Good evening everybody, thanks for all the reports today, and I hope everyone traveled safely. We had drizzle and freezing drizzle, but as promised, precip is re-entering the region and will fall as rain across the region tonight.
The lead post image this evening shows the infrared satellite still which indicates that this is a powerful and large storm. If it was tracking 100-150 miles, we’d be getting pasted with snow tomorrow, but it’s not to be. Instead 1-2 feet of snow will fall in northern NY and northwest VT.
For us tonight, we will see patchy fog, and patchy areas of freezing rain in the Berkshires, western hilltowns, SVT, Taconics, eastern hilltowns east into northern Worcester County, with the worst impacts possibly in southwest NH into northernmost central MA where two to three-tenths of an inch of ice may accrete through Friday morning. Otherwise, other areas (outside of northernmost Worcester County / southwest NH) that receive freezing rain/drizzle tonight could see another tenth to two-tenths of an inch of ice, or light traces in other areas.
Lows will hover in low to mid 30s for the most part, and even though they are slated to come up a bit late, they will likely stay right where they are, as you can see in the regional surface temp map attached.
Rain and freezing rain is already moving into the region (see attached radar still) which will continue overnight at times, light to moderately in intensity.
For Friday morning, rain and freezing rain showers will continue as rapidly deepening low pressure (yes, this one looks to undergo…. wait for it…. BOMBOGENESIS!), runs right over northwestern/north-central CT, southern WMass and CMass, on its way to southern Maine.
As it does this, two things are going to transpire:
1. Even without a strong high pressure system to the north or west to create a strong pressure gradient for the low to press up against and generate strong winds, the fact that our low will be bombing out as it tracks over us will generate a Fall-Rise couplet (i.e. a quick falling and rising of pressures over a short distance and short period of time) that will cause strong west winds to develop in the low’s wake, as pressures rise just behind it.
This feature will likely produce westerly winds that will gust 35-50mph tomorrow from early afternoon to early evening. The strongest winds will blow along the Pike east of the Berkshires and points south into northern CT. Please see the attached NWS-generated wind gust map.
2. As the storm tracks east of our longitude by early afternoon, it will pull in much colder air, and flip any rain or ice to snow over the Taconics, Berkshires (especially northern), southern VT, southwest NH, and the northwestern hilltowns in Franklin/Hampshire counties.
This will start in northern Bennington County by late morning into the noon hour, and then continue south and east as the afternoon wears on.
1-3″ of additional snow is expected, with the potential for more like 3-5″ to fall in eastern Bennington and western Windham Counties, in the high passes of the southern Greens.
Scattered coatings of varying thicknesses are possible south and east of the northwestern MA high terrain.
While some snow showers may linger in southern VT and the northern Berkshires Friday night, we will see clouds breaking in the Pioneer Valley and points south and east, with strong winds continuing, but relaxing a bit later at night.
Cold air will be prodigiously spilling into the region, and temps will drop rapidly, causing black ice to form in spots across the region. Lows will be in the teens.
Saturday is gorgeous, mostly sunny, and cold with slackening wind and highs in the 20s. Lows will plummet into the single digits.
Sunday looks partly to mostly cloudy with highs in the low 30s as another weak system approaches from the west (this one will be a flat, zonal, west-to-east tracker out of the Great Lakes region).
Temps will drop into the 20s for lows Sunday night as we cloud up, and we could see some light accumulating snowfall from this system before it changes to rain later on Monday morning and departs, leaving us with highs in the low 40s.
Some more inclement weather is possible Tuesday and Thursday, but let’s get through the next set of changes first before we look at those systems.
Busy times in the Weather Department of the western Massachusetts region!
Keep it tuned here, and I will keep you updated the whole way.
Have a great night, and let me know how road conditions are in your neck of the woods, and also if you are seeing any freezing rain and icing redeveloping tonight! Thanks!