Weather

Arturo Gossage walked around the Common tonight.

Copyright Arturo Gossage. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Well, I'm not the only person who browses citizen complaints. Yesterday, somebody complained about how people were putting out crap to save their parking spaces in snowfall that required a microscope to measure its depth and said it was all Menino's fault. Another citizen replied:

The person who posted this complaint sounds like an uneducated moron. Menino's health issues have nothing to with the complaint filed, our mayor has always done a great job running this city & still is.

A JP citizen is tired of being a-salted this winter:

Is it really necessary to put so much salt on the street? It has been bad all season. Whose nephew owns the salt company? It is bad for the environment and very uncomfortable for dogs.

But as Brady was throwing that last interception, the National Weather Service was issuing a winter storm watch for coastal regions, including Boston, for Monday into Tuesday: 2-4 inches expected, but with pockets of up to 8 inches possible. Hence the Elevated French Toast Alert.

The Smithsonian reports further evidence of climate change comes from Walden Pond, where plants in 2012 bloomed earlier than ever before recorded - and records go back to 1852, when Henry David Thoreau kept track:

"We were amazed that wildflowers in Concord flowered almost a month earlier in 2012 than they did in Thoreau’s time or any other recent year, and it turns out the same phenomenon was happening in Wisconsin where Aldo Leopold was recording flowering times," lead author Elizabeth Ellwood of Boston University said in a statement. "Our data shows that plants keep shifting their flowering times ever earlier as the climate continues to warm."

Via Jason Mihalko.

Photographynatalia photographed Park and Tremont streets this morning. Melissa Gibson watched an Orange Line train pull into Sullivan Square:

Hyde Park Avenue in Forest Hills around 7 a.m.

A concerned pet-owning citizen in Brighton posts a photo of a barely holding it together dog on an icy sidewalk:

This small 95 lb pony/dog is barely able to walk on the treacherous conditions on this sidewalk. He is also afraid of snow and cold because he is from Oklahoma.

Jackie Bruno at NECN reports it's so cold that

A guy on Boylston St. tried printing his parking meter sticker but it's blank. Ink is frozen.

It's so cold, J. Tammaro reports from Park Street:

Sob Story Guy has changed his story to he needs a jacket at the goodwill on Harrison ave

Mick T. spotted some snowpeople along the Esplanade yesterday.

Posted under this Creative Commons license. Tagged as universalhub on Flickr.

Back when Egleston Square had a movie theater and an elevated train, in 1939, as captured by Leslie Jones. Jones also photographed snow removal closer to downtown - back when the downtown skyline consisted of one building:

More Leslie Jones snow photos.

Posted under this Creative Commons license.

Chris Lovett took some photos as the snow began.

WHDH's Ryan Schulteis just did a report from Bridgewater, where he shoveled some slush to show us that, yes, it's wet. He was followed by the station's standing-on-the-side-of-a-highway reporter, Victoria Warren, who held a snow brush throughout her report, but didn't use it.

For some reason, reporters stationed at Gillette Stadium are doing their reports without hats on. Only Channel 4 weatherman Joe Joyce was dressed sensibly, with a hat on, as he stood in front of the WBZ Accuweather Mobile Weather Urban Assault Vehicle with the LED readout.

Among other things, the declaration means you can't park on a snow-emergency route, but otherwise you can use a cone, chair, fan, toilet or stuffed animal to save a space on the street for up to 48 hours after the snow emergency officially ends.

Use this city mapping system to find out which of your local roads double as snow emergency routes and where you can park at a discount (with a resident parking sticker on your car).

Smart Bostonians know it's important to get those space savers out ahead of the storm - as Jenny Mackintosh shows us at Comm. Ave. and Washington in Brighton.

Meanwhile, down at the Blue Hills ski area, skiers were alerted to impending powder:

But as the National Weather Service exclaims about Saturday:

THIS IS WHERE THE DRAMA BUILDS AS THE NEW 00Z ECMWF GOES BONKERS WITH EXPLOSIVE CYCLOGENESIS SOUTH OF NEW ENGLAND.

Or, in English: Jesus, people, we could be looking at a major nor'easter!

Now, as the forecasters at the regional NWS office in Tauntion hasten to add, that's based on just one run of one particular computer model and other computer simulations are not showing such extreme potential for TV weatherpeople to break out the Blizzard of '78 references just yet - and the whole thing could still turn out to be rain. But, still, you might want to keep the pantry well stocked, just in case, because as the NWS adds:

GREATEST RISK FOR HEAVY SNOW APPEARS ACROSS EASTERN MA AND RI.

Joe Joyce brings glad tidings.

Meanwhile, in the Back Bay, one creative resident has figured out how to overcome the lack of snow.

Stephen M. photographs the remains of the door at 125 High St.

That's the latest National Weather Service thinking for a storm that could hit us starting Sunday night.

However, the NWS warns us a much stronger storm might whack us Tuesday into Wednesday, which no rhyme can handle: "SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF RAIN AND/OR SNOW WOULD BE POSSIBLE."

Stephanie GiuntaEven though we were spared the worst of Sanday, the Boston Harbor Association says the storm was still a wake up call for a coastal city like ours.

Association President Vivien Li and UNH professor Paul Kirshen will lead a discussion on Nov. 27 on "the current science behind sea level rise, what we can expect over the next century, and what can be done to make Boston's waterfront and downtown more resilent to coastal flooding."

It starts at 5 p.m. in the offices of Bingham, 1 Federal St. downtown. It's free, but registration is required.

Brockton24_7 tweets somebody fell on the tracks at the Mass. Ave. stop shortly before 3 p.m. Service was, of course, halted to let him be scooped up.

Snowman at Northeastern this morning. Photo by Dan Kennedy.

Melissa Mack at WBZ explains what happened:

You may be asking - what made this forecast bust and change within the course of the storm? The answer is the track of the vortex of the low.

Cambridge in the snow.

Ed. note: Vortex of the Low would make a fine indie band name.

Greg Hum photographed Boston in the snow - you know, the snow they told us we wouldn't get.

Kiss every single bit of Boston that sits on landfill from the past 300 years goodbye: Back Bay, the South End, East Boston, half of South Boston, large swaths of Dorchester. See this flood map, which assumes a 5-foot storm surge on top of water levels 2.5 feet higher than today's levels.

So how about some giant barriers stretched across the harbor?

Via Rich Beaubien.

Why yes, and when that somebody is our own Harvey Leonard, we begin to think about checking the breadbox and refrigerator. But before we clear space in the trunk for all that extra milk, he first cautions:

With regards to that next storm (middle of next week), parts of New England could see snow..too early to say for sure.