The average high temperature in June in Boston is 77ºF.
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Has it been a cold, wet spring, or what?
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Category Archives: weather
Boring weather, San Francisco style
There’s hardly anything I can add to this, except that I hope the folks up in Boston enjoy their heat wave…
Tonight Patchy Fog Lo 50 °F |
Thursday Patchy Fog Hi 65 °F |
Thursday Night Patchy Fog Lo 50 °F |
Friday Patchy Fog Hi 62 °F |
Friday Night Patchy Fog Lo 50 °F |
Saturday Patchy Fog Hi 65 °F |
Saturday Night Patchy Fog Lo 51 °F |
Thunder
A thunderstorm is passing overhead. A flash of lightning, mostly obscured by the trees is closely followed by a loud crack and a persistent roll of thunder. Amber, who the moment before had been sleeping by my side, is instantly alert. His head jerks up. His eyes are wide; his pupils, dark. His ears antenna in all directions. The sound passes. Amber rests his head on his paws again.
I suddenly understand that wherever we get this fear of lightning and thunder from, it’s very deep and very ancient.
Thunderstorms, anyone?
Does anyone else but me find this thumbnail forecast amusing?
7-DAY FORECAST
Newton Center, MA
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Date
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Forecast
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Hi
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Lo
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POP
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Tue Jun 17
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Isolated T-Storms
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77°F
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54°F
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30%
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Wed Jun 18
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Isolated T-Storms
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70°F
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53°F
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30%
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Thu Jun 19
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Isolated T-Storms
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74°F
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56°F
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30%
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Fri Jun 20
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Isolated T-Storms
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75°F
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57°F
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30%
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Sat Jun 21
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Isolated T-Storms
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81°F
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62°F
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30%
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Sun Jun 22
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Scattered T-Storms
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82°F
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61°F
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40%
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Mon Jun 23
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Isolated T-Storms
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82°F
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61°F
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30%
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Notice the subtle difference between “Isolated T-storms” and “Scattered T-storms”. You think they can really tell whether next Saturday will have a 30% or 40% probability of precipitation? But in any case, I guess we’re in for a few thunderstorms…
Oh beautiful!
We’ve been waiting, it seems, for decades until this winter should be over. Even the filth left by the melting snow of the last few days was welcome.
Today, I rushed out early to do my numerous errands because the National Weather Service was predicting snow. God help us. More snow. The morning was lovely. Over 40 degrees and with the promise that the raw earth would melt not long after the snow. By 3pm, it was snowing. Margot and I burrowed inside the house.
Two hours ago, thunder filled the air. The temperature has dropped more than twenty degrees. The wind has claimed the corridor of the street. It does not rattle the windows and doors. It roars its supremacy like an express engine on its track from Alberta to Oklahoma. Snow is piling on every ledge of window frame, grinding into the fabric of the screens. The air is white with snow. The woods, the streets, the neighboring houses, all fade into uncertainty in the face of so much energy.
This is not a storm. This is an elemental force.
Life is good.
The Blizzard of 05?
Here is the National Weather Service alert: (Bold highlighting is mine)
SEVERE WEATHER ALERT FOR NEWTON, MA
Blizzard Warning – URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR SOUTHEAST MIDDLESEX COUNTY VALID FROM SAT JAN 22 2005 05:50 PM EST UNTIL SUN JAN 23 2005 01:27 AM EST.
