Early Monday Afternoon Weather Update For Western & Central Mass

As expected, the steady snow has begun again across the region. One thing that was not anticipated was that the snow never really ended late last night into this morning. Even though the snow intensity was very light, it never really stopped.

Anyways, steady snow is expected to continue throughout this afternoon and is expected to persist into early this evening. Overall, the snow intensity is expected to be light to occasionally moderate.

The snow is expected to finally come to an end between about 7 and 9 pm this evening across Western Mass and between 8 pm and 10 pm this evening across Central Mass.

Snow accumulations this afternoon into early this evening will average around one inch across Western Mass and up to about 2 inches or so across Central Mass.

===> Now, I wanted to address the rumor that there is yet another big winter storm coming this coming Sunday – There are some in the weather forecasting community that are whipping people up into a frenzy that there's going to be another big winter storm this coming Sunday. So, I wanted to address this & give you my take.

There is the potential that a coastal storm will form off of the Southeastern coast of the United States & head up the East Coast of the United States. There is a huge amount of uncertainty as to where this storm might track in relation to our area. There are at least 3 possible storm scenarios when it comes to impacts for our area.

- The first scenario is for this storm system to pass well south and east of Nantucket. Should this occur, it would mean no snow at all for our area.

- The second scenario is for this storm system to track close to Nantucket. Should this occur, it would lead to a glancing blow with perhaps a little bit of snow during the day on Sunday across the entire area.

- The third scenario is for an intense storm system that tracks near or right over the Cape. This would lead to yet another major snowstorm for the entire area during the day on Sunday. This time, however, there would be a lot of wind that accompanied the snow leading to considerable amounts of blowing and drifting snow & possible blizzard conditions.

A couple of things here -

First is DO NOT cancel any plans you might have for this coming weekend. This storm is about 6 days away from occurring & that is an eternity when it comes to weather forecasting. It's possible that this storm could completely miss the area. Unfortunately, it's also equally as possible that this storm could bring big impacts to our weather.

Second is buyer beware when scrolling through social media & looking at other forecasts. Many other weather agencies just post the "scariest" weather model without much explanation just to get those clicks and views. I like to think I have a lot more integrity than that & because of this, I will always give it to you straight & do my very best not to scare you.

No matter what happens with the coastal storm for this weekend, I'll keep you updated on the latest.

Snow Continues Today Into This Evening Across Western & Central Mass (Issued: Monday Morning 1/26/2026)

It’s still lightly snowing out there even though the radar shows no precipitation at all. Why is that? Basically it’s because the air is so cold right now that it takes very little moisture to ring out even the slightest amount of snow.

This means that it’s likely that light to very light snow will continue throughout this morning across all of Western and Central Mass.

It then looks likely that the very light snow will become a much more steady snow by late this morning.

The steady snow is then expected to continue through all of this afternoon into early this evening.

The snow is expected to come to an end around midnight tonight.

Snow accumulations today into early this evening will range from 1 to 2 inches across Western Mass to 2 to possibly 3 inches of snow across Central Mass.

4:30 pm Sunday Afternoon Winter Storm Update For Western & Central Mass

Heavy snow continues to fall across all of Western and Central Mass at the time of this posting.

I went out and measured the snow at about 4 pm and at that time, we have received about 8 inches of snow so far here in Sturbridge & it is snowing at a rate of about 1.5 inches per hour.

Since it appears this storm is already overperforming a bit, I have increased the forecast storm snow totals for all of Western & Central Mass. I have posted my latest snowfall forecast map to this post.

From now until about midnight tonight, I expect the heavy snow to continue across the entire area. The intensity of the snow will probably be very heavy at times. Snowfall rates over the next 7-8 hours or so will reach 2 to 3 inches per hour at times. This will add an additional 10 to 15 inches or so of snow (and maybe more) to what we've already received.

Travel conditions between now and midnight tonight will continue to be extremely difficult due to rapid snow accumulation on roads, extremely low visibility in heavy to very heavy snow & extremely hazardous travel conditions.

The snow still looks to stop for a while during the after midnight hours of tonight before it starts up again during Monday morning. This new round of snow looks to then last through Monday afternoon before it finally ends during Monday evening. Monday's snow amounts will probably add an additional 1 to 2 inches of snow to what we already received.

More updates will be posted throughout this evening as this storm continues.