A messy morning of rain and snow in parts of southern New England gives way to drier times Thursday afternoon as cold and dry air already in place across northern New England and Upstate New York moves southeast.
There have been two issues as this colder air arrives: changing rain to lightly accumulating snow in Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, followed by the likelihood of moisture on the roads freezing as areas of black ice Thursday evening and overnight. The farther north and west one is, the sooner the dry and cold air arriving cuts back on the potential for black ice development.
Meanwhile, the new cold isn’t as intense as some of the blasts we’ve felt already this season, but will be sufficient to drive wind chill values below zero as far south as parts of northern Massachusetts Friday early morning – not dangerous for most, but stinging cold, nonetheless. Wind actually shouldn’t be that strong on Friday, so wind chill won’t be a factor so much as the simple cold nature of the air – with high temperatures near 20 in southern New England and closer to 10 in the North.
Early in the day, a northerly wind direction is expected to set up some ocean-effect snow showers onto Cape Cod, parts of the South Shore and perhaps briefly into immediate coastal locales like Cape Ann and around Boston Harbor. Elsewhere, a fair sky will do little to make ease the effect of our chilly air.
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For days, our First Alert Weather Team has been watching the development of a storm over the ocean waters south of New England to determine just how close the storm will come and how much snow, if any, we’ll see. Wednesday our team started explaining the southward trend in guidance for this storm and we’ve continued to see signs of that Thursday – still looking to miss New England with the brunt of the storm but also likely to turn the wind onshore, meaning new ocean-effect or ocean-enhanced snow showers are a possibility in eastern parts of southern New England late overnight Friday night into Saturday morning.
The cold should ease somewhat Sunday beneath clouds and sun before a cold front Sunday night re-establishes cold to start next week. This may become important as a strong bundle of atmospheric energy ejects northeast from the Desert Southwest early next week, tracking toward the Eastern Seaboard and a raising the chance for midweek snow next week – around Tuesday or Wednesday – reflected in our exclusive First Alert 10-day forecast.
