I think I heard a collective groan this morning when folks realized the day was going to feel more like early March than a week before May. The good news is the cold chilly weather isn’t going to last that long and by tomorrow afternoon most of you will get to enjoy sunshine and temperatures 20 degrees warmer than today. We have all seen springs where these raw days last for a week or more so having one of these kind of days isn’t so bad.

I'll be the forecast into the weekend on Twitter at @growingwisdom Please follow me there. Feel free to comment or ask questions too.

Temperatures are winter cold this morning with most places under the 30F mark and several towns in the 20s. Temperatures this cold in late April while not typical are not record breaking. It is unusual enough for a frost warning to be put into effect for much of Cape Cod and the islands. It was a bright and clear day yesterday, but spring has been very slow to arrive this year. Sunday was one of only a handful of sunny days since early March.

For more weather information and forecasts you can find me on Twitter at @growingwisdom Please follow me there. Feel free to comment or ask questions too.

The juxtaposition of a beautiful day and what happened in Boston yesterday is always so strange to me. Last evening I was sitting outside watching the birds have a last feeding before they went to sleep. I kept thinking how fortunate I am to live in such a great part of the world during a fantastic time of year and yet keenly aware many families were living in utter dismay as their own lives had been turned upside down in an instant. I often say that I can tell you how everyone’s story ultimately ends, but the manner and timing of that ending are what we don’t know.

It's quite chilly this morning across the region with a few spots in the 20s and most others in the 30s. The sun is very strong this time of year, similar to mid-August, so temperatures will rise rapidly through the morning. High pressure continues to build into region and this will be the first full week that you will really feel spring has arrived. A coastal sea-breeze will prevent Boston from hitting 60F today, but most areas away from the coast will be at or above that mark the entire week!

I'll be updating gardening tips and weather information on Twitter at @growingwisdom Please follow me there. Feel free to comment or ask questions too.

What a miserable afternoon. Cold, wind, rain and sleet. The weather doesn't get much more unfavorable. I don't think anyone liked today's return to winter. The good news is that the storm is going to pull away this evening and leave us with a few showers and a general trend towards better conditions. The heaviest of the rain should be over for the evening commute. Temperatures will remain in the 30s to lower 40s and winds will add to the chilly conditions.

I'll be updating weather information for the weekend and the Boston Marathon on Twitter at @growingwisdom Please follow me there. Feel free to comment or ask questions too.

Spring is a time of transition and when the weather transitions from winter to summer crazy things can happen. I just check the weather in Denver and it's 20F with snow. Further east, Washington, DC will be in the 80s the next couple of days and some areas will make a run at 90!
I'll be updating the upcoming weekend forecast on Twitter at @growingwisdom please follow me there. Feel free to comment or ask questions too.

Sunshine starts our first day of March but clouds will fill back in this afternoon with the risk of a rain shower or two. There could be a few wet snow flakes over the higher terrain. Temperatures will remain typical for this time of year in the lower 40s. Since March begins today I thought it would be fun to look at some of the weather statistics we know about for the 3rd month of the year. March means big changes and two of the biggest occur with light and temperature. I might not get the forecast right every day in March, but I do know that we will gain a lot of light. On March 1st the sun sets at 5:34; on the 31st it sets at 7:09. Of course, 1 hour of that afternoon increase is due to daylight saving time, which starts on Sunday the 10th. If you are a morning person like me you won’t like the sunrises being back to after 7a.m. for a few
days. We will have to wait until the end of the month to have our sunrises back to around 6:30. All told, we gain just about 90 minutes of daylight this month and, after the 17th, the nights will once again be shorter than the days.
I'll be updating my weather forecasts on Twitter at @growingwisdom please follow me there.

A weak storm system will affect the region beginning Saturday night and continuing until Sunday morning. This storm will not become very large so snowfall will not be heavy at any time, therefore snow amounts will be minimal. Temperatures are going to be within a few degrees of 32F during the storm and at times snow will change to rain and then back to snow. This flip-flop of precipitation type will continue much of the storm, before a final change to snow as the precipitation ends later Sunday. These kinds of storm produce very different amounts over short distances. For example, cities and towns such as Newton, Brookline, Somerville, and Milton could have different amounts of snow across their own borders. There is a winter storm watch up for areas most prone to reach 4 or more inches of snow, but I suspect this will be dropped overnight as the storm looks quite minimal. I'll be updating the forecast all day on Twitter at @growingwisdom I'd love your help tomorrow and Sunday. Tweet me your temperature and whether it's rain or snow.

As you know I use models to help me forecast the weather. Over the past several decades our computer models have gotten a lot better and we now can forecast quite accurately days in advance. While we still might have trouble with the rain/snow line, we are not often surprised anymore by a storm simply going out to sea or slamming into the area without warning.

This is National Engineers week. Here in New England we are fortunate to have several companies that, behind the scenes, are helping get weather information to the public on a daily bases. In Andover, Massachusetts, Weather Services International (WSI) is one of the leading providers of software to television stations all across the country. The software programs that are behind the graphics systems you see on TV could very well have been developed at WSI. Back in the early 90s, I worked in quality assurance at WSI testing weather software systems before they were sold. WSI takes the complicated data the models produce and makes it graphically friendly for the public.

Raytheon, another Massachusetts company plays a key role in weather forecasting. The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Weather Service (NOAA/NWS) to ingest, analyze and disseminate operational weather data including time-sensitive, high-impact warnings. For nearly a decade, Raytheon has been NOAA’s partner for the operations, maintenance and evolution of AWIPS, providing the integrated mission services required to sustain and enhance system performance.

According to Raytheon, "AWIPS plays a critical role in the ability of U.S. forecasters to make weather predictions that can save lives and safeguard property. It’s a complex network of systems that ingest and integrate meteorological, hydrological, satellite, and radar data. Forecasters at more than 130 weather forecast offices and river forecast centers across the nation utilize the capabilities of AWIPS to make increasingly accurate weather, water, and climate predictions, and to dispense rapid, highly reliable warnings and advisories."

The photos that some of this new technology is able to produce is nothing short of stunning. A new program the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) is the latest generation of U.S. polar-orbiting satellites designed to monitor global environmental conditions and collect and disseminate data related to weather, atmosphere, oceans, land and near-space environment. These new satellites are operated and controlled by via Raytheon's Common Ground System (CGS) which was developed for both NASA and NOAA.
Next time you are watching the weather on TV or someone sends you a really cool picture from space there was probably an engineer helping to make it all possible.

I update the forecast and latest gardening tips on Twitter at @growingwisdom please send me your comments.

Here we go again. For the third weekend in a row another coastal storm is poised to affect the area. There are some differences between this storm and the past two. Prior to this storm warm air will try to flow north and will impact the position of the rain/snow line. As the storm moves up the coast snow this weekend, snow and rain will break out across the area later in the afternoon Saturday. If you have errands to run, it should remain dry most of the daylight hours. Saturday night and Sunday morning will be the worst of the storm. Power outages and coastal flooding are both possible from this upcoming storm. I'll be updating the forecast all day on Twitter at @growingwisdom please send me your reports there.