Good evening everybody, we’ve got a fresh new set of Winter Weather Advisories up for our region for Thursday evening starting at 5pm and lasting until noon on Friday with yet another wintry mix system set to float milder air aloft while retaining surface cold down below. This will result in rain earlier on, turning to freezing rain and sleet, with more accumulating snow expected in southwest NH, Franklin County, southeast VT and northern CMass, at least.

If colder trends continue to develop, snow may come further south and west from those areas.

First off for tonight, we have to be aware that with early clear skies along with plenty of snow pack will help produce a drop into the low to mid 20s for lows.

That will be enough to produce some patchy freezing fog tonight, and it may form on the earlier side around midnight or thereafter. Therefore, black ice and freezing fog should combine to create more slippery surfaces overnight and into early Thursday morning, so be mindful of that.

Once we break into Thor’s Day, clouds are going continue to increase ahead of our incoming shortwave and warm frontal boundary – a boundary which will never make it north of our region until at least the weekend, most likely, keeping us its cold side as cold air damming sets up with high pressure in Maine, draining surface cold southwest into the greater WMass region.

Highs will reach the upper 30s to mid 40s, and we’ll see some rain showers develop along and south of the Pike either side of noon and track west to east ahead of the main precipitation shield which arrives between 5pm and 8pm from southwest to northeast.

As the precipitation gets steadier and heavier, and the surface cold bleeds at all levels from our northeast, while milder aloft seeks to intrude from the southwest, the greater WMass region will be smack dab in the middle of this meteorological mess.

I think we’re probably starting as rain early evening south of route 2 with sleet and freezing rain north of there, but temps are likely going to cool down as the night wears on and many of us in WMass, CMass, SVT, SWNH, and the high terrain of northwest and northeast CT will turn to sleet and freezing rain.

Sleet and freezing rain north of Rt. 2 likely turns to sleet and snow overnight with at least a coating to 3″ in SVT, SWNH, and far northern parts of WMass and CMass, and possibly more if deeper cold gets established.

Ice accretions from freezing rain may also be even thicker than the tenth to quarter inch that some of us woke up today.

Some guidance that is pretty reliable for ice accretions is printing out up to half an inch of ice in parts of northwest CT into the southeastern Berkshires and southwest hilltowns, and that’s enough to ice to cause power line and tree damage, with power loss in spots.

This is going to make for a lousy Friday morning commute as icing continues overnight with snow far north. I am unsure how long plain rain hands on tomorrow night for southern areas the Springfield to Hartford stretch, and I will have to update in the morning.

It’s a freakin’ mess coming our way, and boy do I love winter weather, but I’m crying uncle with this one, this winter has cooked me #ForCripesSakes as my Nana used to say back in the day.

Friday icing may be followed by freezing drizzle for the morning, and now Friday temps look to hang in the 30s, so this Winter continues to flex its residual muscle, even if the Arctic troughing pattern that brought most of our snow and deep cold has been broken.

I will update tomorrow morning on this storm, as well as on the weekend and next week, but this update is just a focus for our Thursday night to Friday timeframe.

Have a great night!