RAINFALL MOVES BACK IN THIS EVENING AND OVERNIGHT, BRIEF FREEZING RAIN PATCHES POSSIBLE IN THE HIGH TERRAIN… RAIN QUITS BEFORE NOON FRIDAY, WITH COLDER AND WINDIER CONDITIONS DEVELOPING BY NIGHT AND INTO SATURDAY MORNING… COLD BUT FAIR WEEKEND LEADS TO A PERIOD OF SNOW OR ICE NEXT TUESDAY INTO EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING… (8:30pm Thurs)
Good evening everybody, rainfall is moving back into the region as I type, and has already entered the southern Berkshires, Litchfield County and southern Taconics and will continue to push east-northeast across our region.
Elsewhere, patchy fog will develop, and mist will precede the incoming rain in spots.
Lows tonight will sit about where they are in the low to upper 30s. You can see in the attached current temps graphic that a number of hilltown spots are at the freezing mark, so watch out for ice this evening.
Rain should finish up by mid to late morning tomorrow with patchy fog possible, before clouds clear rapidly from west to east. Sunshine develops for the afternoon as a cold front sweeps the moisture seaward.
That’s a #SeawardSweep, in case you were wondering.
Then, a #StupidColdSeep replaces our #SeawardSweep as highs in the upper 40s to low 50s freefall into the teens for low. Winds will also be gusting 25-40mph out of the west, especially in the high terrain, and Wind Advisories may be needed. An isolated power outage cannot be ruled out tomorrow night.
On Saturday, winds continue for at least the first half of the day under sunny skies with highs in the low 30s and lows in the upper single digits.
Sunday and Monday look similar for temps and skies, so our Saturday through Monday period is looking seasonable and reasonable.
By Tuesday, a snowstorm is possible and it could be a plowable accumulation. Right now, the broadbrush feel of this thing is like a 2-4″ or 3-6″ storm.
The change that I promised you that I would make is to not get everybody wrapped up in “the models are saying this today, oops, now they’re saying that!” It doesn’t matter at this range with a split jet stream flow out west which notoriously messes with the models’ minds (split flow just means that a primary jet stream branch splits into two rivers of air several miles up – one goes northerly, the other southerly, and when a storm is upstream of that split, meaning to the west of it, the guidance is not reliable).
So just know that it could be an impactful winter event, and there are two main potentials.
1. The parent storm cuts too far west without spawning a secondary low south of Long Island and produces snow to ice or rain, with a front-end thump of snow, which could still bring the plows out
2. The parent storm cuts over New York state, still to our west, but close enough to the coast that another storm will form south of the coast and hold the cold in, producing an all snow event for many of us.
That’s how it looks now, we should start to get a better feel for Tues/Wed storm by Saturday into Sunday morning.
Have a great night and bring your rain gear with you if you are heading out tonight or tomorrow morning!
——–
RAW, DAMP, DRIZZLY-AT-TIMES DAY WITH MORE RAIN SHOWERS FROM GENERALLY MIDNIGHT TO NOON TOMORROW BEGETS WIND, COLD, AND A FEW BERKSHIRE SNOW SHOWERS FRIDAY NIGHT… COLD BUT FAIR WEEKEND THROUGH MONDAY… SNOW STORM STILL POSSIBLE TUESDAY INTO WEDNESDAY… (6:30AM THURS)
Good morning everybody, it appears the valley hovered just above freezing overnight, but there are many locations on either side of the valley in the higher terrain that are at or below freezing this morning, so I imagine some of us will be seeing a slippery morning commute in the hills and north of Rt. 2.
TODAY
For the rest of the day as drier air moves in aloft, low level moisture will be trapped and result in drizzle at times. It’s possible that a few areas see freezing drizzle this morning. Patchy fog is also possible, and highs will generally reach 35-40 under cloudy skies.
BRIEF FREEZING RAIN POSSIBLE
As rain moves back into the region toward (but likely before) midnight, a few spots in southwest NH (where a Winter Weather Advisory is now posted for tonight until tomorrow morning), as well as northern Worcester County or even some western hilltowns could briefly ice again, before we turn to rain showers. Lows tonight should be in the low/mid 30s.
RAIN/MILDER, THEN COLD/WINDIER
Another storm system will race east out of the Great Lakes will float a warm front through the region tonight, which will bring more rain overnight into about noon on Friday.
Friday will be quite mild with highs well into the 40s and even low 50s. However, by afternoon, we will be both clearing sky-wise, and cooling temp-wise, which will plummet some 30-35 degrees, landing in the teens by the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning.
In addition, with high pressure building in rapidly behind this storm system, a strong pressure gradient will develop and we could see strong to potentially damaging winds, especially across the high terrain. Wind Advisories or even High Wind Warnings may need to be posted, and some isolated power outages are possible with downed tree limbs.
SATURDAY THROUGH MONDAY
This period looks beautiful with plenty of sunshine but cold. A few snow showers are possible Friday night into the first half of Saturday with cold air advection in the Berkshires and SVT.
Highs all three days are expected to be in the upper 20s to mid 30s, and lows in the teens. Saturday will be coldest day/night pair of this three-day period. Plenty of sunshine!
SNOWSTORM NEXT WEEK?
Signals continue to point toward a snowstorm on Tuesday into Wednesday, with plowable snow quite possible. The storm looks to have plenty of moisture. This is not a coastal runner, but a storm that will move across the Ohio Valley and (hopefully, if you like snow) track flat to the south of Long Island. We’ve had so many inside runners, that this just bears watching for now.
But even if it did hook west of us, PLENTY of cold air will precede the storm, so in that situation we’d have accumulating snow changing to ice or rain, so I think we’re going to see SOME snow early next week, but details remain murky.
Have a great day!