Snow Coming Saturday, But How Much?
BOSTON (CBS) - We have had our eyes on this one for at least a week.
All of the ingredients will be there on Saturday for a large ocean storm to develop.
Check: Current Conditions | Weather Map Center | Interactive Radar
The question is how does it evolve and will it be close enough to New England to deliver accumulating snowfall?
During the day on Friday an Arctic cold front will be sweeping through the Midwest, headed for New England.
At the same time, a piece of energy will emerge from the southern states, near the Gulf of Mexico and ride up the East Coast.
It is the interaction of these two features which has all of our attention.
The storm won't really come together until it is up in our vicinity, so there will not be a major swath of snow preceding this event.
Early Saturday morning a significant storm will begin to develop in the coastal waters off the Mid-Atlantic feeding off of the large temperature contrast between the Arctic air to our north and the milder ocean air to our south.
The weather models are having a hard time agreeing on exactly how quickly the storm will develop and how close to our coast it will be, but the consensus as of this morning is for this interaction to occur closer and closer to New England.
TIMELINE
The snow would begin shortly after dawn on Saturday, perhaps as a mix or rain in southeastern Massachusetts, which would change over to snow during the morning.
The storm would peak during the midday and afternoon timeframe and pull away fairly quickly Saturday evening.
AMOUNTS
Amounts are very tough to forecast this early, but it is likely that southeastern Massachusetts would be in line for the greatest snow accumulation, which could be in the 3-to-6 inch range.
The farther north and west, the greater the distance from the storm and therefore the less the snow, perhaps 1-to-3 inches northwest of Boston.
BUT - I must stress that this will be a very powerful, fast developing system and it wouldn't take much for heavier snow bands to rotate inland and raise our snow accumulation significantly.
Watch Melissa Mack's forecast:
If the storm develops close enough to our shore, the winds and tides could also be a factor on Saturday. With the full moon that has just past, tides are running fairly high astronomically.
Saturday's high tide occurs around 1:30 p.m. and bears watching.
You can follow Terry on Twitter at @TerryWBZ.
