first alert forecast

Cool Temperatures Ease, Dry Weather Continues

No weather-related travel issues expected nationwide through the holiday

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The remarkably quiet Thanksgiving week weather here in New England is playing out across the country through Wednesday, making for a problem-free string of travel days leading up to Thanksgiving. 

Here at home, clouds build in the North Country Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons with mountain flurries, but most of New England sees a string of fair and rather seasonable days, with the wind of early week subsiding.  Overnight low temperatures dip below freezing Tuesday and Wednesday night for most of New England, then again Thanksgiving night for Northern New England, continuing the ongoing string of excellent weather for snowmaking at ski resorts. 

That said, snowmaking will likely take a brief pause for most Friday into Saturday as the next storm arrives and carries mild air with it.  That mild air, ushered northward on a southerly wind developing ahead of the storm that originates in the Lower Mississippi River Valley before tracking northeast, will ensure precipitation from the incoming system will be all rain for Southern and Central New England, starting in the second half of Black Friday and continuing through Friday night.  In the mountains of Northern New England, enough cool air will be in place ahead of the storm to produce a burst of snow late Friday and Friday night – likely to the tune of a coating to two inches, depending on elevation and northward extent – but even those snowflakes likely switch to rain showers before ending overnight Friday night.  The jet stream winds aloft – our fast, storm steering winds – are blowing quickly and will usher this precipitation producer out by Saturday morning after dropping only a tenth to a quarter inch of rain and leaving behind sunshine and a relatively mild Saturday with highs in the 50s for many, 40s in the North Country. 

The same fast steering winds that improve our Saturday, however, also bring the next disturbance racing in for Sunday, meaning the return of rain showers that will likely end as snow showers in the North Country mountains after high temperatures in the 40s with Sunday highs in the 50s south where no snow showers are expected to end the event. 

Next week, our exclusive First Alert 10-day forecast shows a milder-than-normal week for the final days of November, with rain chances climbing again by Wednesday and Thursday, but mild air very likely to accompany those showers, yet again, bumping daytime temperatures into the 50s in Southern New England by Thursday, some 5-10 degrees above normal for the date.  That said, our First Alert Team does see a possible change back to a colder pattern starting somewhere around Dec. 3 or 4.

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