Massachusetts Signature Sandwiches, By Region

Massachusetts tends to be associated with seafood, and perhaps rightfully so. But very few people sit down to lunch and have some haddock. We're sandwich people.

Each region of Massachusetts has a local favorite as far as sandwiches go. Sometimes, the association is direct, such as Somerville and the Fluffernutter. Sometimes, a sandwich wins by being the last major one we have to use and getting paired with the last part of Massachusetts we haven't hit yet, like the Fried Baloney out in the Berkshires.

No one is saying "Only in Hampden County can you get a really good PB&J sandwich," except for our map... and our map doesn't really even mean it.

We'll explain our reasoning in a moment, but here is the color-coded map. The smaller areas will be explained in the text

Too Small To Label = Fried Bologna (central Berkshires)

Some regions are not won in a landslide. Many regions will be assigned a signature sandwich that may not dominate locally. Steak and Cheese or Tuna Salad may outsell Linguica in Fall River, but the Linguica will still represent disproportionately to the extent that it colors the region.

Offhand, I'd imagine that Italian, Steak & Cheese, Meatball and Chicken Parmesan all sell about the same in most places, and could have been put anywhere on our map. We used about 5% demographics and 95% randomness to decide where stuff should go. That's how we operated in any region without a clear winner, and we tended to default West until we hit a border.

Basically, everything past that 495 snow line you see on TV weather is sort of a Best Of thing... they're out of our coverage area, so eff them. Some blogger in Longmeadow can call us Chowderheads or Swamp Yankees, it all evens out in the end.

The argument about "If we only feel that eastern Massachusetts has signature sandwiches, why not just do an EMASS article?" was an easier one to solve than the arguments we were going to have over leaving out sandwiches like PB+J, Steak & Cheese and so forth. Trust me, this article is over 2 weeks old as I'm editing it, and 11 days of that was pure Argument among the staff.

Let this be more Edutainment for you than an iron-clad basis for culinary law. Here is how we score things.

CAPE COD AND THE ISLANDS... THE LOBSTER ROLL

Cape Cod has the only seafood-based sandwich on the list, a bit of a shocker with towns like Gloucester and New Bedford falling outside of her range.

What's worse is that the Lobster Roll sandwich originated in friggin' Connecticut, and is now most (and perhaps exclusively) associated with Maine.

With all the tourists running through Cape Cod, the Lobster Roll is a good introductory course in Lobster for any landlubber who might need to be eased into things.

This sandwich also owns the immediate coastal areas of the South Coast, and most likely some sections of the South Shore as well. The runner-up Cape Cod Reuben was mentioned, but not much.

It is the signature sandwich for the region of the state that has the town of Sandwich in it, so the who-goes-first argument just ended.

THE SOUTH COAST... THE LINGUICA SUB

The heavily Portuguese sections of the South Coast not only put a stop to the Irish Riviera, but they also drop a spicy sausage into the face of the turkey sandwich and the lobster roll people.

Even areas on the South Coast without large Portuguese populations live close enough to know the Goodness. Linguica, onions, peppers, sub roll... no condiments needed.

Portuguese of any sort don't mess around in the kitchen. I dated a Cape Verdean girl once, take my word for it...

If you've never dated a Cape Verdean girl... let me tell you what her father told me while she was making me wait before picking her up... "There are two rooms in the house where a Cape Verdean girl excels... one is the kitchen, and have I shown you my new rifle?"

Unrelated, but linguica is the best pizza topping out there, IMHO.

PLYMOUTH COUNTY... THE GOBBLER

The Gobbler, aka the Thanksgiving Sandwich, the Any-Pilgrim-Name Sandwich, or the Turkey-Cranberry-Stuffing sandwich, is the only real choice for Plymouth County.

The sub shops may sell more Italians or Ham & Cheese subs than this sandwich, but the Thanksgiving Sub is still very representative of the region. It is the only region of the state with multiple turkey-sandwich shops operating in close proximity.

Only the sections of the state assigned to Roast Beef and Lobster Rolls got less argument than the Gobbler got in Plymouth County. The Gobbler even gobbled up some of Bristol and Norfolk Counties.

On the day after Thanksgiving, the Gobbler goes from being Plymouth County's signature sandwich to America's signature sandwich until the resources are exhausted.

