A Threat For Freezing Rain Exists For Sunday Across Western & Central Mass

For The Rest Of Today & Tonight: An area of high pressure will briefly control our weather the rest of today and tonight. Plenty of sunshine is expected throughout the rest of today with high temperatures between 25 and 30 Degrees. Skies will start out clear tonight and this will allow temperatures to fall pretty quickly to near 15 Degrees by midnight. Clouds will be on the increase after midnight tonight as an Arctic cold front approaches from the Great Lakes. This increase in clouds and a wind that becomes southwest will cause temperatures to slowly rise to between 20 and 25 Degrees by sunrise Sunday morning. Sunday: An Arctic cold front is expected to move across the area during Sunday afternoon. Showers in the form of freezing rain are expected to overspread Western Mass around the 7 to 8 am time frame Sunday morning and then overspread Central Mass during the 8 to 9 am time frame Sunday morning. The big question is will the freezing rain showers change to just rain showers or will see freezing rain persist through the afternoon hours. This is important because we could see some really slippery roads across the entire area, especially with the fact that the ground temperatures will be so cold by Sunday morning. I think that the showers across the western and northern Worcester Hills, the upper Pioneer Valley of Western Mass and the Berkshires may stay as freezing rain into much of the afternoon where temperatures will remain in the 30 to 32 Degree range. Elsewhere across Western and Central Mass, temperatures should rise to about 35 Degrees by midday and the showers should fall as rain throughout Sunday afternoon. There is a huge and very important caveat to this, it’s possible that the rain may still freeze on contact with the ground right through Sunday afternoon. The reason why is because thanks to the fresh snowpack, the ground temperatures may remain near or just below freezing all day Sunday. So, even though the air temperature may be above freezing, the ground may be cold enough to allow for a continuation of slippery and icy conditions right through Sunday afternoon. All showers will come to an end by late afternoon or early afternoon Sunday. I want to urge everyone to use extreme caution on roads throughout Sunday, if you have to travel. Conditions are likely to be slick and icy, especially on those back roads and secondary roads. If you don’t absolutely have to travel on Sunday, it may be best to stay home. Monday & Tuesday: Very cold air will make an intrusion into the region behind that Arctic cold front. Monday is expected to be partly sunny with high temperatures near 25 Degrees. Below zero temperatures are possible in some parts of Western and Central Mass on Monday night under partly cloudy skies. Overall, low temperatures will be between Zero and 5 above zero, but some areas are likely to bottom out at around 5 below zero on Monday night. A particularly cold day is expected for Tuesday even though it’ll be sunny out. High temperatures Tuesday will struggle to make it to 10 Degrees. In fact, some areas in the northern Worcester Hills will likely remain near 5 above zero on Tuesday. In addition to this, a northwest wind will gust up to 20 to 30 mph at times on Tuesday leading to wind chill temperatures of 10 to 20 below zero. Tuesday night looks to feature even more widespread below zero temperatures across the area with clear skies expected. Low temperatures Tuesday night will be between Zero and 5 below zero with some areas reaching 10 below zero for low temperatures. Wednesday Through Friday: Some milder temperatures are expected for later in the week as that Arctic high pressure system moves to the east. Wednesday is expected to be partly sunny with high temperatures near 25 Degrees. Thursday is expected to be partly sunny with high temperatures near 35 Degrees. Friday is expected to be partly sunny with high temperatures near 35 Degrees. The next chance for any accumulating snow with possibly enough to plow and shovel may be later next weekend (around January 16). It’s something to definitely watch for and I’ll have more on it as we draw closer in.