Good morning folks, I’ll be honest with you, it’s been years since I got chills writing one of my weather report headlines but the chills cascaded down my cranium this morning when thinking about this incoming Arctic blast. Remember the Extreme Heat Warnings we had last June? Well, this is pretty much the polar opposite (pun not intended) of that with wind chills potentially as low as -30º below zero by early Saturday morning.

This morning is a taste of the cold that’s coming, and it’s plenty cold out there with temps either side of 0º, but even colder air is on the way for this weekend.

For today, we’ll “warm up” into the upper teens to mid 20s for highs under sunny skies early, followed by increasing clouds later this afternoon as a weak Clipper low to our north and departing strong high pressure to our south combine their respective circulations to draw milder, moister air from the southwest to northeast into our region in the form of a warm frontal passage tonight.

This will produce periods of light to perhaps moderate snow showers overnight, starting as early as 4-6pm in SVT and far northwest MA, proceeding eastward through our region thereafter tonight.

A coating to an inch of snow is possible over our region, with as much as 1-4” of snow in the spine of the southern Green Mountains of VT. Lows will hang in the teens and 20s overnight as southwest flow develops.

Snow showers quit by dawn Thursday, and we’ll see southwest winds pick up and gust 25-40mph during the day ahead of our incoming Arctic cold front for Friday.

This will induce a rise in temps, with highs around the freezing mark up to 40º or so from south to north in the greater WMass region, which will produce some snow melt of our well-stacked snowy dendrites.

At night, winds will continue ahead of the front with lows in the upper teens to upper 20s, though gusts should lighten up toward morning.

Friday is the day our Arctic front comes through the region, but it will be moisture starved as usually one could expect strong snow squalls, though I will continue to watch the trends.

The day looks to be sunny with falling temps by afternoon and highs only in the teens and 20s, set to nosedive into the -10º to 5º range overnight as northwest winds gust 25-40mph.

This combination will likely prompt the NWS to issue Cold Weather Advisories for the valley points east and south, and/or Extreme Cold Watches for our western high terrain (Berkshires, western hilltowns, SVT) that may convert to Warnings if the wind chill readings of -20 to -30º below zero continue to look more likely.

This weekend looks brutally cold with highs only in the single digits to low teens at best, though Saturday looks like a dry sunny day, so I guess we have that going for us!

Lows will be below zero for many of us, and by Sunday I will be watching the trends that may continue to draw a powerful winter storm towards us (a blizzard for some and crippling ice storm for others in the middle and southeastern parts of the country).

As of now, the brunt of this supercharged system (born from a clash of Arctic cold to the north and warmer, moist air to the south) looks like it may pass just south of us, but I cannot rule out a track closer to New England that could produce a major snowfall here, so I will keep you updated as we get closer.

The timeframe would be Sunday mid-day to Monday morning, followed by ANOTHER major Arctic blast of air and potential snow late next week, so Winter is really gearing up now folks and I do anticipate releasing my mobile weather app for iPhone by Friday (that’s my goal) so watch for announcements, as that will be a way for us to be connected – you’ll get posts whenever I publish them.

Have a great day!

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