MAJOR SATURDAY SNOWSTORM POSSIBLE… SIGNALS CONTINUE TO POINT TOWARD A POWERFUL NOR’EASTER NEAR THE NEW ENGLAND COAST, BUT UNCERTAINTIES REMAIN IN TERMS OF STORM TRACK AND PROBABLE IMPACTS, SO PLEASE STAY TUNED DURING WHAT WILL BE A LONG WEEK… TONIGHT’S SNOWFALL LOOKING A BIT MORE WIMPY, BUT A COATING TO AN INCH OR SO WILL CAUSE SOME SLIPPERY SPOTS OVERNIGHT AND BY EARLY TUESDAY MORNING… 6:55pm Mon…
Good evening everybody, I hope you all had a great day. The weather was certainly cooperative. You know you’re in mid-Winter when highs well into the mid/upper 20s doesn’t feel too bad, at least it didn’t for me during an afternoon walk as I surveyed Earth’s path through the Universe for a half hour… steady on, as we ply the fields of the cosmic firmament with great rapidity.
As for tonight, we’ve got #LilClippy moving west to east through the region which will bring periods of snow showers that will coat the ground for many of us, and may accumulate up to an inch or so. Lows will drop into the upper teens to low 20s.
#PrettyUpThePlace snow, as I like to call it.
Any snow will end between 6-8am tomorrow morning, most likely, and then we’ll end up with a mild day as our little storm will pass north of us, pushing a warm front through the WMass region, giving us a one-day episode of The Mildening – I can’t wait to watch.
Highs will reach well into the 30s with partly sunny skies developing by afternoon, and a few spots in northern CT may hit 40º.
A cold front will push through Tuesday night, which will foster some NW breezes gusting 15-20mph overnight and into Wednesday. Tuesday night lows will be in the single digits and wind chills may dip to or below zero at times, but no Advisories are expected.
Wednesday morning to Thursday morning will be the coldest stretch of the next 7 days most likely, and possibly for a good while as our pattern looks to shift later next week into a more mild regime as we enter February, though we’ll see if that has staying power.
Wednesday and Thursday will feature high pressure and sunshine building through the region, but it will be quite cold.
Highs on Wednesday will only reach the teens with northwest wind gusts to 20mph at times. Lows at night will crash into the single digits below zero, but the wind should be lightening up.
Regardless, plan for a very cold Wednesday night into early Thursday morning, with highs on Thursday climbing into the low to mid 20s and lows in the teens.
POSSIBLE MAJOR WINTRY NOR’EASTER FRI/SAT
Friday and Saturday is the timeframe I’m watching now for a potentially major snowstorm to impact parts of the region.
One model (attached) is showing a southern New England blizzard, with low pressure in this potential scenario having dropped 36 millibars in 12 hours, which is at a rate/speed clocked at THREE times the definition of a storm undergoing bombogenesis (which is 24 millibars drop in 24 or less hours).
This would produce heavy snow, blowing and drifting of snow, coastal flooding problems, and power outages due to strong to damaging winds in parts of southern New England, IF it comes to pass, and tracks close enough.
It’s still 96-120 hours away, folks, and while it may just graze the WMass region if it tracks more easterly, there are many pieces of guidance showing a double digit snowfall here, so please stay tuned.
THE KEYS TO CLOSER-IN STORM TRACK
The keys will be how strong the mid-level west coast ridge becomes, and in turn, how that impacts the northerly branch of the jet stream will be diving southeast through the northern Plains and toward the Deep South.
This will cause the southerly branch of the jet stream to buckle to some degree as it slams into it, which could produce a mid-level trough over the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region that pulls the storm closer into the coast.
How fast this all happens and exactly where the complex interactions are, will dictate our coastal storm’s ultimate track and impact on the greater WMass region Friday night into Saturday afternoon.
It certainly will be cold enough for snow!
If these pieces all come together, some of us (especially east of the I-91 in eastern WMass and CMass down into northeast CT) could get walloped by this system, which would have low pressure equal to some hurricanes.
I cannot answer questions like how much snow will we get, or when will it arrive, when will the worst be, etc., as we just don’t know enough yet.
