Meteorologists began reporting of a drastic shift late Monday afternoon for Tuesday’s nor’easter snowfall amounts. What happened?
In the last couple of days, Boston and surrounding areas went from preparing for up to a foot of snow to wondering if they’ll see any plowable snow as a nor’easter rolls through the Northeast.
Starting late Monday afternoon, meteorologists said the impending weather event forecast was changing as a result of a huge shift in the storm track.
“I don’t think we were expecting the storm to shift this far south and east,” said Rob Megnia, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norton.
Megnia said officials began noticing a southward trend in the last 48 hours, but it really took shape going into Monday afternoon and evening, when many local meteorologists began noting the drastic shift in the models.
Megnia said it isn’t uncommon for a shift like this to occur, though the change in this weather event “might have been bigger than previous events.”
Another meteorologist with NWS Norton, Torry Dooley, told The New York Times that “better data” became available as it got closer to the day of the event. But by the time meteorologists had noted the shift, Boston officials had already closed schools and declared a snow emergency during a Monday press conference.