DUXBURY BEACH/BUZZARDS BAY... THE BACON SANDWICH

Many people would consider this to be a BLT, but they would be incorrect. Lettuce goes nowhere near a proper bacon sandwich.

No, a man considering a bacon sandwich wants nothing to do with lettuce. Replace it with cheese, because why go half way when you try to clog an artery?

I listed Duxbury Beach and (the village of) Buzzards Bay as the region for the Bacon Sandwich simply because I grew up in one and presently live in the other. In an episode of mobility unique to this list, the Mecca of Bacon Sandwiches is found wherever you find the author of this article.

Many people consider me to be a sort of Bacon God, mostly due to my heroic consumption of the Death Meat. I actually forced a Cape-area hotel into changing their breakfast buffet menu, just to allow them to stay afloat financially.

Bacon sandwiches are considered to be one of the best hangover cures. They are also the only food you can eat that is somehow better if you smoke during your meal. The tobacco adds nothing to the meal, other than setting the tone for a Live Now sort of dietary style.

SHARON... PASTRAMI SANDWICH

Sharon has a sizable Russian population, and some of them are the sort who eat together at the Carnegie Deli with David Lee Roth and Arthur Fonzarelli.

Hot Pastrami is a heroic meal, not many eat it daily, and it is more of a treat than a sub shop top-seller. It is very fortunate to be on this list.

The ranking of this sandwich in this town is our nod of the head in thanks to all of the delicatessen people of the past. The Greeks and Italians run the sandwich biz these days, but it was once a very Jewish trade... still is, in some parts.

Sharon pays the price for this, but the price is one of the better sandwiches.

BOSTON 1A... THE FLUFFERNUTTER

Fluff was invented in Somerville, while the sandwich was invented by the hyper-intellect of Melrose's Emma Curtis, then was first sold en masse from Swampscott and is now patented by a Lynn company

If my map for Fluffernutter doesn't represent one of those regions, try to understand... if you know the difference, it doesn't matter, and if you don't know the difference, it doesn't matter. We work in blocs.

The Fluffernutter is a strange duck. No one in New England tries to order one in a deli, aside from tourists. It's more of a stoner creation that wasn't invented by a stoner, and very much akin to something that Elvis might have made for himself when his personal chef was away.

The Fluffernutter is frequently mentioned as a candidate for Official State Sandwich, but that's a job for some other food critic.

BOSTON 1B... FENWAY FRANKS

Hot Dogs are a tough sell on this list... but any tourist visiting Boston should check out Fenway Park, and everyone checking out Fenway Park should have Fenway Franks. She gets her own category for this.

Hot Dogs and Hamburgers hold an almost honorary place on this list. It would be hard to choose one spot for each of them. They could very easily dominate this map.

If you need closure, imagine that, if you zoomed in on the map, you'd see tiny little dots of two different colors all over the state. If you zoomed in even further, you'd see these dots almost everywhere. The larger dots would be the 7-11 type stores selling hot dogs, or the McDonald's type stores selling hamburgers. The smaller dots would be an endless series of barbecues.

Remember, hot dogs are a choking risk. 17% of childhood asphyxiations one year involved hot dogs.

If you want a dot for burgers, put it out in Wilbraham or wherever Friendly's keeps her corporate HQ. If you think Italian Sausage belongs, put another dot just outside the stadium.

THE NORTH SHORE... ROAST BEEF SANDWICHES

Places like Mike's and Nick's and Harrison's sort of set the tone. Mike's Roast Beef in Everett pretty much slams the door on the Fluffernutter's run of regional sandwich dominance, although they trade neighborhoods off into Swampscott and Lynn.

You can get a good lobster roll on the North Shore, in spite of what a Cape Codder or a Mainer tells you. They also have enough Italians (and people of other nationalities who know that Italians rule the kitchen) that any sub with "parmesan" in it is going to sell.

However, this is the North Shore. Answer #1 is "roast beef." Answer #2 is "huge gap." Answer #3 is "everything else."

You can get into a Mike's vs Nick's argument on the South Shore, a feat which I- a South Shore kid- can not replicate in the converse with a South Shore restaurant and North Shore people.

NE CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS... THE ITALIAN SUB

This sub and this region are where we start generalizing.

