6:45AM-THURS: RECORD WARMTH TODAY FOLLOWED BY SNOW, ICE AND RAIN SATURDAY… WINTER WEATHER ADVISORIES WILL LIKELY BE HOISTED BY LATER TODAY OR TOMORROW… PLOWABLE SNOW LOOKING MORE LIKELY FOR NORTHERN BERKSHIRES, MUCH OF FRANKLIN COUNTY, NORTHERN WORCESTER COUNTY NORTH INTO SVT AND SWNH WHERE UP TO HALF A FOOT MAY PILE UP… SNOW/ICE/RAIN MIX SOUTH… COLDER BUT FAIRLY STORM-FREE NEXT WEEK…

Good morning folks, it’s warm out there! Temps already circling around the 50º mark will be heading higher and breaking the 60º mark this afternoon for some.

We’ve also got snow and ice to talk about for this Saturday and Saturday night, but before we hop, skip and jump into our salient weather details, I’ve got a note from our local and delicious sponsor, #TandemBagelCo, who just opened a new location in West Springfield, MA.

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RECORD WARMTH TODAY
–What a difference a day makes! The monster storm that produced all of that wind damage and dust bowl footage yesterday in the Plains states raced northeast to near Lake Superior
–That 976mb low center continues to track northeast, and is responsible for pulling a WIDE area of southwest to northeast flow along its southeast flank and hurling that (in the form of warmth) into New England today
–As such, temps have risen all night during which rain (which started as snow and sleet last night) has been working through the region with our warm frontal passage
–These showers are winding down through mid morning, and clouds will eventually break up and lead to mostly sunny skies by late morning into early afternoon
–Temps will respond, rising into the upper 50s to low 60s, which will break some records
–In addition, any morning temp inversion (where temps are warmer aloft than at ground) will flip and allow gusty southwest winds up to 20-30mph at times to develop this afternoon, lasting into the evening
–Clouds work back in tonight with a cold front approaching, along with scattered showers, which won’t be as numerous as last night
–Lows will drop to the upper 30s to mid 40s and winds will veer out of the southwest to the west and southwest, gusting to 25mph or so
–For Friday, we’re sunny and cooler, but still mild for this time of year, with highs in the 45-50º range, and northwest winds gusting 20-30mph at times as colder high pressure starts to approach Quebec Province through Ontario
–This high is our setup for draining colder into the region Friday night and Saturday to help produce a moderate-impact winter storm in our region for Saturday and Saturday night

SNOW AND ICE COMING
–Clouds will build Friday night as winds tamp down, and lows will drop into the mid 20s to low 30s region wide
–At the same time low pressure will eject east-northeast out of the southern Ohio Valley destined to track off of the southern NJ coastline Saturday
–This storm won’t be induced to strengthen all that much, but the interaction with cold high pressure to the north will be enough to produce a swath of wintry precip over southern New England
–Snow showers could reach the Litchfields, Berkshires and Taconics by early morning, but most of us in the western MA region will have to wait until mid to late morning for snow showers to arrive
–By Saturday afternoon it should be snowing steadily across much of the region, and highs are only supposed to reach the low 30s, so a much different day 48 hours from now!
–A warm nose at the mid levels will work overhead for CT and up into parts of MA, maybe even reaching the VT-NH border with MA later in the day
–This should flip snow to a mix of sleet and/or rain for areas south of the Rt. 2 corridor, cutting down accumulations
–Along and north of Rt. 2 looks like mostly snow, maybe with a little sleet mixed in at times
–This all depends on storm track, but it does look like when the storm tracks east of our longitude, we could flip back to steady light snow for a time
–All in all, I think a coating to 2″ south of Rt. 2 (with maybe some 3″ amounts mixed in) with more like 2-5″ along and north of Rt. 2, with maybe some 6″ amounts mixed in over the southern Greens and Monadnock
–By Sunday the storm is gone, with sunshine developing, but it will be cold in the low to mid 30s for highs and low 20s for lows
–On Monday, it will be even colder with highs in the mid 20s to low 30s under mostly sunny skies! Hello, Winter.
–Fair and seasonable weather looks likely for next week with a few snow showery periods possible, but it appears northern and southern stream waves won’t phase, and so no big storms (at the moment) appear more likely than not

Have a great day!