Multi Car Collision, Bourne Bridge

7:15 PM, head on crash, foot of the Bourne Bridge, Cape side.

Sandwich Christmas Lights

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but Sandwich always has excellent individual-effort Christmas lighting.

I don't know who you call to order the 20 foot kid-with-a-triple-scoop Christmas light (I think there is someone on 6A), but the folks at Twin Acres Ice Cream do.

Reindeer are probably an easier score.

There was a guy in Sandwich who did his house up with 30000 lights. This isn't him, but he does have some pretty cool lights.

Unlike the snowman I built Wednesday, ones made of light don't melt.

Snow Overnight, Into Morning Commute

Winter continues to land shots on us early in the season, and never you mind that is 60 degrees as I write this. That's just God being sneaky.

We get snow tonight across our coverage area. This won't be a 20 inch blockbuster storm. No, just 2-4 inches, perfectly timed to screw up your Wednesday morning commute... no matter what time you leave.

This storm will be a rare bird in that SE Massachusetts will bear the brunt of it, while Worcester will just get a dusting.

It does not appear to be a coastal-flooder or a power-outage, uhm, er.

The precipitation should start as we close in on midnight, and snow should be falling during the morning commute. We could get aftersnow for a while, but it should be done around suppertime.

We have the NWS graphic above showing who has a Winter Weather Advisory, and one below showing estimated snowfall amounts through Wednesday.

Here are our local TV channels taking a crack at the forecast...

WBZ

WCVB

WHDH

WFXT

NECN

Why Was Duxbury Playing Springfield?

Duxbury made it to the Super Bowl. They gave their starters a long rest period before the Bowl, absorbing a 43 point whipping for it on Thanksgiving against hated Marshfield.

They had a good team, a good coach and a good program. The kids were well rested, playoff tested and seemed to be peaking at the right time.

So, naturally, they get routed in the Super Bowl. The final score wasn't much different than the score in the Thanksgiving game where they started the JV.

What went wrong?

Duxbury didn't choke, the coach wasn't outsmarted and we were not robbed by the refs. The other team, Springfield Central, didn't cheat. They were the better team.

The big flaw in the equation is "Duxbury vs Springfield Central."

Duxbury is a small town by any measure. There is one stop light in the whole town. There are 15,000 people in town, and the high school (9-12) has about 1000 kids. Most of the town is relatively affluent, and they are as white as a Trump rally.

Springfield has 150,000 diverse people. It is the state's 3rd largest city, trailing Boston and Worcester. There are several high schools in the city, although some are charter schools and Sci-Tech type schools. The Voke-Tech in town is bigger than Duxbury High, as is the Commerce School. Springfield Central, yesterday's opponent, has 2500 kids. It is the largest school in Western Massachusetts.

What in the name of Ditka was Duxbury doing up against a town with 150,000 people?

Duxbury is Division 3. So is Springfield Central. How is this so?

Western Massachusetts is an odd place, and the MIAA has to level everything. Western Mass has Springfield, Holyoke and... and a whole bunch of small towns. I don't mean Duxbury small, I mean "Monroe, pop. 112" small.

Springfield Central doesn't have many equals out there. They have to travel to find competition, taking on big eastern schools like Everett and Catholic Memorial. This article wouldn't exist if the Super Bowl was Central vs Catholic Memorial.

Springfield Central gets a big perk from the MIAA. Eastern Massachusetts is divided into 8 divisions, based on school size. They run 1 through 8. Taunton, which has 2500 kids, is a division 1 school. Hull, which has 389 kids, is Division 8.

Western Massachusetts has 4 groupings... Divisions 3, 5, 7 and 8. There is no Division 1, nor 2.

How can that be, when Central is larger than Division 1 New Bedford?

Central is benefited by a new rule. Urban schools with 50% high need (usually language based) and 40% economically disadvantaged students, or schools scoring 90 combined in these two categories, get a two division handicap. Division 1 schools become Division 3.

Duxbury, who should have been facing Longmeadow or Amherst based on school size, instead got to take on a school with 2500 kids. The result could best be described as a slaughter.

