Quiet Weather This Weekend Turns Into Stormy Weather Next Week Across Western & Central Mass

For The Rest Of Today: A weak area of high pressure will control our weather throughout the rest of today. This means that it will be a generally sunny day, however, it will be cold and windy. Temperatures will struggle to get out of the 30s with many areas peaking at between 35 and 39 Degrees this afternoon. It will be windy throughout the rest of today with northwest winds gusting up to 35 mph at times. Tonight: Clear skies and gradually decreasing winds will lead to temperatures to bottom out at between 19 and 23 Degrees by morning. Saturday: A weak weather disturbance is expected to push across the region during the afternoon. Morning sunshine will give way to a mixture of sunshine and clouds during the afternoon. In addition, a passing snow shower or two is expected during the mid and late afternoon hours. High temperatures Saturday will be between 40 and 45 Degrees. Sunday: A sunny to partly sunny day is expected on Sunday with high temperatures between 40 and 45 Degrees. Monday: An area of low pressure and its associated frontal system will affect our area on Monday with very mild temperatures, showers and very windy conditions. A strong southerly wind flow will set up across Southern New England and this will lead to on and off showers throughout the day on Monday. In fact, there may be a few hours on Monday afternoon where the showers end and the sun may briefly appear before a cold front pushes through late in the afternoon. That cold front is likely to be accompanied by a line of heavy showers and maybe a thunderstorm or two late Monday afternoon. High temperatures Monday will be between 64 and 68 Degrees, which is some 20 degrees above average. It will be windy to even very windy, especially during Monday afternoon with southerly winds gusting up to 40 to 50 mph at times. Tuesday: A brief break between storm systems is expected on Tuesday with sunshine and colder temperatures expected. High temperatures Tuesday will be between 35 and 40 Degrees. Plowable Amounts Of Snow Possible For Wednesday & Wednesday Night: A frontal system is expected to be set up near Southern New England and this front will be the boundary between very mild air across the southeastern United States into the Mid-Atlantic states and some cold air positioned across southeastern Canada and northern New England. An area of low pressure is expected to move along this frontal system. The exact position of the frontal system and the track of the low pressure system is going to be extremely crucial in determining where the snow/rain line sets up. It should be noted that a majority of weather forecast guidance, including the Canadian model and the European model, forecasts a low pressure track to the south of New England, which would lead to upwards of 5 to 10 inches of snow accumulation across Western and Central Mass. On the other hand, the GFS weather model still insists on a track that takes the low pressure system across central and northern New England. This sort of track would mean a quick 1 to 3 inches of snow accumulation on Wednesday morning followed by a change to rain for Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night. Here Are My Thoughts: It appears that there is going to be quite a bit of cold air lurking over southeastern Canada waiting for this storm system. This is very important because cold air is very dense and can be very hard to scour out. Because of this, I think that a colder and snowier forecast seems more plausible than a storm system that just pushes out the cold air and replaces it with mild temperatures and rain. My thinking at this point is for areas near and north of the Mass Pike will stay as all snow throughout Wednesday and Wednesday night with upwards of 4 to 8 inches of snow accumulation possible. Areas south of the Mass Pike may see the precipitation start as snow on Wednesday morning, but the snow may mix with sleet and rain during Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night. Snow amounts across areas south of the Mass Pike may end up being more on the order of 2 to 5 inches or so. These are still preliminary early thoughts and it’s likely that this forecast will need to be refined and tuned over the next few days. I will be watching this storm extremely closely and will have frequent updates as needed. Thursday: Another short break between storm systems is expected on Thursday with a mixture of sunshine and clouds expected and high temperatures between 35 and 40 Degrees. Next Friday To Next Sunday: There may be two additional storm system to keep an eye on for late next week and next weekend. The first storm to watch is expected for next Friday as an area of low pressure pushes across central or southern New England. Temperatures could be mild enough so that even though the precipitation may start as snow on Friday morning, it could quickly change to rain during Friday afternoon and evening. A second storm system could bring more rain for next Sunday into next Monday that may actually end as some snow. At this point though, we’ll take things storm to storm and not get ahead of ourselves too much.