Snow Scenes

There isn't much winter left, so we may as well empty the galleries of anything Winter related.

We had a mild winter, with the Cape getting no real snow at all until February.

We often had to travel to see snow.

We have talked about choosing a city, most likely New Bedford (although the picture above is from Fairhaven), then driving around the city until we find the last snow. The term "fool's errand" comes to mind.

Anyone else in the 70s practice hockey by building a snowman in front of an empty hockey net? No?

I was a clumsy skater at best, and when Bobby Orr had been retired long enough for both a remission of my hero worship and for me to have several growth spurts, my parents put a hoop up in the yard. They had a very adult conversation with me to the effect of "You're our third child. The first one is heading to college.  Hockey gear is expensive. You're growing through two pairs of skates per season. We're moving to a town where the nearest hockey rink is 8 exits away on the highway. You're tall enough to someday get a basketball scholarship. You are through with hockey." I was 7 years old. I nodded assent and began working on my skyhook.

I'm dating myself here, but he looks like a Shmoo.

The Bourne Bridge in any photo adds gravitas, whatever that is.

Just wanted to have some Mattapoisett up in this...

I had to flee the Cape and go to Halifax to get some sledding in.

Not really sure what that is, I liked the duck that was there before better.

I briefly considered the money-making potential of a Slip-n-Slide ride down a snowy pier into Clark's Cove.

My man...

My snow-man...

Snowbirds

A slim snowman

Snow Mommy!

Storm Tonight, And Local Spring Snow History

Prepare yourself now for a bit of wintry weather this evening. 

Snow will arrive in the region later tonight, and it should still be precipitating when you head out to work tomorrow.

We say "precipitating" because we're not 100% sure where the rain/snow line will set up. Generally, the Cape Cod Canal is where it settles, but we won't know for sure until it happens.

Northern Bristol and Plymouth Counties look to get between 6 to 9 inches. Totals will drop as you head south/southeast. 

This is where the snow line gets tricky. Plymouth could have all snow, it could have mostly rain or it could have part of town getting 8 inches while other parts get all rain.

Cape Cod looks to be all rain very quickly. The Cape often gets the snow shaft compared to interior Massachusetts. Of course, Worcester doesn't get beach days, so we tend to get the last laugh.

After this, we are in late winter, and snow becomes a far less likely event.

Late-season snow facts:

- According to WBZ, Boston has had snowfall of 12 inches or more after March 20th once, in 1997. More on that in a sec.  Boston has 6 instances where 6 or more inches of snow fell after March 20th. Worcester has had 12 such events.

- The average date of Boston's last snowfall is March 25th.

- The latest measurable snowfall for Boston was a half inch on May 10th, 1977. The latest we've had non-accumulating snow in Boston was June 10th, 1955.

- This source tells me that New York and Atlanta both have the same day, in different years, for latest snowfall... April 25th.

- Most of New England had frost on August 23rd in 1816, and lake ice was seen around the Bay State into August.. This was due to the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which gave everyone red, smoky skies and drove worldwide temperatures down. New England had her corn crop fail, and all sorts of food prices skyrocketed. June snow fell in some parts of New England. It is known as The Year Without A Summer. They had one period where it went from 95 degrees to 35 degrees in a half day.

- Three late-season snowstorms stand out in our history. One was that May 10th, 1977 one from The Farmer's Almanac. The record is a bit later in the year for the Berkshires. The other late-season trace snow events of note in our history are the ones I was yapping about up above.

- Our second storm of note was the 1997 April Fool's Day Blizzard. Over 25 inches of snow fell on Boston, and coastal flooding tore apart the shoreline.

- Our third late-season storm of note was a 17-21 inch blockbuster that hit Worcester and areas north on April 28th, 1987.

I was a freshman at Worcester State College for that storm, and had just picked up a girl from West Boylston High School for a date... because that's how I rolled in 1987, playboy! We went to a movie, came out, and there were 6 inches of snow on the ground. We had an Italian dinner somewhere, and there was a foot on the ground when we came out of the restaurant.

I had only been driving for a year, and had zero savvy. We nearly hit a plow when we skidded all the way down a hill on Route 9. We also drove into a drift in some guy's yard in Berlin, Massachusetts. It ended well... the homeowner called his sons out to shove my car from the drift, and they came out single file... and each one was bigger than the last. "Don't worry about it, just steer" is how the father replied when I offered to make Katie drive so that I could get out and help shove the car. They literally lifted my car and threw it from the drift.