We're at that section of the menu where we have to make sure that we get all of the important sandwiches into the mix, and we won't allow the Italian to get too far away from Boston.

I'm sure that a thousand Italian Subs are sold in Somerville for every Fluffernutter ordered off a Kid's Menu, although the Fluff makes a comeback when you factor in Home Consumption.

There is no reason other than a high concentration of Italians to put this sub here. The inland areas of Massachusetts rock a 10-15% concentration of people claiming Italian heritage, and those people (and non-Italian lovers of Italian food) move a lot of Large Italian, Everything subs.

It gets points (as do Meatball and Steak Bombs) for being among the most popular in every town. It's a big seller everywhere you put it, even in neighborhoods with people who may have a grandfather who took a bullet at Anzio.

Is there a better use anywhere for oil and vinegar?

SE CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS... THE STEAK BOMB

BOOM! You dropped a (steak) bomb on me, baby...

Make no mistake, the cheesesteak sandwich is Philadelphia's sandwich by any definition. However, the Steak Bomb is very much identified with New England, and rare is the Massachusetts sub shop which doesn't offer it.

We differ from Philly in that we don't use Cheez-Whiz, and that we do (sometimes) use salami. I think we sort of take the W in that equation, but Philly knows best.

This is another famous sandwich being used for a region that doesn't really have any claim for Steak Bomb dominance. It's just how the map shook itself out. We put the Italian sub up in NE Central Massachusetts because we think- never actually researched- that there are more Eye-tal-yans up there.

We even moved the Bomb down into the sections of Bristol County that the turkeys and the Portagees didn't claim.

NW/CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS... THE MEATBALL SUB

Meatball, Italian and Steak/Cheese could have gone in any order. The Meatball Sub was sort of driven out into the deep sticks by the other two, but that doesn't mean that we have any less love for it. The sub in this picture ended up in my tummy.

There aren't any large concentrations of Italians out in the western part of the state, so why not call it a nice place for New York hero ideas to blend with Massachusetts sub themes?

At worst, even at some dumpy Deerfield sandwich shop, you should be able to get a tolerable meatball sub. Learn to live with it. The original, rough draft of this article had "Something you killed yourself" for everything west of Worcester.

If you want to push the issue, we'd include Chicken, Veal and Eggplant parmesan subs as well in this category.

It sort of serves as the de facto resting place for Hamburgers, too.

SW/CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS... THE PB&J

The main idea in this section is that the UMass-Amherst area should get dibs on the classic broke-kid sandwich.

The PB&J should probably be the top sandwich in every region of the state, because Children. We kept moving her west, however... but she went no further than Amherst.

I'm tempted to pay homage to Springfield and Holyoke's Latino population with some sort of ethnic sandwich... but, yo, PB&J!

They weren't far from getting Venison, so they should be happy with every kid's fave!

Peanut butter and jelly, her inventor unknown, was first suggested as a pairing for a sandwich  by Julia Davis Chandler in 1901 in the Boston Cooking-School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics.

SOUTHERN BERKSHIRES... GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH

Our tendency to outsource kid sandwiches to the western regions continues.

Much like the PB&J, the Grilled Cheese is probably consumed more in the North Shore than the Roast Beef sandwich which the region is known for. It tends to be the first cooked-sandwich that a kid learns how to make.

The GC may have indeed toppled a heavyweight in the East if it were something that you order in a deli. It is a Kid's Menu favorite in family restaurants all around New England, but it heads out to the Berkshires in these rankings.

We were going to link an Epic Meal Time video about Grilled Cheese here, but they put McDoubles and Jagermeister into theirs... which is cool, but not representative of local culinary preferences.

NORTHERN BERKSHIRES... THE HAM AND CHEESE SANDWICH

"Get the cheese and the bread for the ham."

The ham and cheese is the last major sandwich to make this list.

It may also be the most boring sandwich beyond Tuna Fish and (unfried) Bologna. Perhaps the first choice of nobody, it still stops short of being the last resort.

We also have it here as a landmark. Once you have H&C on the menu, you really do have the basics of a sub shop menu completed. We've missed a few (see "Notable Exceptions," below), some of them important, but you would have the basics handled.

