Good evening folks, as many of you know I was born, raised and have lived my entire life in Massachusetts so I’m as Yankee as they come. However, my father was a southern man, and so you’ll have excuse me when I say (in my best lazy southern drawl that I can muster) “Winter is fixin’ to warp us upside the head”.

To translate for those whose jaws just dropped and/or felt a few mental circuits fry the brain board, what I’m saying is that we’ve got a combination of cold, wind, and storminess that is starting to coalesce and line up to potentially deliver a very strong level of winter conditions that we have not seen years, to be frank.

It’s my job to set expectations regarding our weather, and while we’re still 4-5 days out from our potential moderate to major snowstorm (which if it comes north of us could deliver over a foot of snow to parts of our region, especially south of the Pike), things can still change with regard to phasing of the northern and southern stream systems and upper lows, the position of the Arctic high that will slide east of the Great Lakes and into northern New England or southern Canada, and more.

So, I will talk more about the storm in tomorrow morning’s report. Just know that we could get big blanket of powdery and wind from that system about Sunday noon to Monday noon.

But what’s more certain is the Arctic blast that’s on the way, which will be preceded by a warm frontal passage by tomorrow, and a few snow showers or snow squalls possible.

For tonight, we’re already seeing periods of snow in SVT, and some areas of the southern Greens as I mentioned this morning could see 1-4″ of snow, with SCATTERED coatings to an inch elsewhere in the greater WMass region, meaning some folks will see nothing.

The snow shield is all broken up and blotchy, and it’s been very dry so despite it snowing overhead, we’ve had plenty of virga in WMass, CMass and N.CT, though some parts of northwest MA saw snow earlier.

Please post any snow reports below if you see any tonight. Lows will hang in the teens and 20s.

For Thursday, a warm front moves through and that could trigger some snow showers as it moves through in the morning, with a Berkshire squall possible.

Highs behind the front will reach the mid 30s to low 40s, and southwest winds will kick up by late morning and gust 20-35mph at times.

Enjoy The Mildening for a day! Winds will slacken and we should clear Thursday night, with lows dropping into the teens as an Arctic cold front bears down on us from the northwest, set to sweep the region by Friday mid-day.

Highs will only reach the 20s on Friday, and then with some more chances for snow showers scattered about, the coldest air of the season will empty like an invisible sludge of molasses and spread throughout our region from west to east as a potent high pressure over the Great Lakes drives northwest flow into New England.

Temps will crash into Friday night and northwest winds will gust 30-45mph, with lows diving down to as much as -10º to the low single digits in the valley south and east, with wind chills hitting the freezer, down into the -30º to -10º range by early Saturday morning.

This is brutal cold, folks, and so you must protect your body when you head out in it, if you must, to prevent hypothermia or frostbite – it’s no joke.

To all of the old Yankees who just read that and rolled their eyes, congrats to you, your tougher than nails, you win.

For the rest of you, be careful in these conditions, and if we’re lucky they will relent a bit compared to what it looks like will transpired as of this writing.

Saturday is very cold and breezy with highs in the single digits, and more below zero readings are set for Saturday night, so I imagine we’ll see numerous Cold Weather Advisories and eventually a few Extreme Cold Warnings posted by the NWS by tomorrow and/or Friday.

Of course, clouds will likely be building Saturday night into Sunday morning with very cold antecedent air in place ahead of what become a moderate to major Miller B type snowstorm in the greater WMass region and much of central and southern New England with some double-digit snowfall accumulations possible, if a northward trend in storm track holds.

Beyond that is more Arctic cold blasts next week and another chance at snow, so the Weather Department is very, very busy as we enter the heart of Winter, and please know I will do my best to be your reliable storm sherpa and guide through all of it.

Have a great night, Dave.