I got zero (0) play from that date, too. The only time I even got a hug as when we nearly crashed into the plow, and that may have been a case where she was trying to wrestle me into a position where the plow blade hit me first. I really can't blame her.

Anyhow, 17 inches of snow is about as much as we get that late in the year. If you get snow on your lawn after May 10th, you just saw a regional record.

Sledding At Halifax Elementary School

After a bit of snow, we followed the old Iron Maiden advice about Run To The Hills. We just brought sleds.

Halifax was our host. I was a Monponsett kid for a while, so me coming up from the Cape with a child I borrowed in New Bedford isn't really cheating.

Halifax Elementary School was our hill of choice. Not too steep, but good enough for a nice run.

Happy Birthday!

It's not like there aren't hills in New Bedford or Cape Cod, but Halifax is in SE Massachusetts' snow zone, and they had twice as much snow from this storm as New Beffuh or White Florida got.

It's a popular spot, but never overcrowded. It's also where the town blasts off their fireworks, so you know that they are squeezing every bit of fun that they can out of this property.

Yummy Snow Mummy. I saw a few Sled Moms borrow the sled from the kid and take a run themselves.

This lady gets in the story because our kids were sledding together, she witnessed me taking a run, and is my backup when I tell you that no kid got better air off the jump than I did.

I don't have film of the jump, but here is the boss taking a run. I should add that he goes 6'5", 250 lbs, he's in a sled meant for a 5 year old, he says "Fuck!" at one point and then crashes into a toddler.

If you build a snowman and we see it, your snowman is going into Cranberry County Magazine, player.

Ride hard, kid... childhood is but a flash, and pretty soon "going downhill fast" has a more ominous meaning.

Winter In New Bedford

New Bedford has seen a mild winter so far, so there was no chance of us not getting out with the camera when the fluffy fell.

Say what you want about her, but Betty looks nice with a coat of snow.

A bit of snow, a promise to take a kid sledding, a road trip, a camera...

...and New Bedford!

We actually went sledding in Halifax. They had more snow. Beige has some good spots (like this one), but many of the sled runs would end in a fairly busy street. Inner city blues, as Marvin Gaye would say.

Click on any pic to enlarge it.

As long as you lived right across the street and already had the fireplace working, this would be a pretty good spot to get a running start, jump on the sled and do a Slip-n-Slide thing right into Buzzards Bay. Nude, preferably.

New Bedford has probably had a mere 5 inches of snow this winter.

Show me a website administrator who doesn't stop at Southside Annie's for a nice slow glass of Inner Warmth, and I'll show you a website that I won't be visiting, player.

No, I don't shoot pics while driving. That's what the co-pilot is for. I don't drive or do photography well enough to mix the two.

I prefer the big duck that they used to have, but I am decidedly Old School about these things.

January Weather In Eastern Massachusetts

New England is one of those cold places in America. We get a bit spoiled in SE Massachusetts, as our lows aren’t as low as they get further inland. We’re actually the balmy part of New England, which I doubt is of any great comfort to you. 

We stick out in the Atlantic a bit, and the Gulf Stream keeps that water warmer than the land. It moderates our temperature. As cold as our air is right now, there is a touch of Florida to it that is saving us from the true Ice Bowl stuff.

Winter is officially when the axis of the Earth is tilting away from the sun in our hemisphere. Weathermen sometimes call winter the 3 months with the coldest temperatures. Other people go by length of day, vernal equinox dates, animal migrations, and a ton of other omens.

Cold will happily kill you if you don’t protect yourself from it. Humans have an optimal operating temperature in the 90s. We’re not designed (fur, down, blubber) for colder conditions, and we only survive in places like New England or Finland because we’re crafty suckers who figure out stuff like fire and electricity. Without that, we’d be Peopsicles.

How cold does it get around here?

Although it is not Cranberry County (SE Massachusetts), Boston has extensive weather records. Boston is a bit north of Cranberry County, but it also has a more concrete-ish urban heat effect. They are generally just a bit colder than coastal Cranberry County, and warmer than inland Cranberry County.

The same basic logic applies to snowfall, with Boston getting the lesser snow of an East Falmouth rather than the heavier snowfall of an East Bridgewater.

I just happen to have the January weather records for Boston right here. They go back to 1920. Let’s roll through some fun facts, shall we?