I've been disrespecting the Ham... its the #2 sandwich in America, trailing only turkey.

DEEP IN THE SWAMPS AND HIGH IN THE HILLS... FRIED BOLOGNA

This is an Appalachian-born sandwich, and it works up the mountain chains into the Bay State.

I put it out here because you get the sense that it might be someone's Christmas dinner once you get into those mountain towns.

This sandwich is very popular throughout Massachusetts, a sort of Poor Man's Pastrami.

It is a Swamp Yankee treat of the highest order.

Notable Exceptions, or sandwiches that didn't get a region:

Tuna Fish

BLT

Cuban Sandwich

Dunkin' Donuts Breakfast Sandwich

Sausage And Peppers

The Elvis (PB & banana)

Chicken Salad

American

Egg Salad

Vegetarian

Seafood Salad

Corned Beef

Buffalo Chicken

Bratwurst

Butter Sandwich

Taco/Burrito/Enchilada

Jam Sandwich

Pulled Pork

Miracle Whip Sandwich

Chicken Cutlet

French Dip

Filet-o-Fish style sandwiches

Sloppy Joe/Manwich

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.

Shadowy, Baseless Dominique Easley Speculation

A few thoughts about the release of New England Patriots DL Dominque Easley:

- Dom has an extensive injury history. He's wrecked both of his knees, has never finished an adult season healthy, and will now be someone else's problem.

- Perhaps the Pats had a look at his knees, saw something they couldn't stand, and bailed out early.

- Dominque is Easley the worst draft pick of the 2010s for Bill Belichick.

- He just converted to Islam last month. Perhaps he either turned up on the wrong Homeland Security list, or the FBI came calling about his activities? This is our wildest guess, it is an ugly guess, and I have no reason to believe it's true. We're just kicking up ideas here following the unexpected release of a 23 year old kid ranked 12th in the NFL at his position by Pro Football Focus.

- I do wonder if, when you release a player who has the FBI calling about him, you are obligated to tell potential suitors about it... kinda like when you buy a house that someone died in?

- Belichick has determined that not only will Donald Trump win the election, but that Trump will deport Muslims once he is President.

- He was in Miami on the night of the Tray Walker accident, and is often mentioned as the Patriots player that the police were interested in speaking with. After the Hernandez circus, they can't afford to have a second player turn up in a trial.

- Various player movements could speak of the Pats going back to a 3-4 defense.  If the knee won't hold up on a 3-4 D-Line and he's too hobbled to play LB, there's not much we can do with him.

- Belichick's legal people found a mistake in the wording in the penalty issued by the NFL over Deflategate which says they have to give up a first round draft pick... but not which first round draft pick.

- Dominique is somehow able to suffer knee injuries while playing Madden.

- Easley is an avid motorcycle guy with a clause in his contract prohibiting motorcycles. The Pats found out and stand a chance of getting out of a first-rounder contract with an oft-injured player.

- Check that... he likes regular bikes.

Death Row? Dividing The Scenic Highway...

The Scenic Highway in Bourne may be undergoing some major changes, according to Wicked Local Sandwich.

The Scenic Highway, as you know, is the 4.5 mile section of Route 6 that runs along the Cape Cod Canal between the Bourne Bridge and the Sagamore Bridge in mainland Bourne. It eventually becomes the Cranberry Highway, but that's Wareham's problem.

The Scenic Highway's problem is that it is undivided. The only things stopping you from using all four lanes to weave through summer traffic are Law and Imagination. The potential for head-on collisions is staggering. The downhill/northbound part just before the Herring Run rest area traffic lights might be the worst section of road on Cape Cod in a snowstorm.

Why, just yesterday, I saw a northbound fuel truck with 55000 gallons of gasoline pass within one nanometre of a southbound 18 wheeler truck entirely devoted to delivering Bic lighters to various liquor and convenience stores in the area. The potential explosion would have flattened Buzzards Bay and took down the Bourne Bridge. A nanometre is a unit of measurement equivalent to one billionth of a metre.

It's only a matter of time before we have some terrible accident like that, or one like the rejected-by-staff example where an unfortunate collision causes a truck full of liquid nitrogen to disgorge into a bus full of of church-picnic nuns and orphans. When the accident does happen, people are going to look back and ask "What could have been done to prevent this?"

