New England is entering a stretch of steady but relatively gradual melting in the days ahead. For all intents and purposes, the weather will remain rather benign, though it’s still active aloft with a series of disturbances that will mostly remain starved of moisture, limiting how much precipitation each disturbance will produce in New England.
For now, sun that started Thursday will slowly fade as clouds increase ahead of one jet stream level disturbance aiding in the transport of milder air toward the Northeast from the Midwest. A sprinkle is possible late Thursday into Thursday evening, then clouds will break for many overnight Thursday night, only briefly before new clouds return early Friday morning.
The next disturbance crossing New England’s sky Friday will represent another shot of slightly milder air that will deliver an isolated shower with temperatures reaching near and over 50 degrees by afternoon in southern New England, while a light wintry mix falls periodically through the day in northern New England, mostly melting upon contact on treated roads but accumulating one to three inches in the far northern mountains of New Hampshire and through central to northern Maine.
A cold front attendant to the same disturbance arrives overnight Friday night, sparking new, scattered showers Friday evening through night with a few of those showers likely to linger into early morning in southeast Massachusetts before clearing the coast by mid-morning.
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Although a new flow of cooler and drier air will break out the sunshine Saturday with an increasing fresh breeze, colder air lags behind just a bit, so temperatures should still reach the 40s to around 50 degrees Saturday afternoon.
By Saturday night, the colder air will be more perceptible as lows drop to the 20s regionwide and fail to recover past 40 degrees Sunday afternoon. Although sun and bubbling, puffy clouds will mix in the cold sky Sunday – very likely to drop snow showers across the mountainous terrain – the pretty sky won’t be accompanied by a pleasant feeling, as a busy northwest wind gusting at times to 40 mph may cause a few chairlift holds for a brief time in northern New England, but moreover, will hold warmest wind chill values of the day to no better than 30 degrees.
A quick recovery is expected next week, with our exclusive First Alert 10-day forecast showing high temperatures of 45 to 50 degrees on most days – near or slightly above normal for this time of the year – with one storm likely missing to the south of New England on Wednesday but a better chance of rain showers when a follow-up storm tracks into New England at the end of next week and perhaps into the start of next weekend, though precise timing is impossible to discern from this far out.
