The Gulf Stream, a strong ocean current that lifts warm water from the Gulf of Mexico up and east into the North Atlantic, has been weakening under the influence of climate change, leaving toasty tides that should be in Europe instead lingering along America’s East Coast. It sits at the nexus of several climate-change-driven forces that are colliding with increasing frequency. New England, though, is uniquely positioned to lose its frozen flakes. And northerly countries such as Iceland have begun to hold funerals for glaciers felled by the planet’s implacable heat.įrom the January 1995 issue: In praise of snow In the American West, typically snowcapped mountains are bare, depriving the drought-prone region of water. Nowhere is warming faster than the Arctic, where sea ice continues to vanish at alarming rates, imperiling countless creatures that need it to survive.
Growing frostlessness is hardly just a New England problem. In the American Northeast, an iconically winter-loving part of the world, the rapid loss of snow may deliver a particularly harsh blow-and serve as a bellwether for some of climate change’s most visible effects worldwide. Should that trend continue through the next hundred years, snow may someday cover New England’s landscape for only about six weeks a year, about half the norm of recent decades. Studies from Contosta and others have shown that, over the past century, climate change has cleaved about three weeks off of snow’s typical tenure in the Northeast. The northeastern swath of the United States and the ocean waters around it have become two of the world’s fastest- warming places-a trend that’s “most pronounced during winter,” says Alix Contosta, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of New Hampshire. The problem, of course, is that winters in Boston, and the rest of New England, have gotten decidedly too mild. If you’d told me at the time that Boston winters would get only milder as the years wore on, I honestly might have said, “Great.” And I, a born-and-bred Californian, absolutely hated it. It was an epic winter, New England at its picturesque best. The city eventually ran out of places to dump the piles of snow-prompting then-Mayor Marty Walsh to consider throwing it all into the harbor like so much British tea. Dogs began to summit snowbanks to break out of fenced-in yards a homegrown Yeti appeared to help locals shovel. Schools racked up so many snow days that some had to extend the academic year.
Public transportation morphed into a hellscape. It was 2015, the year the city broke its all-time record for annual snowfall: 110.3 inches, more than twice the average. Scenario with a rain/snow line farther south– there will be plenty to watch in the days to come.My first winter in Boston, the last patches of snow on my street didn’t melt until late June. Couple this with another storm midweek next week – perhaps a slightly colder The worst impact of the storm will be overnight Sunday night, though the morning commute Monday very well may be impacted by rain and snow as the storm starts its exit.
(Graphic courtesy of NBC10) (Graphic courtesy of NBC10)Īlthough the weather is expected to quiet Saturday with more clouds than sun and high temperatures in the 30s, another storm will be organizing along the Louisiana Gulf Coast, ready to pull northeast.Ĭhances are good this storm will carry enough warmth that southern New England will see mostly rain when the storm arrives Sunday evening, but northern New England’s ski and snowmobile country is likely to see accumulating snow again. This could add a fresh one to two inches of snow on some spots that would have been snow-free up until then. In terms of timing, rain develops Thursday afternoon southwest to northeast, and slowly transitions to snow Thursday evening and overnight as far south as northern Massachusetts.įarther south (near and south of the MassPike) precipitation is likely to stay as rain overnight tonight into early Friday morning, waiting for a colder north and northwest wind to change leftover pockets of rain to snow throughout southern New England Friday. Though the areas with nothing in the morning will add a bit of snow over the course of the day Friday. There will be a sharp rain/snow line that makes this a high stakes forecast though: a 25- to 30-mile difference in northern Massachusetts with separate snow amounts – from half-a-foot to nothing at all – early Friday morning. With a lack of significant cold air, this storm will have a tough time producing high snowfall totals in much of southern New England. (Danielle Noyes/WBUR)Ī multi-hazard winter storm will continue to move over the Midwest and Great Lakes region Thursday, spreading east towards New England. Facebook Email A screenshot of the forecast for Jan.
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