Chilly and dry air has moved into New England, and while that means sunshine with only fair weather clouds regionwide Wednesday, it also has delivered a cold start, with lingering moisture as black ice and patchy snow on area roadways.
While high temperatures won’t pass the melting point Wednesday afternoon and wind chill values will hover in the teens, making for a downright chilly day, the sunshine will warm pavement enough for some melting and road spray, so sunglasses and windshield washer fluid both are coming in handy.
The dry air will make hydration a helpful part of the day for kids and adults alike to stave off dull headaches, dry skin and chapped lips from subtle dehydration.
Snow showers possible in southeast New England on Thursday
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Temperatures Wednesday night will dip into the teens and single digits north under a mostly clear sky ahead of morning sunshine that quickly fades behind advancing clouds Thursday. Those clouds are associated with an incoming jet stream level disturbance interacting with a weak and stalled front extending from the Twin Tiers of New York and Pennsylvania into southern New England, and a few snow showers may develop in Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeast Massachusetts from midday Thursday to Thursday evening, with little accumulation.
Snow totals in Massachusetts? Another 1-3 inches for some
The next disturbance moving east across the Eastern Seaboard on Friday will be stronger, and when it nears the ocean water and associated available moisture, a swath of snow will develop out of Pennsylvania. While the storm center strengthens over the waters south of New England on Friday and keeps the brunt of precipitation with it, the combination of limited moisture extending northward plus a north-northeast wind off the ocean adding near-surface moisture, periodic light snow is possible in southern New England and our exclusive NBC Forecast System is preliminarily cranking out 1-3 inches for many areas south of the Massachusetts Turnpike Friday into Friday evening.
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Coldest air of the winter headed our way
Behind that storm, the coldest air of the winter thus far surges into New England from Canada. This air has origins by the North Pole and high temperatures under lots of clouds and limited sun Saturday won’t surpass 20 degrees for most, with a busy northerly wind creating a wind chill in the single digits at the warmest time of the day.
Sunday is only slightly better, though the sun will be brighter. Then a major weather pattern change begins. The jet stream winds aloft, separating cold air to the north from warmth to the south, will ride north toward New England, opening the door to increasingly mild air that should flip our temperature regime from colder-than-normal to warmer-than-normal pretty quickly Monday onward, with high temperatures later in the week nearing 50 degrees for some, including Boston, in our exclusive First Alert 10-day forecast.
