A beautiful – but quite cold – weekend is followed by a multi-day nor’easter.
Low temperatures will again remain single digit this morning in Southeast New England, making it the first back-to-back single digit days since January 30 and January 31, 2019.
But at least the wind is relaxing as we warm up to nearly 20 degrees in southern New England this afternoon.
There is plenty of sunshine except in the northern mountains where we have clouds and gusts, and on the outside of Cape Cod also with clouds and gusts.
High pressure is moving right above us tonight, making for a big, beautiful, bright moon and the planets and stars should look beautiful with a clean, dry mass of air.
Again, you’ll want to build up a layer when you go for a walk outdoors, with temperatures dropping to the single digits in the south on a Sunday morning and well below zero in the north.
Dr. Ali Raja, of the Mass. General Hospital, says when it gets that cold, it’s surprising how quickly hypothermia can set in.
‘I like the cold. I’m okay with the cold, ”said Ron Ribitzky, Newton resident, who stood in line at the checkout at Harvey’s Ace Hardware in Needham so he could grab ice for the nor’easter.
“It’s New England in the winter, so I’m not surprised,” said Needham’s Jessica Tolman.
The wind chill could not deter Mia Daoust from her afternoon run.
“The first three kilometers were pretty cold, but now I’m warming up,” she said.
Daoust runs in light clothes in this cold weather, and she says it’s more fun than it looks.
“I quite like it while running. You don’t get too hot and it’s easier to breathe, ”she said.
But this type of freezer can quickly become a medical emergency for anyone, said Dr. Ali Raja of Massachusetts General Hospital.
“When it gets that cold, it’s surprising how quickly hypothermia can occur,” he said. “Even a few minutes outside without exposed skin and without enough warm clothing can result in a drop in body temperature.”
The city of Boston opened a dozen heating centers this weekend to help combat the cold. They close at 6pm every night
The bitter cold caused Boston to deep freeze on Friday with temperatures barely in double digits.
Weather-wise, however, Sunday looks great, with lots of sun and light winds. High temperatures reach the teens in the north and 20s in the south with increasing cloud cover in the afternoon.
The storm system that dropped 8 feet of snow on Mammoth Mountain in California will cross the country and will be at our doorstep Monday morning.
At that point, it will snow heavily from Philadelphia to New York City, with a wall of moderate to heavy snow falling from south to north in southern New England.
We’ll probably get a few inches of snow in the first few hours before turning to rain along the coast at Cape Cod.
For most of central and southern New England, it looks like an eight to 10 hour tire with heavy snowfall later Monday through early Tuesday, so it’s likely 8-10 inches of snowfall – for an early rough estimate.
Low pressure will move from Pennsylvania and then re-develop south of Long Island, slowly tracking down to near Nantucket.
An upper level layer will kick overhead with several surface low pressure systems lapping south to north through the Gulf of Maine. That means tires with heavy snowfall, with rain on the coast from Tuesday day and into the evening.
The coastal wind from the east and northeast will blow past 80 kilometers per hour on Monday evening and Tuesday evening. There is a chance of a lighter wind from south Boston to Cape Cod Tuesday with temperatures jumping to nearly 40 degrees and snow turning to drizzle.
Otherwise, snow tires will continue further inland on Tuesday, with the heaviest accumulation at the moment in the mountains of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
There may be a gap in the center of precipitation, with smaller amounts in southern Vermont, western Massachusetts, and western New Hampshire. But for much of New England, we can end up with a 10-20 inch of snowfall – where it all stays snow.
The wind will be returning from the north on Tuesday evening, with perhaps icy conditions returning all the way to the southern and eastern coastline. Wednesday is probably a cold gray day for a little sunshine Thursday. On Thursday evening, a warm front provides a mixture of rain and snow, followed by a major warm-up late in the week with possibly heavy rain showers towards next weekend.
It’s a very busy 10-day forecast from First Alert.