Although sunshine started our Wednesday in much of New England, the same storm responsible for our rain and wind two days ago still isn’t totally done with us yet.
First, the wealth of upper atmospheric energy continues to swirl over the northeast, encouraging lots of clouds to develop Wednesday late morning through afternoon. Some sprinkles may crop up from time to time in southern New England, a light shower possible near Cape Cod and scattered snow showers with a dusting of snow in northern New England.
All of this comes with a steady southwest breeze. Thought less intense than recent days, it's still sustained at 10 to 20 mph with gusts to 30 mph creating a wind chill factor in the 30s at the warmest time of day.
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The storm energy aloft will finally nudge east and depart overnight Wednesday, clearing our sky as temperatures fall to the 20s. This will make way for sunshine on Thursday and a lighter wind as temperatures recover to around 50 by afternoon.
Meanwhile, just as our weather quiets, our First Alert Weather Team will already be watching the merger of two other strong disturbances – one diving south out of Canada and the other moving east from the Rockies. The two storms will eventually merge as they move over the Ohio Valley and head for the northeast.
The result will be an organizing and strengthening storm to our south, poised to move north at the same time as a Friday cold front. Friday evening showers and a shot of cool air come just in time for that next storm to arrive Saturday.
For central and southern New England, the developing east and southeast wind associated with the front edge of the storm circulation will mean enough warm air streaming in for rain. The fresh shot of cool air will be dense enough in northern New England, though, that accumulating snow is entirely possible later Saturday into Sunday.
Given the complexities of this storm – even the forecast timing has changed over the last 24 hours. It’s impossible to say with any reasonable certainty how much snow could fall and where. But our exclusive, built-in-house NBC Forecast System is predicting two to six inches in northern New England with one to two inches of rain in central and southern New England as of Wednesday morning.
Even southern New England very well may find some snow showers on Sunday as the storm center pulls away and colder air streams in behind it, though significant impact is unlikely from those.
Regardless, one thing has been clear ever since next week first appeared on our exclusive 10-day forecast: the weekend storm will open the door to colder air that will bring a seasonably December chill to New England for most of next week.
