Nor'easter Update...A Nasty Night
This record breaking Late October Nor'easter is delivering! Parts of the Berkshires have seen 10-20" of snowfall. Peru over 20. Charlemont 16" of snow. Elevations over 2,000 ft have seen the most. Banding of heavier snowfall has been in Southern New Hampshire and Northern Worcester county. Winchendon and Westminster have seen close to 12" of snow. Gardner has 9" and quickly moving towards a foot. Twitter updates have reported numerous accounts of Thundersnow which is elevated convection up in the sky, but delivers intense burst of snowfall. The heavy wet snow is already taking it's toll with power outages which are becoming more and more numerous. Roads are becoming slick without the radiation from the sun. it is advised to stay off the roads this evening.Unfortunately, when this storm is done we will be seeing power outages in number similar to the ice storm of 2008. Luckily, the duration without power should not be as long. As the storm continues to ramp up, Tree Damage and Wind gusts will be similar to that of Tropical storm Irene. Hard to believe this late October storm may end up being one of the larger storms we experience this whole winter!
A State of Emergency has been declared for parts of Massachusetts. This storm is exceeding our earlier estimates in many cases. Snowfall rates have been 1-2" per hour at times. A band of intense snow extends from SW NH into the Berkshires and western CT. As the Low bombs out and tracks SE of Nantucket this band will be crossing the SNE with a final burst of snow through the overnight hours from 12-6 AM. This band will likely be in place right at the coast early tomorrow morning around 4-6 AM with blowing snow and low visibilty....before the snow quickly pulls away after 8 AM. Totals of 12-18" in SW NH to western MA, 8-14+" in Worcester County, 6-12" around 495, 7-9" for the Merrimack Valley, 4-6" around 128 from Newton south towards Providence and Sharon, with 1-3" at the coast, lesser amounts for the south shore...Mainly rain for the Cape & islands,
Winds are picking up this evening at the coast gusting to 40-50 mph on the Cape. A Hurricane Force Wind warning is in place for our outer waters for NE winds 40-55 kts with seas building to 13 to 20 feet. Watch out for Strong NW winds early tomorrow at the Coast...especially the Cape...55-65kts early...diminishing to 35 to 45 kts. Seas 15 to 23 feet off the coast. These will be damaging winds at the coast, and with a brief burst of snow around that time...it may almost be blizzard like early tomorrow at the coast. Sunday will see increasing sunshine, but winds will still be whipping from the NW of ther backside of this low. Heavy wet snow with winds will guarantee we wake up tomorrow with possibly hundreds of thousands of power outages
