Storm of the Century: Powerful October Nor'easter destined to rewrite history books?

 

October 28, 2011 –  BOSTON, MA. – A major nor’easter is about to pound southern New England with heavy rain, snow and wind. In more than 100 years of record keeping in Boston the most snow the city has ever seen in the month of October is 1.1 inches, six years ago on October 29, 2005. This storm is almost certain to be one for the record books in all of southern New England. The precipitation will begin Saturday afternoon between 3 and 5 p.m., as mainly rain for all of eastern Massachusetts, a mix in higher elevations to the west. The intensity of the precipitation will increase rapidly over the next several hours and the rain-snow line will collapse to the south and east as colder air is drawn into the deepening storm on shifting winds to the north. By midnight, it will be snowing just about everywhere with the exception of southeastern Mass. where it will continue to rain very heavily. The rain-snow line will collapse further southeast to around the Cape Cod Canal in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning before the storm system pulls away and the precipitation shuts off just after dawn. This storm will be so intense it should be able to overcome these typical October atmospheric issues and draw down very cold air from aloft. The highest snow totals will be in the higher elevated areas including Worcester County, southwestern New Hampshire, the Berkshires and many of the mountains of central and northern New England. These areas, above 1,000 feet in elevation could easily see 6-to-10 inches of snowfall from this event. Areas closer to Interstate 495 would likely fall in the 3-to-6 inch range and closer to the coast including the city of Boston 1-to-3 inches. These totals could shift based upon the timing of the rain-snow change, if it occurs faster in eastern Massachusetts the totals could go higher. -CBS

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