Good evening everybody, I hope you had a good day today. I have not had a chance to answer any questions as I have been stuffing my brain filled with maps, information, updates, data, and listening to what other actual meteorologists who I deeply respect and am inspired by have to say about this incoming winter storm.

And before I get into my update for the evening, let’s just jump into the aspects of this system that could bust the forecast, ending with lower totals than I believe is going to transpire.

BUST POTENTIALS
1. Dry air funneling from the north to south down the CT River Valley: The source air up in northern/central New England will be colder and drier and as the storm cranks up to our south and vacuums air into its center from north to south, we could see some lighter snowfall intensity in the valley (a sort of triangle of disappointment effect).

2. Storm track: Major, prolific storms of this type can wobble in their track, like a hurricane wobbles as a type of eddy in a stream.

This storm is supposed to drop down to 965mb, which is similar in pressure to a strong Category 2 hurricane!

With that said, if the upper low doesn’t stack on top and capture the surface low soon enough, the surface low could track further south than expected which could pull totals down, especialy in areas north of Rt. 2.

A benefit of this for us would be that such a result could concentrate outages further south and away from our region.

Those are the 2 main bust potentials I see with this system. There are a couple of other less significant ones, but those are the main ones.

With that said, let’s plow (see what I did there?) through the sections of this report below, starting with tonight

TONIGHT
A backdoor frontal boundary will produce some scattered snow showers that may result in some fresh coatings by early Sunday morning. Lows will drop into the upper teens to mid 20s. Some patchy freezing fog is possible in SVT.

TOMORROW’S STORM SETUP
Below I will run through the various atmospheric features that are setting up to produce what is more likely than not to become the Blizzard of 2026 for parts of southern New England, and produce blizzard conditions at times in others.

PHASING OF UPPER AND SURFACE LOW CENTERS
An upper trough will be swinging its axis into eastern Ohio, which is classic position to draw a coastal low up the coast to near or inside The Benchmark (just south of Nantucket).

As the day moves into the night, that upper trough will tilt negatively, meaning its axis will move from north to south, and tilt to a more northwest to southeast orientation.

This southeastward extension of that upper low will cause the upper low to strengthen near the DelMarVa Peninsula at the same time that it helps spawn the coastal low to track northeast off of the NC/VA coastline.

As this happens, the upper low will essentially drift and crawl on top of the surface low and all low centers at the surface, half a mile up, a mile up, tow miles up and 3 miles up will stack on top of each other – this should act to tuck the surface low in closer to the coastline (this is a key to the high snow totals and wind gusts I am forecasting… if these centers don’t phase well or sooner as opposed to later, totals of both snow and wind could come down).

MASSIVE HIGH PRESSURE BRINGS THE COLD
At the same time, a massive high pressure cell, truly massive and powerful will set up in south-central Canada and spread down the west side of our upper low south down the Mississippi River Valley, and it’s northern section will spread across Quebec and Atlantic Canada, providing a cold drain of air into our developing, bombing-out low pressure center.

STORM IMPACTS
Below I will run through all of the expected impacts that I can see transpiring as of this writing, and I, of course, will update you again early Sunday morning.

TIMING
For Sunday, we’ll start off dry for the morning and highs will climb into the upper 20s to mid 30s. By early to mid afternoon, our nor’easter will be taking shape and rapidly deepening to our south, just east of the Mid-Atlantic coastline, and tracking north-northeast and then northeast.

As this happens, some onshore flow will develop and response to that storm, and will help produce some ocean effect snow showers that will retrograde east to west into parts of central MA and northeast CT by mid afternoon. One or two may even kiss eastern parts of Franklin, Hampshire, or Hampden Counties.

At the same time, prodigious lift will be helping to bloom the snow shield to our south, and that will track south to north to meet up with those retrograding snow showers, first in northern CT by between 4-7pm, and then into WMass and CMass between 6-9pm, and then into SVT/SWNH anytime after 8pm, the way it looks now.

Snow will become to moderate to heavy towards midnight, and being that we’re in the overnight period (and given that temps will be in the upper teens to mid 20s with fresh cold air draining southward) it will stick quickly, and travel will go down hill fast.

By Monday morning, it should be snowing heavily everywhere at rates anywhere between 1/2″ up to 2-3″ per hour depending on where you are in the region (remember, heavier snow the further south and east you go with this system).

The wind will also pick up and cause blowing and drifting of snow, and accumulating snow should continue into the afternoon and start to break up by late afternoon or the evening, depending on how the storm produces its snow banding structures.

SNOW CONSISTENCY
In a change from earlier reports, while this should be a wetter snow at the outset, given that it’s going to get quite cold at night and stay colder during Monday (highs 25-30º) with colder air aloft where snow is forming, this could will trend to a drier, fluffier or more powdery snow as the storm progresses on Monday.

Again, wetter and denser the further south and southeast you go, fluffier and more powdery the further north and northwest you go in the region.

POWER OUTAGES
This consistency change may reduce power outage potential in areas north of the Pike, and especially north of the Rt. 2 corridor, and correspondingly concentrate the greater amount of outages in parts of central MA south of Rt. 2 and in northeast CT.

WIND & VISIBILITY
As mentioned, the peak of the wind comes Monday morning into the first part of the afternoon, with northerly and north-northeasterly gusts of 30-50mph possible, maybe as high as 55mph in the high terrain. This will cause some isolated outages at least, if not more scattered in coverage.

This will also cause blowing and drifting of the snow, along with near whiteout and blizzard conditions at times.

Travel is not advised for Monday morning into the mid afternoon as of this writing.

It will continue to be breezy and gusty by later afternoon and evening, but gusts will hopefully come down below 40mph by that time. Still, Monday night should be a most wintry scene across our region!

AMOUNTS
–6-12″ across SVT and SWNH, along with the northern Berkshires and areas along and north of Rt. in Franklin County. If drier air wins out from the north, or the track is further south, these amounts could come down to more like 4-8″

–10-16″ across the southern Berkshires, the rest of WMass south of Rt. 2 in Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden Counties, northern Worcester County and much of northern CT

–A 14-20″ swath is possible in northeast CT and southern CMass, and that may extend back into eastern most Hampden County as well

I’ve already told you how these amounts couljd come down in the bust potential portion near the top of the report, but if this thing aligns perfectly and the stacked lows track to near Martha’s Vineyard? You would probably have to add 4-6″ of snow on top of all of these ranges.

That’s what I got folks, my eyes are straining, I’m hungry, and my cat needs his boxes cleaned, if you know what I mean.

I will update in the morning, have a great night!