Massachusetts

Calm Christmas Eve Before More Winter Weather

Two rounds of winter weather down, one to go for Christmas Day.

Friday brought snow for many, Saturday brought freezing rain for most and next up is more snow and rain, but at least without the ice this time.

For now, though, we get a little break for our Christmas Eve day. With a mixture of sun and clouds, we have seasonable temperatures in the 30s to near 40 degrees. There have been spots where ice actually melted last night and then reformed again early this morning, so black ice once again an issue for a couple of hours.

The wind will be relatively light from the north today, around 10 to 15 mph, bringing lower humidity, so we should dry out many of the roads. But you still need to have an adequate supply of windshield washer fluid.

The third round of this three-pronged period of wintry weather races into New England tonight.

There are actually three low-pressure centers to track; one moving to Ontario, another to western New York, and a new one forming east of New Jersey.

With so many moving parts it is still a fairly low confidence forecast even though it's so close in time.

For now, it appears that the low pressure in New York will have enough strength to draw warmer air into much of southern New England for more rain than snow from Boston to Providence to New Haven to Cape Cod.

But north of the Massachusetts Turnpike and I-84 in Connecticut, snow may come down heavy during the early morning hours.

We may even end up with a brief burst of thunder snow, that can accumulate two inches an hour.

A general 3-to-6-inch snowfall is expected, but the stakes are high if we get more than one thunderstorm we may have amounts past six inches. The heavy snow only lasts a few hours between about 5 and 10 a.m.

Rain south of Boston may change to snow before ending but less than an inch of snow is expected.

Wind will initially be from the northeast at 20 to 30 mph, then as the low-pressure system intensifies rapidly northeast of Cape Cod, wind will rapidly reverse direction coming from the west gusting past 40 mph especially near the shore.

We have wind advisory is in effect for gusts past 50 miles an hour possible on Cape Cod.

That wind also brings in colder air with a high temperature in the 30s early it will fall into the 20s by late.

After that, the deep-freeze is the weather pattern to finish out 2017.

A wayward polar vortex may show up in Ontario, and we will be just south of it. There are a few opportunities for snow showers to pass through, especially Wednesday. But most of the week is probably just dry and cold.

The cold will lean to the teens to low 20s by day, and near zero or lower at night.

We will be watching potential for another coastal storm later in the week, that could come in with snow Friday or Saturday, either way, it looks like New Year's Eve should be very cold and probably dry.

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