By James M. Arnold, Weather Specialist
What a turn-around! From a crippling storm to likely a small accumulation and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was only a dusting in our local area. There were a number of things that went wrong with how I thought this forecast would turn out and an error analysis has identified some of them. First of all, the GFS (U.S. model) performed very well, beating the European model in this situation. The new, improved U.S. super computer did a great job and fooled many of us. The atmosphere also didn’t fully cooperate, but it is not supposed to. The major differences in what I saw and what actually happened were that the east coast trough will not became negatively tilted. That would have kept the storm system closer to the coast and helped to throw the snow shield over us. The second major thing that did not happen was that the two energy packages will not “phase” or join to form a much more formidable storm system until it is too far out to sea (if then) to bring a major storm to our area.
The bottom line is that we have dodged a major bullet. As mentioned above, we may still see some snow late tomorrow or tomorrow night but nothing very much. Unless things change a lot from what they appear to be right now the Shrewsbury area will likely see an inch or two at most and if the more southern and eastern storm track trend continues we could only see a dusting. The good news is that spring returns during the second half of next week. There will be a few chances for some showers, but no general organized rainfall for the foreseeable future. Temperatures will rise into the 40s Tuesday, the 50s Wednesday, the low 60s Thursday and could make a run at 70° Friday if there is a good supply of sun.
James M. Arnold is a Weather Specialist working with Shrewsbury Emergency Management Agency; town of Princeton; Worcester Emergency Communications and Emergency Management Agency; Southborough Emergency Management Agency; town of Grafton and Wachusett Mountain Ski Area