– January is the coldest month, with an average high/low temperature range of 36/22. Second coldest? February, follwed by December, March, November, April, and October.

– Rolling through the lowest January temperatures, we get a -2 in 2011, a -7 in 2004, -4 in 1994, 1988 and 1981, and an ungodly -12 in 1957. For highs, we hit 69 degrees in 2007 and a lay-out-and-tan 72 degrees in 1950.

– Boston’s record for coldest high temperature in a January day is 7 degrees. It was -4 that night, so people were happy with the 7. However, the temperature never dropped below 55 degrees on a day in 1950.

– The state in January has an Average Daily High temperature range running from 21.9 degrees in the Berkshires to 29 in Boston to 31 on Martha’s Vineyard.

– The lowest temperature ever recorded in Massachusetts was -37 F, in Chester. Nominally warm states like Arizona, California, Missouri and Mayland have all had colder days than that. California also somehow owns the national snowfall event total record at like 20 feet or something.

– Cape Cod, the South Shore, Bristol County and Boston get, generally, about 2/3 the snow that Worcester gets.

– Average annual snowfall totals (days with at least .1″ of snow, and inches of snow per year) for towns in our area, through 2014:

Boston 22.4 days/43.6″

Boston is our standard, and we’ll lead off with it.

Chatham 11.7 days, 28.9″
Martha’s Vineyard, 9.7 days, 23.6″
Hyannis, 6.1 days, 15.6″

Chatham and Martha are further out into the ocean, and get clipped by storms more than closer-to-the-mainland Hyannis. The totals spike upward when we go to the mainland, although the South Coast is subject to the same Gulf Stream effect that Cape Cod is regarding to moderate temperatures.

Taunton, 10.3 days, 28.0″
New Bedford, 14.7 days, 33.2″
Wareham, 14.3 days, 36.1 inches
Plymouth, 13.1 days, 36.2″
Hingham, 25 days, 47.1″

Hingham’s totals illustrate how the snow is more regular as you move north. Plymouth, Taunton and Wareham (and even the Cape and Islands, once you stare at the numbers a lot) illustrate how, when they do get snow, they tend to get a lot of it. Plymouth gets rain half of the time when Hingham gets snow, but they get more than 2/3 of Hingham’s snow in that same time frame.

Blue Hill, 29.1 days, 62.7 inches
Lowell, 20.3 days, 51.9″
Amherst 16.6 days, 36.9″
East Brimfield, 23.1 days, 59.0″
Worcester, 31.7 days, 64.1″
Great Barington, 22.1 days, 61.0″
Worthington, 52.6 days, 79.7″
Ripton, 366 days, 1968″

Worcester, which is in the hills a bit, is used as the Central Massachusetts benchmark on most news programs. Blue Hill is a mountain, or what passes for a mountain in EMass. Amherst is in the Connecticut River Valley, which gets lower totals than, say, Great Barrington. I’m amazed that there is a need to differentiate between the eastern and western pats of Brimfield, but it probably matters a lot to Brimfieldians. Ripton is a fictional community, so I gave it fictional totals.

– Boston is the windiest of major US cities, with an average wind speed of 12.3 mph.

We’re windier than Chicago, the Windy City, which clocks 10.3 mph. Tornado-ridden Oklahoma City only gets 12.2 mph.

– January snowfall totals in Boston

2016, 9.5″

2015, 34.3″ (February was the backbreaker that year)

2014, 21.8″

2013, 4.8″

2012, 6.8″

2011, 38.3″

2010, 13.2″

2009 23.7″

2007, 1.0″

2005, 43.30″

1996 39.80″

1992, 0.40″

1986, 0.80

1978, 35.90 (that’s BEFORE the Blizzard, btw)

1957, 20.6″ (They also had a 72 degree day that month)

1945, 42.3″

1920, 24.8″

Average winter snowfall per town:

Brockton, 48"
Duxbury, 38"
Somerset 33"
Bourne 30"
Fall River 34"
Attleboro 36"
Eastham 26"
Rockland 47"
Carver 36"
Falmouth 30"
Weymouth 47"
Fairhaven 34"
Rehoboth 33"
Halifax 39"
Provincetown 26"
New Bedford 34"
Cohasset 46"
Kingston 36"
Swansea 36"
Mashpee 24"
Quincy 49"
Middleboro 35"
Westport 33"
Norwell 44"

A Hazy Shade Of Winter

Look around, leaves are brown, there's a patch of snow on the ground....