Duxbury, the MIAA would argue, offsets the population gap by A) Duxbury students and the coach all speak English, B) Duxbury kids are more likely to have healthier diets, C) Duxbury kids can afford Pop Warner and football camp, D) Duxbury kids are less likely to drop out and E) Dad is around throughout childhood to play catch.

I'd personally trade that for 300 pounders on the line and sprinter-speed wide recievers and cornerbacks. You can't teach size and speed, and you are more likely to find size and speed if you are choosing from 2500 kids instead off 1000.

I'm sure there are outliers to make a lie of this statement, but I'd rather live in somebody's garage in Duxbury than one of the better houses in Springfield. But if I had a football game to win...

Sh-sh-shakin'... Earthquakes In Massachusetts

Plymouth had an earthquake the other day. It was a minor one, unworthy of action movie heroics. No one was hurt. There are no reports of damage.

Some people felt it, others didn't. One lady in a Plymouth-themed Facebook group said that her house shook, and I also saw a few "Did anyone else just feel that?" posts right around the time the earthquake went down.

I was napping in Buzzards Bay for it, and noticed not a thing. My sleeping through an earthquake would not surprise any of my exes, at least one of whom described yesterday's events to the letter 15 years ago.

"Earthquakes" are not something one would free-associate with "Massachusetts," but we do get them from time to time. The picture at the beginning of the article shows a geological map of Massachusetts. Those different colors are different sorts of rock.

The old "Where does Cape Cod end" argument, if solved geologically, runs it from Wareham to Duxbury Beach.

These rocks once formed a supercontinent named Laurentia. The Berkshires were the outer edge of it. Continental drift rearranged everything, and is still doing so. That process pushes rocks against each other, and that is how earthquakes happen. Keep in mind, I got into journalism as a sportswriter.

Earthquakes happen along fault lines. The picture above shows fault lines in New England. None of our faults are famous like the San Andreas fault.

Plymouth's quake didn't occur on one of these fault lines, although it did occur on the border of the Cape Cod part of the map at the beginning of the article.

Massachusetts has had hundreds of quakes just since 1975, as you can see in that awful screencap at the bottom of the article.

Most were minor, but some were serious. A 1755 quake off Cape Ann shook down chimneys all over New England. She was a 6.2 on the Richter Scale. The 1700s were an active time for earthquakes.

Southeastern Massachusetts has had minor but noticeable earthquakes in 1847, 1876, 1925, 1940 and 1965. They tend to be centered around Cape Cod and the South Coast.

Massachusetts tends to get a major quake every 1000 years. 1755 may have been it, so we're most likely off the hook for a while.

Surf Check: Cape Cod

The Cape's first real snow of the year merits a surf check, even if coastal flooding was not expected. 

This is especially true if you go at low tide, like we did.

I work for a church in December, it lowers my availability, which is why we went to weaker-surf beaches at low tide rather than superheavyweights like Eastham or Duxbury at high tide.

We started at Town Neck Beach in Sandwich. We were also shooting from the Drunken Seal, because reasons.

Since we were in the neighborhood, we also checked out Sagamore Beach.

Nothing catastrophic, but a nice mini road trip.

Note the difference between Sagamore Beach, above, and Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, below.

Sunday Through Tuesday Nor'easter

A lengthy Nor'easter takes December in like a lion.

The fun should start about mid afternoon as snow. The Cape and the immediate coastlines of the South Shore and South Coast should change to rain rather quickly. This will wash away the snow.

Where it doesn't turn to rain, and this is the tricky part of the forecast, accumulation will be impressive.

New Bedford might have no snow at all by Monday, while Taunton may have 4 inches.

The rainy areas may get into the snow as the storm pulls away. We call this "aftersnow," although real meteorologists probably use a different term.

Power outages are a threat, as winds will be strong enough to down tree limbs.

Coastal flooding will be a concern, as we should have a long period of ENE winds. Tides are astronomically low, which will be a saving grace.

Here's what our local weather stations are saying:

WBZ

WCVB

WHDH

WFXT

NECN