Cooler Times Coming
Despite the lack of sunshine, it felt like spring today with high temperatures mainly in the range of 52-57. An approaching frontal boundary is pushing a ribbon of rain eastward across the region this evening. Some of the rain will be briefly heavy before tapering off to lighter showers or sprinkles then ending . Most of the rain will be offshore before midnight except over Cape Cod. With the melting snow plus the half-inch or so of rain this evening, there could be some minor flooding on a few of the smaller streams only. Additionally, some poor drainage street flooding is probable but this is not a significant flood event. With the passage of the cold front, drier air will sweep into the region to clear the sky by dawn as temperatures fall to 38-43. There will be no icy areas for the morning commute. With the aid of some stronger March sunshine, it will warm right back up to near 50 in the Boston area with 46-50 north and west and 50-53 over southeastern MA tomorrow. Sunshine will yield to varying amounts of passing clouds as the day goes on with a west-northwesterly breeze at 10-20 mph.
Colder air will be rushing into the region on Thursday via a brisk wind up to 12-28mph. There will be varying amounts of clouds and sunshine with a slight risk of a few spotty flurries especially over the hills north and west. It will fail to rise much above 40 that day and you can expect similar readings of 38-43 through the weekend. On Friday, a clipper crossing the Great Lakes will cause increasing cloudiness here during the afternoon with rain and snow due on Saturday. Presently, it appears that mostly rain will fall over southern New England but there could be some snow mixed in at times across north central MA northward. Meantime, over northern New England, the stage is set for up to a few inches of snow on Saturday especially over the higher elevations. That system will exit late Saturday and Sunday should turn out sunny to partly cloudy with light wind for St. Patrick's Day.
Looking ahead, forecast confidence drops the beginning of next week as it is unclear how the next storm will unfold across the Northeast. At this time, most signs suggest that a primary storm will travel across the Midwest and churn up into western NY with energy translation to a secondary storm formation near the NJ coast. With high latitude blocking in place, this solution seems very plausible. As a result, sufficient cold air may be available to enable initial precipitation in southern New England to be snow with an accumulation of just a few inches Monday night before turning to rain. Snow and some sleet could be longer-lasting over northern New England well into Tuesday. Slight shifting in the storm track and timing will easily warrant revisions of this scenario. It is almost a week away so it really is unpredictable for now. Subsequent forecast cycles over the weekend should solidly define the structure and placement of this system.
Melissa Mack returns from a brief vacation to deliver her latest WBZ AccuWeather Forecast in the morning and I shall follow later in the day for Todd Gutner.
Make it a great Wednesday!
