A full-fledged winter storm is underway in northern New England, where snow has already started flying and continues to expand across the North Country.
Meanwhile, a northerly wind draining cold air southward out of Canada should push temperatures below freezing Monday evening from central Vermont to north-central New Hampshire to south-central Maine, resulting in a period of late day and evening freezing rain
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Farther south, not much fanfare is expected Monday through the night as milder air makes a stand for mostly cloudy skies and temperatures holding near 50. Temperatures will be even closer to 60 degrees by Tuesday morning on Cape Cod.
Until the clash of cold and warm air makes it far enough south to reach the southern half of New England, there won’t be much precipitation beyond an occasional sprinkle Monday through early Tuesday morning. However, the arrival of a sharp cold front from north to south Tuesday morning will prompt rain showers first, then snow showers.
The problem for the southern half of New England isn’t so much the snow accumulations of 6 to 12 inches like we’ll see in the north, or the 2 to 4 inches mixed with ice like we see centrally.
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Instead, it faces a dusting to an inch of snow that will come at an inopportune time just ahead of temperatures dropping below freezing, making road ice a possibility Tuesday afternoon.
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Drier air surging in Tuesday night through Wednesday is also cold air – record cold. Wednesday morning wind chill values near zero will precede record cold high temperatures for the date, even beneath ample yet ineffective sunshine.
The cold relaxes only slightly Thursday, then more so Friday before being reinforced Saturday. This is likely to deliver a dry weekend for us, at least until late Sunday or Sunday night in our exclusive First Alert 10-Day Forecast.
