flynn...

More to come...