Good morning folks, be sure to run through the Nutshell for the quicker skim. For today, we’ll salvage a very mild Friday with partly to mostly sunny skies to start and highs reaching the mid 60s to mid 70s as clouds thicken into the afternoon with scattered showers on the way.

By mid to late afternoon, the first scattered showers should start to rotate southeast through the greater WMass region, roughly 3-6pm, maybe a little later in some spots to the east.

Northwest gusts up to 30mph are possible this evening, but the bigger wind gusts will hold off until Saturday morning until early afternoon.

Scattered showers will continue tonight, most of them on the lighter side, but some heavier bursts possible towards midnight and lows dropping into the upper 30s to mid 40s as our storm dives southeast toward Boston, which is a rare storm track for New England.

Towards dawn into the early morning of Saturday, the stronger but more compact precipitation shield will run over areas mainly east of the Berkshires and north of the MA-CT state line, but also include SVT and SWNH, and may tag far northeast CT with less activity in the Berkshires south into much of northern CT.

For Saturday morning, rain will be mostly light to moderate but heavier cells are possible in the mountains and especially in areas of Worcester County north of the Pike and in eastern parts of Cheshire County NH – it is in the highest terrain of those areas (and in the high peaks of the southern Greens of VT) where we could see rain mix to or even change to wet snow if precipitates hard enough for a period of time (due to dynamic cooling, which is heavy precip drags colder air aloft to surface, cooling it).

I can’t even rule out a coating to an inch of wet snow in some of those highest peaks above 2500 feet!

The main story for most of us, however, the stronger northerly wind gusts on the back / western side of the storm running thru EMass. Gusts will reach speeds of 30-45mph at times Saturday morning into early afternoon, and high temps will only reach the mid 40s to mid 50s, so some record low max temps could be set.

By mid to later afternoon, we should be mostly dry with an isolated shower possible, but winds should tamp down to gusts of 15-30mph along with the chance for some sunny breaks as we set up for our Full Blue Moon.

Lows will be in the mid 30s to mid 40s, with some localized frost possible in SVT, SWNH and far northern MA.

Sunday is by the weekend pick with highs in the upper 60s to mid 70s under partly sunny skies, which will be followed by an unsettled early week period with scattered showers and thunderstorms possible Monday into Tuesday as mild temps continue.

By the mid to late week period, warmer temps are expected with highs in the 70s and fair weather as far as I can tell at the moment.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”
― Joseph Campbell

YOUR NUTSHELL:
–31-year anniversary of the Great Barrington, MA F4 tornado today
–Clouds thicken today, mild, highs mid 60s to mid 70s
–Scattered showers arrive by mid afternoon to dinner time
–Scattered showers tonight, and breezy with gusts to 30mph possible
–Lows drop to the upper 30s to mid 40s overnight
–Low pressure tracks southeast from northern New England to Boston into Saturday morning
–This spreads a heavier, but more compact rain shield through SVT, SWNH, the valley and points east, largely missing the Berkshires and much of northern CT
–Some rain cells may be heavier, and with colder air spilling in aloft, dynamic cooling may produce snow in the high terrain of the southern Greens, Monadnock, and northern MA (especially northern CMass)
–Isolated coatings to an inch in the highest peaks possible
–Northerly wind is the main impact with gusts 30-45mph on Saturday morning into early afternoon
–Cool temps on Saturday with highs only in the mid 40s to mid 50s
–Peak wind is first part of Saturday, but gusts to 30mph still possible through the afternoon and early evening with an isolated shower possible anywhere, along with some sunny breaks late
–Isolated frost possible in southern VT Saturday night with lows in the mid 30s to mid 40s
–Sunday is by far the weekend pick with sunshine and highs either side of 70º, with lows either side of 50º
–More showers are possible early next week as another weak system dives into the region in this upper trough pattern, which should lift out of here by mid to late next week
–Overall trend for warmer temps through next week

YOUR DAILY CELESTIALS
STAR:
–OUR STAR ROSE AT: 5:18am this morning
–OUR STAR SETS AT: 8:17pm this evening
–TOTAL DAYLIGHT TIME: 14 hours and 59 minutes

MOON:
–OUR MOON RISES AT: 7:10pm this afternoon
–MOON RISE DIRECTION: East-Southeast
–OUR MOON SETS AT: 4:18am tomorrow morning
–MOON SET DIRECTION: Southwest
–MOON PHASE: Waxing Gibbous (96.6%)