1010pm

Mother Nature is having fun messing with me on this one. Frustrating. But I still love weather and trying to forecast it.

So, part 1 of storm came in earlier than expected and gave a bit more than I thought. Granted, it was only up to about an inch, but I didn’t think we’d see more than flakes in the air around Boston from that part.

So now in comes part 2. It is a powerful upper level system (thunderstorms in the Mid Atlantic indicate the power of this system). As it tracks east northeast, passing south of New England overnight, it will toss its precipitation shield into southern New England (this is happening now).  With the entire area colder than originally forecast, mixing/rain has been limited to mainly Cape Cod and this will all go back to snow as colder air gets drawn into the system. So most of the region from southern NH through MA/CT/RI will see snow overnight. The heaviest bands of snow are expected to be along and south of the Mass Pike for the most part, though a few will sneak up to the nort as well.

When it’s all done expect updated snowfall totals to come in this way: 1-3 inches in southern NH, 3-6 inches with spotty 7 to 8 inch amounts in northern MA, though lighter well to the northwest, and 6-12 inches in a wide swath of CT/RI, and southeastern MA up to about Boston, including to near the cape Cod Canal. Slighty lesser amounts will occur further east on Cape Cod.

So it’s more snow than I forecast originally, though not a tremendous amount more. Still, the timing is just right, or wrong depending on your perspective, to cause alot of delays and cancellations for schools.

This system is still expected to move right along and the snow will be over in most places near or shortly after sunrise, with fairly rapid clearing from west to east following. Most of the region should have the sun out by mid morning, and rest of the day Thursday will be bright & chilly.

Looking ahead, a weak disturbance will bring lots of clouds and perhaps a few snow flurries Friday. Another low pressure area will cross southern New England late Saturday with some light snow. Clearing is expected Sunday with dry weather lasting through Monday as January comes to a close. Colder weather is expected at the end of the weekend and the start of next week, but it does not look as cold as the past very cold airmass early this week.