Have you noticed how the nights are getting just a little bit cooler? And in the mornings, there’s starting to be a little crispness in the air.

When the weather gets like this, I start thinking about the fall foliage, and how beautiful nature can be this time of year.

Word is that this year’s foliage New England foliage should be spectacular. The warm days and cool evenings are perfect conditions for dramatic color and foliage.

If you’re interested in planning a driving tour to see the foliage, check out the Massachusetts Office of Travel Tourism site for a listing of New England foliage events. There’s also a foliage timetable map, along with suggested scenic drives. The website is updated twice a week with “leaf” reports.

There’s also a Fall Foliage Hotline at: (800) 227-MASS.

Post from: The Boston Traveler

This is a very familiar sight in Boston lately since every day seems to bring yet another thunderstorm. Add periods of torrential rain — complete with booming thunder and startling lightning flashes — that are causing flash floods all over, and you can envision exactly what it looks like fairly regularly around these parts this summer. As a result, if you’re visiting Boston, make sure you don’t leave your hotel room or other lodging without an umbrella, no matter how deceptively sunny it looks outside at the time.

FYI: The photo above shows Boston and Cambridge in the early afternoon yesterday (July 23), not evening or dusk; today is no better.

Follow the jump for another shot of the depressing yet thankfully brief spells of bad weather the area has been getting daily for what seems like weeks now.

Post from: The Boston Traveler

News outlets report temperatures well above the 90s and inching towards triple digits that are twenty degrees higher than normal.

On a typical day at about this time of June, it would be in the relatively calm and cool mid-70s. Instead, however, area residents are enduring what feels like an unexpected blast of summer in the Arizona desert.

Make sure to take the weather situation under advisement if you’re supposed to travel to Boston or New England in the next day or so. The Weather Channel predicts the temperature will become more agreeable by Wednesday, provided that the forecasters have gotten the facts and figures right.

A video follows the jump that discusses the widespread impact of the current extreme weather, which has ranged from drains on electricity to air quality concerns to a drowning.

NOTE: If you require closed captions, you can enable that feature on the video players by clicking the CC symbol in the top right-hand corner.

Post from: The Boston Traveler

It was a supremely gorgeous day!

Post from: The Boston Traveler

Monday morning brought so much snow to the Bay State—seven inches, in fact—that even I, who didn’t set a foot outside my residence, felt bogged down in the mushy white stuff. It covered my windows and the sidewalk leading up to every entrance, making me so very grateful that I had the opportunity to share a snowed-in day with all of the public school children in the area.

The folks waiting at Logan Airport to catch airplanes to some destination or another probably weren’t so thrilled, however. The 6.8 inches of snow that piled up at the transportation hub were just one inch less than the record set on January 14, 1999. Consequently, departing and arriving flights experienced the kinds of cancellations and delays that flyers have vivid nightmares of for days in advance.

Added to the mix were enough power outages to cause serious concern, as well as spotty service on the public transportation system. A portion of the transit difficulties were directly related to a number of trees and large tree limbs that broke under the weight of all the frozen moisture, many falling right onto train tracks.

Yeah, fresh-fallen snow is pretty to look at, but I know I’m not the only one who’s grateful the worst part of Boston’s first Nor’easter of 2008 is now over. Tomorrow’s forecast predicts clear and sunny skies, along with temperatures in the low to mid 30s and, thankfully, not a hint of snow. May the “good” weather last for at least another week!

Post from: The Boston Traveler

Thursday morning, Boston residents started receiving their holiday gift of a White Christmas almost two full weeks early. According to local newspaper the Boston Herald, the “wall of snow” immersed the state of Massachusetts in enough fluffy wetness to lead government officials to send all the kiddies home from school and their adult counterparts home from work, as well.

Sure, that sounds like a good thing sitting inside one’s warm, comfortable abode. But, the fallout on the roads most likely resulted in hundreds of irate drivers wishing they were back in their cubicles at the office instead of stalled in the midst of the nerve-racking commute from hell. And, so bad weather goes in the Bay State, a place where even fairly light snow or heavy rain causes networks to run continuous alert messages along the bottom of television screens a-l-l d-a-y l-o-n-g.

As a result of the unrelenting precipitation (more snow is expected today), anybody planning to visit the Boston area in the near future should come prepared with appropriate bad-weather attire and gear, plus a healthy dose of patience to survive the inevitable delays that typically accompanies this type of climate.

Post from: The Boston Traveler