Leftover Showers End This Evening With Sunshine For Thursday & Friday Across Western & Central Mass

For Tonight: Any leftover showers are expected to come to an end this evening with skies becoming clear to partly cloudy towards midnight. Skies will then be clear to partly cloudy after midnight tonight. This means that it’s possible that the sky may be clear enough to see the Moon pass in front of, or occult, the planet Mars, using just your eyes, a pair of binoculars or a telescope. The leading edge of the moon will cover Mars starting at about 10:30 pm this evening. Mars will then reappear from behind the moon’s southern limb at about 11:20 pm or so. Low temperatures will be near 40 Degrees. Winds will be West to Northwest at 10 to 20 mph. Thursday Through Friday: An area of high pressure will build into the area during Thursday and will remain in control of our weather through Friday. Thursday is expected to be sunny to partly sunny with high temperatures between 45 and 50 Degrees. Winds will be Northwest at 10 to 20 mph. Thursday night looks clear to partly cloudy with low temperatures between 25 and 30 Degrees. Winds will be North at 5 to 10 mph. Friday will be a sunny day with high temperatures between 40 and 45 Degrees. Winds will be North at 5 to 10 mph. Saturday: High pressure remains in control of the weather during Saturday with a mixture of sunshine and clouds expected throughout the day. High temperatures will be between 35 and 40 Degrees. Sunday Through Monday: The weather may get a little more interesting and a little more wintry across the region for Sunday night and Monday morning as an area of low pressure is forecast to track east-northeastward from the Ohio Valley during Sunday and possibly redevelop into a coastal storm to the south of Nantucket by later Sunday night. That coastal storm system is then forecast to track to the south of Nova Scotia during Monday before departing away from our area. There’s the increasing chance that the combination of these two storm systems could bring some accumulating snow to the entire area beginning on Sunday evening. This snow could continue through the overnight hours of Sunday night and through Monday morning. At this point, it appears that snow amounts should be on the light side with most areas of Western and Central Mass receiving about 1 to 2 inches of snow. That said, this system is going to be watched closely as the trends in the guidance over the past 24 hours has been for a more amplified system. Should these trends continue, it could mean a system that brings a little more snow than what is forecast right now. High temperatures Sunday will be near 35 Degrees. Low temperatures Sunday night will be between 25 and 30 Degrees. High temperatures Monday will be near 35 Degrees. Active & Wintry Weather Pattern Takes Hold By The Middle & End Of Next Week: Winter is coming and it looks like it could arrive with a vengeance. A big upper level high pressure is now building over Greenland setting up a future weather pattern that looks to include a big upper level trough of low pressure over the eastern United States. This upper level trough will help to pull down some Arctic cold into our area as we head into the week before Christmas. This colder than average weather pattern looks to then lock itself into our area through the New Year and may remain in place until about mid-January. If that wasn’t enough, there will be some sort of a ridge of high pressure over the far southern United States that’ll help to position the storm track in a southwest to northeast orientation from the southern Plains to the Mid-Atlantic states and southern New England. The combination of a cold air mass and an active storm track near our area means that there is likely to be quite a few opportunities for winter storms between the 15th of this month and the 15th of January. In fact, I’m forecasting above average amounts of snowfall for the 30 day period between December 15 and January 15. For those of you that are hoping and wishing for a White Christmas, I do think the chances this year are about as high as we’ve seen them in quite a few years & those chances are definitely much higher than usual. Now, back to the weather forecast for the middle and end of next week – It is looking increasingly more likely that another coastal storm system could affect our area from next Thursday through next Friday. Right now, the weather forecast guidance are pointing towards an inland track of this storm system, which would lead to mostly all rain. I think that this is incorrect and I’ll tell you why. A blocking high pressure system over Quebec province into far northern New England should deflect any low pressure systems to the south leading to a coastal storm rather than a storm system that cuts inland across New England. Also, blocking high pressure systems located over central and southern Canada tends to send colder air southward into New England and along the Appalachian Mountain chain. This means that I think any talk you may have of heard of a warm up next week are completely wrong. Instead, we may end up seeing colder air drain southward in a pattern like this ruining any warm-up patterns over the eastern United States. What this means is that daytime high temperatures throughout next week should stay in the 30s with nighttime low temperatures in the low to mid 20s. Additionally, widespread accumulating snow looks quite possible from next Thursday right through next Friday. This snow could mix with freezing rain and sleet at times, depending on the atmospheric temperature profile and the exact track of the low pressure system. Needless to say, things are about to get busy and I’m going to be watching things very closely. Frequent updates will be sent out as needed.