A chilly start to New England’s Thanksgiving morning meant cold road races and football games, and while clouds have been variable today, meaning the sun has played a bit of hide-and-seek in some communities, the absence of wind has meant an absence of wind chill – and that helps.
Afternoon high temperatures in the 40s will actually feel like it without a biting wind, making afternoon weather great for tossing around the football or walking off some calories after the Thanksgiving meal. High tides around midday Thanksgiving, Friday and Saturday will all be extra-high with the New Moon, so some pockets of minor coastal flooding in typically vulnerable spots are possible.
After sundown, temperatures drop to the 30s fairly quickly as many New Englanders will huddle around the television, watching the New England Patriots take on the Vikings on NBC10 Boston – that game will be played in a dome as U.S. Bank Stadium, but even the weather outside the dome will be mild by Minnesota standards, around 40° as a quiet weather pattern continues for much of the nation. The one spot with more active weather has been from Dallas to Little Rock, where blossoming rain will continue expanding northeast overnight Thursday night and arrive as showers to New England Friday.
Given the distance those showers have to travel to get here, they won’t arrive by early morning for those dashing out early to grab some Black Friday discounts under a cloudy sky with temperatures in the 30s, but from mid-morning west to late morning east, showers expand – encountering cold enough air for mixed snow and rain showers in the North Country of New England dropping just a coating of snow to perhaps an inch in highest mountain terrain, with some pockets of light freezing rain in valleys around the Northern Lakes Region of New Hampshire, eastern slopes of the Green Mountains and western Maine. Elsewhere, showers develop from west to east, mid-morning to late afternoon, with an increasing southwest wind carrying milder air along with the showers for high temperatures around and over 50 degrees for many of us, with wind gusts to 30 mph by late day near the South coast.
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Drier air returns Friday evening and night for a fabulous, albeit breezy, Saturday with sunshine. The next storm system tracks to New England Sunday, yet again bringing warmth with it – so much that even the North Country is likely to find rain showers when precipitation moves in, though that likely won’t be until late morning or midday south and afternoon or early evening north. Rain continues Sunday night, perhaps ending as snow showers in the Northern Mountains, with drier air following for Monday and Tuesday ahead of the next system – yet again warm enough for raindrops – Wednesday through Wednesday night. The cold front that crosses New England with that system, however, will be the first shot in a weather pattern change that will take days to complete, but tips New England back to a colder air that first will deliver highs in the 40s with a brisk wind at the end of next week, but raises the chance of some cold rain and snow with following disturbances at the end of next weekend into the following week.