One thing that we could do involves Jersey Barriers. Now, you should already know that a Jersey Barrier is not when a corpulent Governor puts a bunch of DPW trucks on the one bridge leading in to your town. No, these are modular concrete or plastic barriers used to divide traffic lanes.

Laying a line of these things down the Scenic Highway would vastly lower the chance of head-on crashes, the big killer of the Oops industry. The police, who have to clean these messes up, agree. When asked about the environmental impact of the Jersey Barriers, one Bourne cop told WLS to "paint it green."

Speaking of green, those barriers don't just sprout up on their own. Funding would be needed, not an easy thing to get these days. They're already talking about a permatax (in the form of a toll) on any third bridge project.

Patrick Ellis, a Sandwich selectman who has run a business in the area for years, also sits as the Upper Cape representative on the Metropolitan Planning Organization. He thinks that getting the project on the Transportation Improvement Program will open up the possibility of federal funding.

Granted, we still have to pay for federal funding stuff via taxes, but it's a much larger pool of "we" when we go national instead of local.

I'm not sure if we could get the fancy, HOV lane style of movable Jersey barriers. I'm not sure if they'd help at all, to be honest. Our worst traffic jams seem to be when the traffic is coming fro all directions, anyhow.

There would be a learning curve. People may also get a bit gun-shy when driving near barriers. Many people think that the prominent sidewalk is what slows down traffic on the bridges.

 Either way, you'll be hearing about the Jersey barrier idea again, and it may become a fact of life in the upcoming years.

Regionalizing Southeastern Massachusetts

Life should be easier. That said, there sure are a lot of towns in Massachusetts. I'm not even considering the irrelevant parts out past Worcester. Eastern Massachusetts is bad enough.

I grew up in Duxbury, and eventually moved to Monponsett. Prior to my move to Monponsett, I had never heard of Monponsett. You could write that off to me being a moron, and you wouldn't be the first... but it also speaks to the theory that there are too many towns in eastern Massachusetts for a reasonable man to keep track of.

It didn't used to be this way. Various kings of England didn't have the ability to commit memorization time to all of those piddling towns in the Massachusetts swamps. The king was a busy man, and needed his memory for more pressing matters. Memory is finite. If a man who is obliged to breed within a limited pool of people knows where Rehoboth is, it means that he may not know who that pretty girl at his coronation is. He might mess around with the royal scepter and become his own uncle or something.

You are most likely playing for lower stakes than that, but it's still a pain if you have some auto parts or pizza or something to deliver, and neither you nor your GPS can really say whether you are in Marion, Wareham or Mattapoisett.

How would Henry VII handle that problem? Simple. Eliminate some variables, just like one of those mathematician guys. You gotta know stuff like that to be the king.

A man doesn't have to know where Wareham or Marion is if Wareham and Marion don't exist. Call the whole area "Rochester"... yeah, that's the ticket. This also saves a monarch the bother of learning how to spell "Mattapoisett." Just think regional.

Similar regional logic applied around the area eliminates bothersome memory issues in town-sized hunks. Not sure where Mansfield is? Sha-ZAM!!! No more Mansfield. Think that Cape Cod has too many towns? Ka-POW!!! Not any more.

Queen Anne probably didn't spend part of her thirties pumping gas, so I assume that she most likely had more on the ball than your faithful author here does. When she thought about her Massachusetts colonies, how did she visualize them?

This map may help:

We use the same basic map to describe this website's coverage area, although we refuse to give up Weymouth and Hull. I've had some luck dating in Weymouth, and Hull is just too damn cool to give up without a war. We even claim parts of Quincy. If the website makes more money or if we get an eager and well-located intern, we'll include the Islands.

This map of Plymouth Colony is very concise. 17 towns fill up what is now Plymouth, Britsol and Barnstable Counties. Bristol County has 20 towns today. It gets bothersome quickly. Honestly, can you really tell me where Berkley is? (Editor's Note: South Coast readers can substitute "Rockland" or "Holbrook" for "Berkley") You can see why the royals did what they did.

Would this work today?

Some problems do show up immediately. I'm sure that Brockton residents would love paying for Duxbury Beach seawall repairs. Padanaram residents would most likely not align politically with the meaner parts of Fall River. Plymouth seems too big, as does Middleboro, Dartmouth and Taunton. Governance of these areas would be unwieldy at best.

