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Another Nor'Easter Possible Monday

BOSTON (CBS) - Two powerful nor'easters in less than a week. March Madness? That seems like an understatement.

Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses are without power - again. Massive amounts of trees and wires down - again. Schools and businesses closed - again.

This is becoming an all too frequent occurrence, cold and snow in March.

For the last five years, New England has waited and waited for spring to arrive only to be hit with late season snow storms and temperatures well below the average.

It seems that March is the new February.

No doubt we will still be recovering from this latest nor'easter well into the weekend. Many towns will likely remain without power for days just due to the sheer number of those in the dark. With the paste-like snow weighing down limbs, more trees will come down before we can put this one behind us. This has to be it right?

Could the atmosphere have anything left to give?

You may not like the answer.

The weekend looks quiet. Temperatures will top out in the low to mid 40's across the region and with some spotty March sunshine, the melting should be massive.

2017 Weekend
(WBZ-TV graphic)

I would expect at least half, if not more, of the snow to be wiped out by Monday.

Speaking of Monday, yet another coastal storm is in the works.

Being five days out, there are still more questions than answers with this one.

monday
(WBZ-TV graphic)

The scenarios range from another powerful nor'easter here to just some fringe-effects to a complete miss.

This storm will be developing much farther south than the last few, coming out of Texas, grabbing Gulf of Mexico moisture and emerging out over the Atlantic off of South Carolina. Of course, that certainly doesn't mean we are out of the woods, storms in that position have been known to take a sharp turn and ride up the Gulf Stream right off our coastline.

Right now, there are two camps on this one, both still very viable solutions.

As our current nor'easter finally starts to pull away on Sunday night, we will be watching two pieces of atmospheric energy diving southward through the country's mid-section.

One will take a deep southerly route through the lower Mississippi Valley and the other, right on its heels, will dig through the eastern Great Lakes. It is the interaction of these two features that will determine our final fate on Monday.

Some models show them linking up (called phasing) meaning a third nor'easter for us in about 10 days. This solution would bring another round of heavy rain and snow to our area along with another dose of powerful winds near our coastline.

Other models have the Great Lakes piece of energy kicking the other one out to sea rather than phasing with it. This would mean much less impact here, perhaps very little at all actually.

With both options very much on the table, as always, we urge that you stay tuned to updated forecasts on WBZ-TV and CBSBoston.com.

One thing we can say for sure, there are no big warm ups headed our way anytime soon. For at least the next 1-to-2 weeks the Northeast will be stuck in a colder than average pattern with several more "threats" of storms and snow.

Follow Terry on Twitter @TerryWBZ

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