For many of us in New England, Saturday is the sunniest day we’ve had in a week. The system that passed through Friday dropped several inches of snow in the ski areas, making today a fabulous ski day. But the next step is a storm that strengthens quickly, affecting much of New England on our Sunday.
Today, we have a cold afternoon of sun and clouds mixed with southwest wind blowing at more than 30 miles per hour, adding a high temperature cold mainly at 30 degrees to the south and 20 degrees to the north.
Again, tonight, any melting snow will freeze again to black ice patches and cooler weather overnight, with a low in adolescence to the north and 20 degrees to the south. Clouds will rise late Saturday night in southern New England.
The low pressure exiting the mid-Atlantic states will intensify rapidly as it passes southeast of Nantucket later in the day. Snow will develop in Connecticut around sunrise and will rapidly advance north and east, arriving in the Boston area around 10 am and then to New Hampshire and Maine at lunch.
In addition, there is another low pressure system in northern Vermont that will cause snow to leave New York for northern Vermont, which is the vanguard of the much colder air that will supply the north side of our Sunday storm to night and Monday.
On Cape Cod and the islands, we can see snow mixed with hail and rain, but probably changing to snow as the wind rises from the northeast at the end of the day.
For most of us, it is several hours of snow, with the potential for several inches of snow. It looks like most will be close to the south coast, where we have a winter storm alert in effect on Sunday about 5-10 inches from the Connecticut coast to where all the snow on Cape Cod remains.
Most metropolitan areas in Hartford (CT), Boston (MA), Manchester (NH) and Burlington (VT) probably have 5 to 12 cm of snow.
The big exception may be in southeastern Maine, as the storm is really intense at that point, with more than a foot possible in Hancock and Washington County.
For most of us, the snow has ended while the Super Bowl is being played. The exception is the middle coast of Maine and points to the east, where it can snow most of the night.
After that, it is also a very busy weather map.
There is an icy air mass in the northern plains, where temperatures are reaching 10 below zero to high and the thermal sensation factor is 30 below zero in North Dakota and Minnesota.
Several low-pressure systems rounding off the cold will pass through New England this week – probably every other day.
Between storms it must be cold on days like Monday, with a return to the sun mainly in the 1920s. Then, a few more inches of snow on Tuesday. So maybe on a dry Wednesday and start on Thursday, before another system at the end of the week.
A big change in our forecast is that the cold will not increase at the end of the week, which will allow the next Friday system to be much hotter than expected, with the possibility of snow or rain on Thursday nights.
So, maybe drier – but quite cold – next weekend, as seen in our 10-day First Alert Forecast.