8 pm Sunday Evening Blizzard Update For Western & Central Mass

Radar imagery and weather observations indicate that steady snow is now pushing its way northward into Western Mass from Connecticut and Rhode Island.

It is likely that snow will continue to overspread the entire area over the next couple of hours or so.

Once it begins snowing, it'll keep snowing for the next 24 hours or so.

The intensity of the snow will be light to moderate to start with, but will trend towards a heavy intensity as we get into the after midnight hours of tonight. My recommendation is to stay off of the roads beginning around midnight tonight, unless you have no other choice to travel.

A couple of other observations when looking at the weather data this evening - The first is that the snow intensity is heavier than expected on Long Island and in the NYC metro (heavy snow now occurring throughout the entire NYC metro). This is something that'll need to be monitored very closely because if we do see heavier than expected snow in terms of intensity, then my forecast snow totals may be too low.

The second item that I noted is that lightning is being detected off of the Mid-Atlantic coast, which means that we definitely have a rapidly strengthening storm system. In fact, the high resolution weather forecast guidance seem to be slightly under forecasting the strengthening of this storm. Again, this is something that'll need to be watched closely as a stronger than expected low pressure system could lead to higher than forecast snow totals.

- AND WHEN WILL THE WORST PART OF THIS STORM BE? Heavy to very heavy snow with snow rates of up to 1 to 3 inches per hour is expected to occur beginning about 4 am to 6 am Monday morning. This heavy to very heavy snow is then expected to continue through all of Monday morning and into the very early afternoon hours of Monday. Again, snowfall rates of up to 1 to 3 inches per hour are expected throughout all of Monday morning into the very early afternoon hours of Monday.

I also wouldn’t be surprised to see some isolated thundersnow (snow that’s accompanied by thunder and lightning) between 4 am and midday Monday when it’s snowing extremely hard.

The snow is then expected to be light to occasionally moderate in intensity during the mid and late afternoon hours of Monday.

- WHEN IS THE STORM EXPECTED TO BE COMPLETELY DONE? The snow is then expected to come to an end between about 8 pm and 11 pm Monday evening. This means that it's going to snow for about 24 consecutive hours or so.

- FORECAST SNOW TOTALS: You can find my latest forecast snowfall map for this storm attached to this post. I have no changes to the snow total forecast for now. As I already mentioned, the heavier than expected intensity of the snow in NYC & the stronger than expected low pressure are two things that could lead to increases in the forecast snow totals. It's something that I'll be watching very closely.

- HOW STRONG WILL THE WINDS BE? In addition to the heavy snow, it is expected to be quite windy tonight and Monday leading to blizzard conditions. Winds tonight will be Northeast at 15 to 20 mph before midnight and Northeast at 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 40-50 mph after midnight. Winds during the day on Monday will be North at 25 to 30 mph with gusts to 50-plus mph. Winds on Monday night will be Northwest at 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 40-50 mph before midnight and Northwest at 15 to 25 mph with gusts to 35-40 mph after midnight.

- HOW BAD IS THIS STORM EXPECTED TO BE? The combination of heavy snow and blizzard conditions tonight and Monday will make for extremely difficult travel conditions. Plow crews are going to have an extremely difficult time keeping up with the very heavy snow accumulations and the very significant amounts of blowing and drifting snow that will occur. Because of this, I HIGHLY recommend to stay off of the roads, if it at all possible from about midnight tonight through all day Monday.

Also, this is expected to be a somewhat wet and heavy snow, especially during tonight into Monday morning. This means that the snow will cling to trees and powerlines. The combination of the snow sticking to trees and powerlines & the strong winds will probably lead to downed tree limbs and powerlines causing scattered power outages.

The snow may actually become lighter and fluffier during Monday afternoon & this lighter and fluffier snow will be easily blown and drifted. So, even though the snow intensity will be light to occasionally moderate during Monday afternoon, the blowing and drifting snow will produce low visibilities across the region.

Many, many more updates on this blizzard will be posted here throughout tonight and all day Monday. Be sure to check back often for the latest updates.