Other things stand out when pondering a shift to colonial-era town maps:

- Freetown, a backwater these days, is one of the Big 17 in this alternate reality. Rehoboth also seems to have extraordinary influence.

- Freetown (and parts of Fall River and Assonet) was purchased from the Wampanoags for "20 coats, two rugs, two iron pots, two kettles, one little kettle, eight pairs of shoes, six pairs of stockings, one dozen hoes, one dozen hatchets, and two yards of broadcloth."

-  Plymouth looks a bit like Brazil.

- Scituate and Duxbury both enjoy a unique status as America's first suburbs. Building there was most likely spurred by the Great Colonial Hurricane... which is too bad, because we liked the idea of Duxbury being founded because 1636 Plymouth was getting just a little bit too crowded for one Myles Standish.

- Cape Cod is reduced to five towns with this map... Eastham, Sandwich, Barnstable, Yarmouth and Falmouth.

- Swansea, a tiny town these days, was also tiny then. They would have nearly doubled in size if a dispute with Rhode Island was worked out in their favor. They were also serving as a buffer zone with the Wampanoag-dominated area of Mount Hope, sort of a colonial Latvia.

- I'm not sure how they had the Worcester area worked out, but let the record show that Southboro was (and still is) north of Middleboro.

- The Mayor of Duxbury Beach claims rulership over Duxbury and all lands west to (and including) Bridgewater State University. She refuses to accept the various actions of incorporation of the western towns.

- Brockton used to be part of Duxbury.

- I think that Marshfield's borders have been unchanged since a 1640 dispute with Duxbury over Green Harbor was ironed out.

- Taunton could have built a Norton/Easton/Mansfield-sized casino within their original borders.

- Route 3 would have touched Scituate in this political (map) climate.

April Storm Tide, Final Snow Of Season?

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.

South Coast-al Flooding Tonight, Snow Saturday Night?

It sure has been a wild weather week, and it will only get worse as we head through the weekend.

Remember, it snowed earlier this week. That was an April snow, and it was a top 20 event for April snow in some locales. We then ad our temperatures plunge, which also approached some records. After that, the wind kicked in.

I'm watching a tree in my neighbor's yard, and it looks 50/50 on toppling. I'm sort of East of it, and it looks like it will topple North. If this column ends suddenly on, that's probably what happened.

We have a Gale Warning for the ships at sea, and a Wind Advisory for the landlubbers. Winds will gust from the S/SW near 50 MPH today through about 9 PM or so. This wind could take down some tree limbs and cause isolated power outages. It would be worse if there was snow, but we'll get to snow in a moment.

We also have a Coastal Flood Advisory for south-facing beaches and the people who love them. High tides will be between 8:30 and 9:30 for most spots. This is the spring new moon tide, always trouble for anyone on the coast, especially if there is a big wind.

Minor to moderate coastal flooding is possible, as the winds are really making the seas angry, my friend. This flooding won't knock down your house, but it can still cause all sorts of trouble. a 2 foot storm surge is possible, thanks to Wendy Gust.

As always, we do try to remind coastal residents in our coverage area to never do yard work until (at the earliest) late April. Having to hustle to get the yard ready for Mother's Day or Memorial Day sucks, but it's harder to do the job twice when we get one of those Ides Of April storms.

After that, we get a night's rest, and then we can start worrying about the snow that may be coming Saturday night. One of those Alberta Clipper things will streak south of us, and her northern fringe may put us in the powder on April friggin' 9th.

It may start as rain, but it should turn to snow as the storm pulls away from 'Murica and the cold air piles in behind it. We could be in the 20s overnight Saturday.

Opening Day at ol' Fenway is Monday. The Boston Marathon is a week from Monday.

This won't be a snowstorm that buries you to the point where somebody has to go get a St. Bernard dog. It would most likely be a coating to an inch, and that indeterminate total will mostly fall south of Boston.

The snow, should we get it, would be notable more for her timing than her ferocity. We're taking April 9th into April 10th, folks. Wishing for a beach day, getting a snow day.... ayup.

Here's a forecast map of the Clipper going off the coast on Saturday, with most of MA already getting snow: