Good morning everybody, to start, please watch out for patches of black ice on surfaces this morning, we did have some lake effect snow showers move through last night and with temps in the 20s, some icy spots no doubt exist.
For today, high pressure continues to build in and will set the very cold table for our all-snow snowstorm late tomorrow night into Thursday afternoon.
Even though highs will only reach the mid 20s to low 30s today, it will do so under mostly sunny skies, so at least we’ll have a bright day. However, northwest winds will be gusting 20-30mph at times, so wind chills will be down into the teens, and it will be blustery, so bundle up!
For tonight, the wind will slacken, which will help lows drop like a rock into the single digits, with maybe some spots staying above 10º. Yahoo! I mean, BRRR!!!!
On Wednesday, powerful high pressure builds to our north, which will drain even colder air southward into the WMass region, which will produce highs only in the low to mid 20s as clouds increase during the day. Lows will be in the mid to upper teens.
As our storm exits the Tennessee Valley and tracks northeast through VA up to the Mid-Atlantic coastline, a light east flow will commence, and eventually back around to the northeast and pick up wind speed Wednesday night into Thursday – a Nor’easter!
STORM SETUP
On Wednesday night into Thursday morning we’ll have a dominant, large, strong cold high to the north in Quebec, which is classic when paired with a coastal storm off the Mid-Atlantic coastline.
Interestingly, because no upper level trough will be swinging through the Great Lakes to help deepen this surface low pressure off the coast and intensify it rapidly, it will actually be weakening a bit as it passes east of our longitude.
However, it will be picking up ample Gulf of Mexico moisture as it crosses the Deep South and Tennessee Valley tonight and tomorrow, so it should have plenty of moisture available to produce substantial snowfall across the region.
This will allow snow to break out across the region from south to north between 9pm-Midnight tomorrow night, and it will snow heavily at times with northeast winds picking up and gusting 20-30mph, causing reduced visibility and blowing and drifting of snow through Thursday morning. Highs on Thursday will only be in the 20s with lows in the single digits and teens.
The question still remains as to how quickly or slowly the surface low’s upper level component weakens along with how strong the high is to the north and its exact position in terms of southward suppression of higher snow totals.
There will be a sharp northern cutoff of snow totals, which I think occurs somewhere north of the Route 2 corridor.
For now, I am going to refine my snow totals and say that along and south of the MassPike we should see 8-14″ of snow accumulation in southern WMass, southern CMass, and northern CT.
From the MA/VT-NH border south to the Pike I widespread 4-8″ looks likely as of this writing for those areas in WMass and CMass, and then I think 2-4″ in southern VT and southwest NH.
I will provide a comprehensive update tonight regarding our incoming snow storm, the first widespread one of the new cold season.
Friday through Sunday look drier and cold with a moderating trend in temps into next week. Some scattered rain and snow showers are possible Sunday night into Monday with a frontal system.
Ok, have a great day, and stay tuned for more updates, especially this evening’s report! Thanks for reading! :-)