Snow-weary Southern New Englanders will catch at least a short break in the midweek as the latest storm pulls away by early Tuesday. The storm dumped about two feet of snow near Boston, and only 6-10″ in the Providence area since Saturday night. Boston is now experiencing a top-10 snowiest winter on record, and there is still a long way to go, and plenty of snow threats ahead.
Tuesday will become partly sunny with highs near 30 – that’s about 10° colder than normal for mid-February. It will be mainly clear to partly cloudy and cold Tuesday night. Lows will be in the single digits to mid teens. Wednesday will be another dry day, with some clouds, and highs only in the mid to upper 20s.
The next storm threat is Thursday afternoon through Friday morning. An Alberta Clipper moving out of Canada into the Great Lakes in the midweek will reach the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday and rapidly develop into a bigger storm. It is unclear if the storm will develop close enough to the Southern New England coast to allow for another big storm with gusty northeast winds or if it will be far enough away to just deliver a glancing blow with lighter snow. At a minimum, we’re expecting a light plowable event with 1-3″ of snow. In a worst-case scenario, there could be another foot or more in the hardest hit areas if the storm develops quickly and close to the coast. We will fine tune the forecast on Tuesday as new information arrives.
The outlook for late in the workweek and this weekend features plenty of very cold weather, and the potential for more snow mid-weekend. The snow threat is Saturday night into Sunday morning, and it’s not as likely that we’ll get hit with accumulating snow as it is for the Thursday into Friday storm. The bigger story may be the cold weather that arrives. There is potential for sub-zero low temperatures Saturday, Sunday, and/or Monday depending on the track of the weekend storm. Highs may not make it out of the teens, and one of those days could struggle to get to 10°!
