For This Afternoon: Very mild with increasingly more windy conditions are expected this afternoon. Skies this afternoon will be cloudy with areas of drizzle and fog expected. Any additional shower activity should hold off until this evening. High temperatures this afternoon will be between 59 and 64 Degrees. The exception to this is across the Connecticut River Valley where it’ll take longer to warm up, but even there high temperatures of 50 to 55 Degrees or so is expected.
South to southwest winds are expected to gust up to 40 mph at times this afternoon.
Tonight: A strong cold front is expected to move through Southern New England this evening. This frontal passage will be accompanied by a band of heavy showers and maybe a thunderstorm between about 6 pm and 9 pm this evening. It will also be windy this evening with south to southwest winds gusting up to 40 mph at times shifting to a west to northwest direction by 8 to 9 pm or so with that frontal passage.
Once that front moves through, temperatures are expected to drop sharply from the 50s early in the evening to the mid to upper 30s by midnight. In addition, any leftover passing rain showers will change to a passing snow shower or two after midnight tonight.
Low temperatures tonight will be near 30 Degrees.
Tuesday: An area of high pressure will very briefly control our weather on Tuesday with partly sunny skies expected. High temperatures Tuesday will be between 35 and 40 Degrees.
Upwards Of 2 To 4 Inches Of Snow Accumulation Expected On Wednesday: An area of low pressure is expected to move along a frontal boundary and pass to the southeast of Nantucket during Wednesday afternoon. This storm system is expected to bring a widespread accumulating snow across all of Western and Central Mass with most areas receiving enough to plow.
With that said, there are still significant differences in the weather forecast guidance, especially for an event that’s just 2 days away. For instance, the GFS weather model and the European weather model are forecasting as little as 1 to 2 inches of snow accumulation. On the other hand, some of the higher weather forecast guidance such as the NAM model is forecasting as much as 3 to 5 inches or so of snow accumulation. There’s even a couple of weather models that are showing a complete miss with no snow at all.
A Rant - Before I get into laying out my thoughts, I’ve had a few internet trolls accusing me of just copying and pasting the National Weather Service or other weather companies forecasts and it’s just a “weather report”.
First, this is the furthest from the truth!!
Second, even though I have fairly thick skin with internet trolls (been dealing with them since the mid 1990’s), it still really annoys me and puts me in a grinchy mood.
All weather forecasts and weather updates that I post are my own thoughts and musings. NOTHING and I emphasize NOTHING is copied and pasted.
I spend literally hours per day analyzing and studying the weather data. From that, I use my lifetime’s experience forecasting New England weather to produce the best possible weather forecast that I can come up with. I don’t just parrot a model forecast and call it my own (there are A LOT of folks on Facebook and Twitter that do just this). I’m transparent in every forecast that I write and give you all possible scenarios for every storm I forecast.
Bottom Line is that I don’t just report the weather – I actually forecast every weather phenomena that we experience here in Western and Central Mass.
This is truly a labor of love for me and I put my heart and soul into every forecast I write. I always have and I always will.
Unlike others out there, if my forecast ends up wrong, I can tell you exactly where the forecast went bad and I end up learning from every forecast I write.
Anyways, Here Are My Thoughts: Obviously, I can’t just forecast 0 to 6 inches of snow and call it a day. So, here goes nothing -
This is going to be a pretty fast moving storm, so the snow amounts will not be substantial by any means.
Snow is expected to begin across all of Western and Central Mass probably during the 8 to 10 am time frame on Wednesday morning. The snow is then expected to continue through all of Wednesday afternoon and into Wednesday evening before the snow comes to an end by midnight Wednesday night.
As For Snow Accumulations – My thinking is for snow amounts to range from 1 to 2 inches across the Berkshires, the Pioneer Valley and northern Worcester County to 2 to 4 inches or so of snow accumulation across the rest of Western and Central Mass.
These are still relatively preliminary thoughts on snow amounts. It’s still very plausible that the track could end up being flatter and if this occurs, then much less snow would occur, to the point that some areas would see nothing at all. On the other hand, it’s also equally as plausible that a more amplified storm track could occur, which would mean a slightly bigger snowfall than what I’m forecasting.
Nevertheless, I am keeping close tabs on this storm and I will continue to have frequent updates as needed. Thursday: A dry, but cold day is expected on Thursday with high temperatures near 35 Degrees. Friday & Friday Night: A frontal system moves through for Friday bringing with it the possibility of a little bit of light snow in the morning on Friday that changes to rain showers during the afternoon. Some of the weather model guidance (I’m looking at you GFS weather model) shows a burst of snow on Friday morning. At this point, I don’t believe it because the entire system doesn’t look that strong. With that said, I’ll keep an eye on it, just in case. High temperatures Friday will be between 40 and 45 Degrees. This Weekend: We’re going to be watching the potential for a rather strong storm system and associated frontal boundary that could move across New England on Saturday afternoon, Saturday night and Sunday. This could be a rather interesting storm in that we could see quite an influx of cold air on the backside of the storm to turn the rain over to accumulating snow near the end of the storm. At this point, we may see rain throughout Saturday afternoon and Saturday night that changes to some light snow on Sunday morning. Any light snow should end by midday Sunday. Given how dynamic and strong this storm looks, it’s a system that does need to be watched closely.