Weekend weather, icicles and flamingo, and when the pass closes

Flamingo Under Icicles, North Amherst MA
Photo by S. Vardatira, 2/12/2015

For whatever gut-feeling reason, I've been holding off on passing along weekend storm forecasts for our region until the picture became clearer.  Because the impact of this storm varies significantly depending on where you are, this is one of those situations when it's important to keep in mind who is forecasting and for what areas. All this to say that it’s now clear that the weekend storm will have the greatest impact on coastal areas – here in Amherst, we are going to get VERY cold over the next day, and we will get (relative to northeast coastal areas from Boston and north) a modest amount of snow overnight Saturday into Sunday, probably about 3-6 inches.  Nothing to lose your mind about, even with all the snow already on the ground. So here’s what to expect over the coming weekend and slightly beyond:

• Arctic air and dangerous wind chills overnight on Friday to Saturday, between -15 to -20 F. This is a good night for staying indoors by the fireplace and/or tending the wood stove.
• Possible wind gusts of 45-50 mph late Saturday through Sunday.
• 3-6" (maybe 8"?) of snow overnight from Saturday through Sunday.
• Some of the coldest air of the season in the wake of the weekend storm. We are likely to see wind chill values of -15, with -25 F in higher terrain. Low temperatures (not wind chill) will be well below zero for most locations with highs struggling to get into the teens. Expect more wind chill headlines.
• Possibility of another snow event mid-week, though it’s too early to tell how that will shake out for Western MA.

That’s not nothing, but the hysteria you are hearing applies mostly to the coastal areas of Massachusetts, Cape Cod, New Hampshire, and Northeastern Connecticut, where they will be getting blizzard conditions, coastal flooding near the shore, and high winds (even possibly near-hurricane-force winds) late Saturday afternoon through Sunday, along with anywhere from 8-18 inches of snow over the weekend. And they really don’t need any more snow added to the snowpack already on the ground. Again, for the coastal areas, we are seeing a surface low - situated roughly 50-100 miles northeast of Provincetown MA around midday Sunday – with a central pressure that is typically observed with Category 2 hurricanes! This signifies the possibility of extremely dangerous winds which can cause structural damage and widespread power outages. Hurricane-force winds are not out of the question and certainly possible across eastern and southeastern coastal New England, especially Cape Ann/Cape Cod, around Sunday midday. But remember, that is NOT here in Amherst.

I would advise anyone in Western Massachusetts to put off traveling to Boston until spring sets in – all (probably exaggerated) reports from the area suggest that Boston neighborhoods are awash in walls of snow, the streets are impassable, the T has mostly come to a halt, and the entire city will soon be completely cut off from civilization. It’s akin to the “pass closing” in that (arguably awful) movie musical from my childhood, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. What I remember most clearly is the moment the lovingly kidnapped women all screamed, in unison, creating an avalanche of snow that cut off – for the entire winter! - the townspeople from the mountain cabin the young women were being whisked away to. Though the whole premise of the musical (a family of dancing and singing, rough-hewn parentless brothers kidnapping dancing, singing, and romantically silly women to be their eventual brides) is truly horrifying to my adult sensibilities now, as a child it was that moment of “closing the pass” that made the biggest impression – I wanted that “closing the pass” experience, minus the dancing men and women. I was, truth be told, weather-obsessed from a young age. In this part of the world it is almost never the case that anyone is truly cut off from anywhere for an entire winter, or even a few days, for that matter. And as appealing as it may sound  in some sort of hypothetical, Hollywood musical way, the one recent time we came close to that around here, during the October 2011 Halloween storm, it turned out to be a lot less fun than Seven Brides for Seven Brothers made it out to be.

Earlier this week I fleetingly had – and then suppressed - the urge to write a comedic bit on how folks in Boston and the Cape should probably evacuate ahead of this storm. I thought better of doing that because, in truth, it sounds incredibly challenging and very likely dangerous if you have to go anywhere, if the power goes out, and if the ocean comes to your front door.  

Here’s hoping that if you ever find yourself in a weather-event where the metaphorical “pass” closes you off from civilization, you are trapped in a solid, heated, weather-proof house with a highly entertaining (and ultimately polite) group of dancing and singing companions. 

And may you have your own room to escape to when the singing gets to be too much.