Fans of the stormy weather will enjoy this weekend's entertainment, if they are situated well enough and don't mind staying up all night.
A storm will slide south of New England tonight, and her northern fringe may give the South Coast and Cape Cod a bit of snow. An inch would be the high end figure, and the snow would be more notable for being a strong candidate for the last snow of the year.
April snow isn't that crazy. We've had a blizzard on April Fool's Day, I saw nearly two feet in Worcester on April 28th once, and the Boston record is May 10th.
However, April snow falls at a time when we are tired of winter and looking forward to spring. The last thing a New Englander who doesn't write about weather for a living wants in April is snow.
Again, this storm will mostly precipitate on the fishes, with only the Cape and the extreme South Coast getting any Siberian Marching Powder. Nantucket and the Outer Cape look like the best bet to get enough to make a snowball with.
The South Shore may get left out of the snowfall, but they'll have a shot at some coastal flooding overnight. The storm will produce heavy winds (gusts well over tropical storm force), and they will be coming N/NE at the time of high tide.
Those tides will be very high. Seriously, look:
Duxbury Beach, 1:43 AM, 12.2 feet
Scituate Harbor, 1:52 AM, 11.5 feet
Brant Rock, 1:56 AM, 11.7 feet
Hull Bay, 1:55 AM, 12.2 feet
Manomet Point, 1:40 AM, 12.2 feet
Scusset Beach, 1:44 M, 12.2 feet
Sandwich Town Beach, 1:43 AM, 12.2 feet
Cold Storage Beach (Dennis), 1:46 AM, 12.2 feet
Provincetown, 1:56 AM, 11.8 feet
The storm won't be on us long enough or hard enough (some winds will be more N than the more feared NE) to really tear up the coastline, but splashover tides are bad news in low-lying coastal neighborhoods. When I lived on Duxbury Beach, we used to run the sump pumps 24 hours in a row for a few days during the April high tides, and that was without a storm piling up water onto the shore.
A 12.2 foot high tide means that, if you stood stock still with your toes at the edge of the water exactly at low tide, you'd be under 12.2 feet of water in the same spot at high tide. The average tide is about 8 or 9 feet, and this waning new moon tide of 12.2 is trouble.
The winds will make a 1-2 foot storm surge on top of all that moon tide stuff, and the worst of it will be along a Hull-to-Bourne-to Orleans run. Let's guess at a Scituate-to-Duxbury epicenter.
Again, never clean up coastal yards until late April at the earliest, Landlubber.
If you live on the coast and are up at that hour, feel free to send us a pic at our Facebook page, we'll maybe do an article Sunday morning if I get out at that wicked time of the night.
We'll also be getting what is presently believed to be the last freezing weather in SE Massachusetts.
This little cold snap has been the result of a polar vortex sending Canada air down to us. As that vortex breaks down, we start getting Oregon air... which doesn't sound that great until you recall the Santa stuff we've been getting every time it snows in April.
From what I see on the Accuweather month-long forecast for Buzzards Bay, there will be no more days where the temperature falls below freezing. When that skim coating of snow on your lawn melts, winter will be over by every conceivable measure.
Look a this way... Opening Day at Fenway is Monday. The Boston Marathon is a week after that. Memorial Day is six weeks after that. Summer is about 3 weeks after that.
You can handle this.
