Thickening clouds Wednesday come well ahead of a storm system that’s weakening as it approaches northern New England, but is set to drag a cold front through all of New England overnight Wednesday night.
Although Wednesday’s clouds limit how much effect the sun can have, an increasing south wind will help to bump temperatures to the upper 30s by day’s end.
Temperatures will continue rising overnight Wednesday night ahead of the approaching front. Snow showers in the North Country late Wednesday into Wednesday night will accumulate one to three inches in the Great North Woods, but farther south, accumulations will be limited outside of the higher terrain of the mountains, with mostly rain for the remainder of New England, though some freezing rain may make roads slick in Berkshire County.
Showers Thursday morning will sink south steadily, clearing even the South Coast by midday with a dry afternoon. By evening, enough cool and dry air will move in for clearing sky in time for midnight on New Year’s Eve, with temperatures running around 30 to 35 degrees in southern New England and 25 to 30 degrees north.
The New Year dawns with sunshine and cool air, staying dry Friday ahead of the next approaching storm, set to march from the Mississippi River Valley to the New England/Canada border.
The front push of moisture ahead of the storm arrives Friday night from southwest to northeast between 8 p.m. and midnight for many (a bit later in Maine), starting as snow for the interior of southern New England but changing to rain fairly quickly. Farther north, particularly from north-central Massachusetts points north, snow will accumulate more readily before any change to rain, and is unlikely to change to rain in northern New England until the event is all but over Saturday morning to midday.
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It’s early to say exactly how much, but it seems most likely at this early juncture the storm will leave an inch or two in north-central Massachusetts but closer to half a foot in the mountains, with little accumulation farther south and closer to the coast.
Saturday afternoon the sun may break out for some – particularly south – and temperatures will rebound to near 50 degrees, except in northern New England, but cool air builds back in for Sunday.
This sets the stage for another possible storm Sunday, as the upper level atmospheric energy driving the Friday night storm still needs to move overhead and very well may focus new snow and rain when it does so later Sunday into Sunday night – a possibility our First Alert team will be watching closely and may even leave snow showers lingering into Monday before a drying and quieting of the weather in our exclusive 10-day forecast.