But, we’ll learn more as we get closer, and I will pass all of that information along to you through this week, which I can tell you is going to be a long one for me.
Ok, off to make sweet potato and black bean burritos, enjoy some chill time and then off to bed early, and back at it first thing in the morning.
Sleep well, and see you on the flip side of tonight’s episode of Slumberville.
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6:55AM-MON: MORE LIGHT SNOW COMING TONIGHT… WATCH FOR SLICK SPOTS THIS MORNING… BRUTALLY COLD WEDNESDAY NIGHT INTO THURSDAY… MAJOR SNOW STORM POTENTIAL CONTINUES TO *SLOWLY* INCREASE FOR SATURDAY, SO STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES…
Good morning folks, we’ve got some slick spots out there this morning with overnight dustings, and we have a little bit more light snow on the way tonight which may more fully (yet lightly) blanket the region. Beyond that, brutal cold Wednesday and a slowly-increasing signal for a substantial winter storm by Saturday keeps this weather week a busy one for yours truly. I’ll detail all those details out below, but first I’ve got a note from our local and delicious sponsor, #TandemBagelCo, with a new location in West Springfield, MA.
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A NOTE FROM OUR SPONSOR:
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SUMMARY:
–After some true dustings overnight, we have a few slick spots out there this morning, so just have some alertness, as some folks are just dry
–Temps in the mid teens to mid 20s from north to south will rise up into the low to upper 20s for highs today with partly sunny skies during the first half of the day, and clouds increasing late ahead of our next Alberta Clipper (I call them clippies, because I’m strange)
–As clouds increase this evening, our Clipper will track east into northern New England and spread a warm frontal boundary into the WMass region
–This will cause overrunning to occur, as moist air and precipitation rises up and over our cold air in place, resulting in more or less widespread light snowfall between say 11pm and 6am into Tuesday morning
–Lows will either side of 20º, and we should see about a coating to an inch or so, maybe 2″ in some of the high terrain areas that ring out a little more moisture from the atmosphere. Wind will be light, so it’ll be a pretty snowfall overnight
–A few snow snow showers tomorrow morning will give way to a mostly cloudy day, but a mild one, with highs well into the 30s, so new snow will compact and melt to a degree
–A reinforcing shot of cold air moves in Tuesday night, and skies will clear, dropping lows into the 5-10º range
–For Wednesday, cold air continues to advect into the region, and northwest winds will gust up to 25mph at times with highs only in the teens
–The wind component of our Wednesday and Wednesday night weather will maximize earlier than expected, and not toward the late pre-dawn hours into the dawn when air temps are coldest
–Still, with lows expected Wednesday night plummeting into the single digits below zero (brrrrr!) wind chill readings Wednesday evening will get down to 10-15 below zero
–While some Wind Chill Advisories may still need to be hoisted for SVT and northwest MA, the Wind Chill Warnings will likely be held back, but we’ll se how it plays out
–For Thursday we’ll enjoy a nice high pressure day with mostly sunny skies, light winds, and highs in the low to mid 20s with lows in the teens
–For Friday, temps come up a little into the upper 20s to low 30s but clouds will build later in the day as a coastal storm gathers to the south down the east coast
–The potential for this storm is major, folks, I’m not going to sugar coat it
–I’m not saying it’s definitely going to produce a wintry wallop here in the greater WMass region, or anywhere in southern New England just yet, but the signals are starting to align and increase, and this would be a DEEP low pressure system, capable of blizzard conditions, heavy snow, and coastal flooding, including power outages, IF it comes to pass
–All this to say, stay tuned to this page and my reports throughout this week, and I will keep you updated all the through to a major impact, or until such time as I can determine it’s out to sea
–One thing seems fairly clear at the moment: this does not really look like an inside runner, snow to rain type event, though there could be a rain/snow line somewhere in southern New England if it tracks close enough
Ok, that’s enough for now, stay tuned, have a great day, and I hope things go your way today!
P.S. I am running a clearance sale through end of this month for some leftover 2022 Weather Wall Calendars I have in stock, so if you’ve already sent payment I am shipping those today and tomorrow, but if you haven’t reached out and are interested, just shoot me a private message and we’ll be in touch about it today, thanks.