Since my first one last year was a dud, I write from amid a true Nor’easter – this time I’m riding it out in Norwich, Connecticut. As of Sunday evening, it’s basically over: roads plowed, driveways shoveled, snowmen built. It’s been nearly 2 years since this caliber of storm impacted the Northeast, which probably led to some of the added hype that I felt from watching the Weather Channel. But as far as I could tell from my position, this was handled as a routine winter storm by emergency managers and the general public, which makes sense because it was a fairly typical snow event for the region. The first wave of snow started at 7pm yesterday, dropping 3 inches over a few hours to cover everything in a thick, wet, white blanket. Warmer temperatures overnight changed snow to rain, and I woke up to a scene where the snow blanket was even wetter and had slumped in spots. The winds shifted back to the north and northeast by mid-morning, then another 3 inches of lighter, dryer snow fell throughout the afternoon as the “Nor’easter” pattern took shape. By this evening, the flurries have dwindled as the low pressure center moves away over the ocean.
What surprised me most, in a storm with few surprises, was how accurate the forecasts were, even several days in advance. Meteorologists were in agreement that the freezing line would likely follow Interstate 95 (not because the highway affects the weather, of course, but because it happens to follow the boundary between the coastal plain and Appalachian foothills), where areas south and east of the I-95 corridor would primarily experience rain and areas merely 30 miles inland could see 8-12 inches of snow. The second phase of the storm had slightly more uncertainty, dependent on the rotation of winds to advect moisture from the colder Gulf of Maine back down to southern New England: despite some wavering about the timing of the storm, forecasts accurately captured the sharp difference between areas north and west of Boston that received upwards of a foot versus all points south that received only a couple of inches. All told, the snow totals, type of precipitation, windspeed and direction, and timing of the storm were well-forecasted and communicated in an operable way.
Edit, a week later on January 13th: It turns out that the effects of a Nor’easter can be felt for several days after the fact. When the next low pressure system came on Tuesday night, bringing 2-3 inches of rain and 40+ mph winds with warm temperatures, all the snow melted and caused extensive flooding of low-lying areas across the region, including just a couple miles down the hill where the Yantic River burst through a 19th century dam and flooded Norwichtown. Coastal flooding inundated Portland, ME from the confluence of high tides, snow melt runoff, and storm surge. Even today, our walk around Minuteman NHP in Concord, MA was disrupted by a Concord River flowing several feet over its banks near the Battle Road bridge, the product of a foot of snowmelt plus 4-6 inches of rain from successive storms. These two lows followed similar tracks from SW to NE, but with the jet stream positioned a couple hundred miles farther north, the humid air pulled from over the Gulf Stream carried with it only unseasonable warmth and torrential rain. The fact that the last two winters have brought more moisture in the form of rain and almost no snow is certainly noteworthy, as New England is the fastest-warming area of the United States statistically. Perhaps this is what Nor’easters will look like in the future: with rain in warmer coastal areas and snow only inland or at elevation?
Worldly Observations 