Cold, Canadian air was heralded by scattered snow showers but now is defined by a dryness that is allowing for ample sunshine, but also encouraging chapped lips, dry skin and static electric shocks!
Of course, the most obvious characteristic of our new air is the cold nature of it and when coupled with a busy northwest breeze gusting to 35 mph Thursday morning, wind chill values have been dipping to below zero at times.
The wind will relax as we get deeper into the day Thursday, eventually relaxing enough to eliminate the wind chill factor. This means the day ends with “feels like” temperatures in the 20s – still wintry, but not nearly as biting.
Clouds will increase overnight, stopping what otherwise would be a deep temperature tumble and hold lows in the teens and 20s with variable clouds expected Friday.
The clouds are mostly unable to produce showers, except for some light mixed showers with a few slick spots in the North Country Friday morning. They’re the byproduct of warmth surging through the sky above, colliding with our brief spell of cold air and, eventually, replacing that air with something more reminiscent of spring.
In fact, while we’re expecting highs around 50 degrees Friday, we believe a mild Friday night will lead to highs around 60 by Saturday! All of this warmth is transported on a southerly wind ahead of a slow-moving storm that’s approaching from our west. It will eventually raise the chance of rain: first for northern and western New England Saturday afternoon, then for all of us Saturday night into Sunday morning.
The weather setup gets trickier Sunday as colder air muscles south out of Canada and very well may turn rain to freezing rain with an icing situation in the northern part of our Sunday morning to midday. Meanwhile, southern New England will straddle a line between the 60s and 40s – and that line may set up somewhere near northern Massachusetts or Southern New Hampshire.
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Drier air returns by Sunday afternoon through Monday, cooling but we’ll see if it’s enough cooling for snowflakes to mix in with showers by Tuesday.
Another storm may impact the area Thursday in the exclusive First Alert 10-Day Forecast and that storm appears to open the door to colder air for the start of next weekend.
