Mix Of Light Snow & Freezing Rain Will Produce Icy Conditions Late Tonight Into Tuesday Morning

For The Rest Of Today: Much more in the way of clouds than sunshine is expected throughout the rest of today with high temperatures of near 35 Degrees. Tonight & Tuesday: For tonight, an area of low pressure is expected to quickly move from the Ohio Valley through northern New England with a warm front moving into southern New England tonight. This means that precipitation in the form of light snow will overspread the entire area just before midnight tonight. This light snow is then expected to continue for at least a couple of hours late tonight. The question then becomes how quickly will the light snow change to light freezing rain. Some of the high resolution weather forecast guidance shows a delayed change to some light freezing rain and freezing drizzle with this occurring by about 4 am Tuesday morning. Other high resolution weather forecast guidance point to a quick change to light freezing rain and freezing drizzle by about midnight to 1 am or so. This difference in changeover time is very important as the quicker the precipitation changes to freezing rain, the more icy the conditions will be late tonight and early Tuesday morning. My Thinking Is That We will start out with some light snow beginning just before midnight tonight. This light snow probably will last for about 2 to 3 hours or so with accumulations of less than one inch expected. A change from light snow to light freezing rain and freezing drizzle looks to occur around the 2 to 3 am time frame or so tonight. This light freezing rain and freezing drizzle will continue until about sunrise Tuesday morning and then come to an end shortly after 8 am Tuesday morning. Less than one tenth of an inch of ice accumulation is expected. Even though the ice amounts will be rather light in accumulation, it should still be enough to produce slippery roads, parking lots, side walks and other paved surfaces. Use extreme caution if traveling late tonight and early Tuesday morning. Skies are then expected to become partly sunny by Tuesday afternoon as an area of high pressure very briefly controls our weather. Low temperatures tonight will be between 25 and 30 Degrees. High temperatures Tuesday will be between 40 and 45 Degrees. Tuesday Night & Wednesday: It looks like another piece of atmospheric energy will push through the area during Tuesday night and Wednesday bringing with it some more very light snow and maybe even some light freezing rain. At this point, it appears that light snow will begin across Western Mass and across parts of Central Mass (mainly the western Worcester Hills) around midnight on Tuesday night with the light snow beginning across the rest of Central Mass by about 4-5 am or so Wednesday morning. The snow may then mix with a bit of light freezing rain by mid-morning Wednesday with the mix of light snow, light freezing rain and freezing drizzle continuing into the first half of Wednesday afternoon before ending later Wednesday afternoon. Snowfall amounts late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning will range from barely a dusting across Central Mass to maybe around one inch across Western Mass. Ice accumulations on Wednesday will average less than one tenth of an inch across the entire area. Again, not significant by any means, but it could be just enough ice to produce slick conditions during the day on Wednesday. Low temperatures Tuesday night will be near 30 Degrees. Temperatures on Wednesday will hover in the low to mid 30s. Thursday: It looks like another piece of atmospheric energy will push across the area during Thursday and Thursday night. This time though, it looks like the temperatures will be mild enough so that just rain will occur. So, intermittent rain is expected throughout Thursday and Thursday night with no snow or ice expected. High temperatures Thursday will be between 40 and 45 Degrees. Low temperatures Thursday night will be between 35 and 40 Degrees. New Year’s Eve: Dry weather with sunshine is expected for Friday with high temperatures between 40 and 45 Degrees. No weather problems are expected for First Night activities with partly cloudy skies. Temperatures Friday evening will fall from about 35 Degrees at around 7-8 pm to around 30 Degrees at midnight to about 25 Degrees by sunrise New Year’s Day morning. New Year’s Day & Sunday: We may be watching a significant storm system impacting the area from late Saturday through Sunday. An area of low pressure is forecast to move from the Ohio Valley during Saturday into New England for Saturday night and Sunday. This storm system has the potential to bring some significant severe weather this coming weekend across the southeastern United States. In addition, once this storm system moves away, it is expected to pull down some Arctic air that’s expected to affect the central and eastern United States next week (week of January 3). As always, the exact track of this low pressure system is going to be crucial in determining whether the area sees a windy rainstorm or whether it ends up being a significant snowfall or even somewhere in-between that. I’ll be honest with you and say that it’s WAY, WAY too early to pinpoint what sort of track this low pressure system may take. Instead, let’s look at the possible larger scale weather pattern for next weekend. That weather pattern looks to feature a large upper level trough of low pressure that’s going to push eastward into the central and parts of the eastern United States. At the same time this is occurring, it’s possible that an upper level ridge of high pressure will try its hardest to beat back this cold air. This leads me to believe that we could see precipitation moving along this temperature gradient from the central United States to the northeastern United States this coming weekend. It also leads me to believe that, at this point, this probably will not be an all snow event. I also think that there may be enough of a bleed of cold air that this probably will not be an all rain event either. My thinking this early in the game is that we may see some snow to start with late Saturday that changes to a period of freezing rain during Saturday night and Sunday. Again, these are just very early thoughts and quite a bit will probably change in the forecast over the next few days. Nevertheless, I’ll keep you updated on the latest.