BARNSTABLE MA-BLOCK ISLAND RI-BRISTOL RI-CENTRAL MIDDLESEX COUNTY MA- DUKES MA-EASTERN ESSEX MA-EASTERN KENT RI-EASTERN NORFOLK MA- EASTERN PLYMOUTH MA-NANTUCKET MA-NEWPORT RI-NORTHERN BRISTOL MA- NORTHWEST PROVIDENCE RI-SOUTHEAST MIDDLESEX MA- SOUTHEAST PROVIDENCE RI-SOUTHERN BRISTOL MA-SOUTHERN PLYMOUTH MA- SOUTHERN WORCESTER MA-SUFFOLK MA-WASHINGTON RI-WESTERN ESSEX MA- WESTERN KENT RI-WESTERN NORFOLK MA-WESTERN PLYMOUTH MA- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF … ATTLEBOROUGH … BARNSTABLE … BARRINGTON … BEVERLY … BOSTON … BRISTOL … BROCKTON … BROOKLINE … CAMBRIDGE … FALL RIVER … FALMOUTH … FRAMINGHAM … FRANKLIN … GLOUCESTER … LAWRENCE … LOWELL … LYNN … MILFORD … NANTUCKET … NEW BEDFORD … NEWBURYPORT … NEWPORT … NEWTON … NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH … PLYMOUTH … PROVIDENCE … QUINCY … SOMERVILLE … SOUTH KINGSTOWN … TAUNTON … VINEYARD HAVEN … WALTHAM … WARWICK … WEYMOUTH … WOONSOCKET AND WORCESTER 540 PM EST SAT JAN 22 2005 …
BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM EST SUNDAY… TWENTY TO 30 INCHES OF SNOW WILL ACCUMULATE IN EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS INCLUDING THE CAPE AND ISLANDS AS WELL AS ALL OF RHODE ISLAND BY LATE SUNDAY…MAKING IT HIGHLY PROBABLE THIS WILL BE ONE OF THE FIFTH WORST SNOWSTORMS IN RECORDED HISTORY FOR BOSTON AND PROVIDENCE. DRIFTS OF AT LEAST 6 FEET ARE EXPECTED IN PARTS OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS AND RHODE ISLAND WITH WIND GUSTS AFTER MIDNIGHT ALONG THE COAST REACHING 55 TO 65 MPH…EXCEPT POSSIBLY TO 75 MPH ON NANTUCKET AND CAPE COD SUNDAY MORNING. THE STRONG WINDS WILL CAUSE SEVERE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW WITH WHITEOUT CONDITIONS AT TIMES. THE WINDS LIKELY WILL ALSO TRIGGER AT LEAST SCATTERED POWER OUTAGES NEAR THE COAST…AND TO A LESSER EXTENT INLAND. OVER CAPE COD…NANTUCKET AND MARTHAS VINEYARD…THE SNOW WILL LIKELY BE OF A SOMEWHAT WETTER CONSISTENCY…AND THUS CREATE THE RISK FOR WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGES SUNDAY MORNING. SNOW WILL TAPER TO SNOW SHOWERS LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON OR EVENING. CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW WILL PERSIST INTO LATE SUNDAY EVENING ACROSS EXPOSED AREAS. AMOUNTS AS HIGH AS 3 FEET POSSIBLE. THE MOST VULNERABLE LOCATIONS FOR 30 INCHES OR MORE OF SNOW ARE ESSEX…PLYMOUTH…NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE COUNTIES IN MASSACHUSETTS AND PROVIDENCE COUNTY IN RHODE ISLAND. ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATING SNOWFALL MAY CONTINUE ON THE CAPE AND ISLANDS INTO SUNDAY NIGHT. ANY TRAVEL IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED UNTIL LATE SUNDAY OR SUNDAY NIGHT. IF YOU LEAVE THE SAFETY OF BEING INDOORS YOU ARE PUTTING YOUR LIFE AT RISK.
Ice, part 2
Few people in the Boston area (including commercial establishments) clear snow and ice from their sidewalks. I grew up in The South (well, Baltimore, but that is south of the Mason-Dixon line), where people were more considerate of one another in this way. Of course, snow was rarer there than it is here, so shoveling one’s sidewalk, in addition to being The Right Thing To Do, was considered to be an important emergency measure.
My father always hated Boston. He hated the very idea of Boston. In his image of Boston, the weather was cold and the people snobby. He had never been to Boston, and he never wanted to go. His idea of the kind of place he wanted to go was Tahiti. He compromised and moved to Florida. Unfortunately, both of his children ended up living in Boston. My father is buried under the mounds of snow but below the frostline in Lexington cemetery near Boston. I think he would be appalled if he knew.
