If you were up late last night, you might be wondering what the heck happened.
For much of the evening, heavy rainfall drenched the Bay State, while winds out of the east gusted between 45-55 MPH. Here in Hingham, our peak gust was 46 MPH just before 11 PM. Then, during the 11 PM hour, the winds sort of backed off, and the rain rapidly decreased in intensity. Why the sudden change? The center of a very powerful low was moving nearby.
Anyone watching the radar saw the “eye” of the storm coming, and anyone watching their barometer’s CERTAINLY saw it coming. Just before 11 PM, pressures sank rapidly to 28.72″ in Hingham. That is similar to pressures observed in a category 2 hurricane! The last time the pressure was so low locally was in 1995. Within about 30 minutes, however, the barometers started to climb back up, and winds again were gusty.
The surface map above is from 11:43 PM, showing the low centered across Southeastern Massachusetts (remember, winds around lows spin counter-clockwise, and the barbs above point in the direction from which the wind is blowing).
The storm then continued to push westward, until it landed and stalled in New York, dumping heavy snow in New York, Northeastern Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey. In fact, the foot-plus snow from this storm that blanketed Central Park helped push the Park into its snowiest month since records have been kept (dating back to 1869).
The bottom line is that this storm was, in a sense, a winter hurricane. It will remain stalled to our west for the next few days, leading to more scattered, hit and miss rain and snow showers before it eventually spins itself out over the weekend.






