Very Cold Weather Is Expected From Friday Through Saturday Across Western & Central Mass

For Tonight: A weak cold front is expected to push through the region during the after midnight hours of tonight. It’s expected that this front will bring with it some scattered snow showers beginning just before midnight tonight and continuing until about sunrise Tuesday morning. Low temperatures will be between 25 and 30 Degrees. Winds will be Southwest at 5 to 10 mph. Tuesday: That cold front will push to the east during the day on Tuesday. This means that a mixture of sunshine and clouds can be expected throughout the day Tuesday. Temperatures on Tuesday will remain steady around 30 Degrees or so. Winds will be Northwest at 10 to 20 mph. Wednesday: A low pressure system is expected to track off of the North Carolina coast and stay way to the south of our area during Wednesday. This means that any snow with this storm will remain to our south and instead we should see a mixture of sunshine and clouds throughout the day on Wednesday. High temperatures will be near 30 Degrees. Winds will be West to Northwest at 5 to 10 mph. Thursday: A partly sunny day is expected on Thursday with high temperatures between 35 and 40 Degrees. Very Cold Weather Is Expected From Friday Through Saturday: A hard hitting, but short-lived Arctic air mass is expected to sink into the area on Friday and remain in place right through Saturday before leaving very quickly on Sunday and next Monday. This Arctic air mass is likely to bring a couple of days of particularly very cold days with record low temperatures likely. The actual Arctic cold front is expected to push through our area during the late night hours of Thursday night into Friday morning and may be accompanied by some scattered snow shower activity and maybe even a brief snow squall. Gradually increasing sunshine with falling temperatures, gusty winds and even colder wind chill temperatures are likely by Friday afternoon. Temperatures on Friday will start out near 20 Degrees, but will fall to near 10 Degrees during the afternoon. Wind chill temperatures by Friday afternoon will average near minus 10. A very cold night is expected on Friday night with most areas across Western and Central Mass seeing below zero low temperatures. Skies on Friday night will be clear and it will be windy. Low temperatures will be between 10 and 15 below zero. Record low temperatures for Friday night are minus 4 in Worcester, minus 12 in Springfield, minus 5 in Westfield and minus 8 in Hartford. I expect that all of these record low temperatures will either be tied or broken. Wind chill temperatures on Friday night will be in the minus 30 range. A very cold day is expected on Saturday and many areas of Western and Central Mass will struggle to make it much above zero!! Skies on Saturday will be sunny with high temperatures that struggle to make it to 4 to 9 Degrees Above Zero. Wind chill temperatures on Saturday will be around minus 30 during the morning and around minus 10 to minus 15 during the afternoon. Bottom line is that Friday night and Saturday looks brutal in terms of cold and if you have plans to be out and about on either Friday night or Saturday, bundle up!! Those of you with livestock or animals that reside outdoors, I strongly urge you to make contingency plans to make sure they’re not exposed to this expected brutal cold. Those of you with plans to head north to ski or go ice climbing on either Friday or Saturday, I strongly urge you to reconsider as mountain weather conditions will be extremely dangerous with temperatures of around minus 20 on Friday, minus 40 on Friday night and minus 10 on Saturday. Wind chill temperatures in the mountains of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine will be around minus 60 on Friday, minus 100 on Friday night and minus 50 on Saturday. Also, those of you planning on skiing Mount Wachusett on Friday and especially on Saturday should probably reconsider as mountaintop wind chill temperatures may approach minus 20 on Friday and may approach minus 40 at times on Saturday.