When Dan and I were living in Cambridge, my father had a meeting in Boston in January. After the meeting was over, he came to visit us. The next morning, I asked him what he’d like to do. “I’d like to go to Harvard Square,” he said.
“But, Dad,” I objected, “it’s hard to park near Harvard Square. We’ll probably have to walk a couple of blocks. And it’s really cold out. Also, there’s a lot of snow and ice on the ground, so it won’t be a pleasant walk.”
He persisted. “That’s okay. I’d really like to go see Harvard Square. Maybe there’s some place there where we can go get a cup of coffee if it gets too cold.”
That sounded okay to me. So Dad and I piled into the car, and we were early enough (and this was long ago enough) that we got a reasonably good parking spot on Brattle Street only a block or two outside of the Square. When we got out of the car, it was cold. It had snowed earlier that week or the last, and the snow was still about a foot high and old enough that it had gotten grey and dirty. Most places had not shoveled their walks (an endearing Boston-area trait: Why shovel, when you’ll just have to do it again next week?) but the steady stream of foot traffic had beaten down a path along where the sidewalk lay buried. The path had turned to ice.
We slipped and slid into the Square across the ice and dirty snow, and found a place where we could have a nice cup of coffee. Then we slipped and slid back to the car and drove home again.
The next day I asked my Dad what he’d like to do. “Let’s go into Harvard Square again,” he enthused.
This seemed really wrong to me. This just wasn’t like him at all. But despite my objections, he insisted. Finally I said, “Dad. It’s dirty. It’s icy. It’s cold. I know you don’t like this kind of stuff. I just don’t get it. Why do you want to do this?”
His reply: “I want to make sure I get all the details absolutely right, because my friends back in Florida are never going to believe this when I tell them about it.”
Yes!
I hate ice. And fear it. When there is the least possibility of ice, my steps slow to a timid shuffle, and if there’s another human being in reach, I will lean on him or her. Perhaps aggressively. As if in fear for my life. Which is approximately true.
So here in the kitchen sits the container of fruit and vegetable peelings full to overflowing. And there… there… out the back door and maybe only twenty feet away… across a sweep of stuff that used to be snow, that still looks like snow but is now actually shiny, deadly ice… is the compost bin.
It might as well be on Mars. I manage two steps, slip like crazy, and dive for refuge back into the kitchen.
I decide to wait until Dan gets home and get him to empty the compost container.
Then I picture him coming home after an exhausting day of work, in his dress clothes and smoothly leather-soled shoes; and I cannot ask him, even in my imagination, to do this chore.
Suddenly, I remember: I have foot chains!
I retrieve them from my closet: brand new “Yaktrax”, and I slip them over my boots. I find that I can crunch solidly and firmly over the deadly, shiny ice — more firmly than I can, in fact, walk inside my house. I empty the compost container into the bin with exultation.
Now I know how Hannibal must have felt when he managed to get all those elephants over the Alps.
Snow
Crystal balls of weathermen notwithstanding, we have about eight inches of snow in the driveway, and it’s still coming down hard. The snowplows are out, but they can’t keep up. We drove my mom home, and the Subaru (“All wheel drive all the time”) was slipping all over the road. It was lots of fun.
Since the Red Sox won the World Series, nothing can disturb my calm optimism. Winter — so what! It’s beautiful outside.
Adam got out of Boston just in time. Either that, or two days too early. It’s almost too good a storm to have to miss.
Christmas
At midnight the church bells rang out Gloria in Excelsis Deo. A miracle. The sun(son) is born. One day’s worth of oil lasted for eight days. The light has returned.
Today the late afternoon sun was flanked by two rainbow sundogs. They looked almost exactly like the photos at this Web site.
Adam returned to Seattle and Winter has just started — but I am full of faith and optimism. Life is good.