Arctic air for weekend

It is much colder this morning than it has been during the last week or so. Still not much in the way of weather going on across Canada for February. I am showing -15C here on L'Ile Perrot with a light wind. Winds will pick up today, gusting to 40km/h at times creating a bit of a chill in the air, but the mercury will recover to -4C under bright sunny skies. High pressure should hold into Friday with seasonable temperatures for the region. On Friday and arctic boundary will sink southeast into southern Quebec, Ontario and New England with a push of very cold air. Some snow or flurries will occur along the front late Friday into Saturday along with falling temperatures to as cold as -20C by Saturday morning. The cold will be with us for the weekend before a moderation into next week. Once again, as I have said most of this winter, there are no major systems on the weather map at this time. The only exception could be an ocean storm that brushes Newfoundland by the weekend.

Above: Boston during the blizzard of 1978 (boston.com)

The Blizzard of 1978
I missed an anniversary yesterday that I had really not mentioned before on this blog. It was the 34th anniversary of the massive blizzard of 1978 that affected a large portion of the eastern US and Canada but especially Boston and coastal New England. The storm had its origins off the coast of the Carolina's as a sub-tropical low. It rapidly deepened while moving to a point off the New England coast and hanging around for a few days. The powerful storm produced hurricane force winds along the coast with widespread coastal flooding and damage in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Long Island. Record snow fell, virtually closing down transportation and stranding thousands of motorists in their cars. Over 26 inches of snow fell in Boston with as much as 50 inches in other parts of New England. Power was out for days and schools shut for over one week. The storm claimed nearly 100 lives, many dieing in their cars from carbon monoxide poisoning. Montreal and southern Quebec remained on the western edge of the storm but still managed 10cm (4 inches) of snow along with a wind gust at Dorval to 76km/h. There are many great sites on the web with photos and stories from the storm including here at Boston.com.