January 11 – Plain old cold continues
There’s not a heck of a lot to say about the weather pattern so far this winter. Snowflakes have been few and far between, and the November snow storm seems like it was a very long time ago. There is no significant snow coming our way in the next 6-7 days. A cold and mainly or all dry weekend will give way to a slightly warmer temperature trend in the middle of next week. Snow-lovers should not abandon all hope on this winter. As we’ve seen in the recent past (2015), the weather pattern can flip fairly quickly. The first signs of interesting weather are sometime late next weekend or early the following a week as a storm moves up the East Coast.
Saturday looks like a chilly and dry day. Lows will be in the teens, and highs will be near 30. Sun will gradually give way to clouds. The wind will be lighter than it was on Thursday and Friday. It stays cold and likely dry Saturday night into Sunday. There will be more clouds around, and possibly a few flurries, but accumulating snow will most likely stay away. Expect lows near 20 and highs on Sunday near 30. If you’re heading to Foxboro for the AFC Divisional Round Playoff game, bundle up!
It will stay cold on Monday before slightly warmer weather arrives in the middle of the week. Expect the teens to low 30s again with dry skies. Tuesday and Wednesday will be a bit milder with highs not too far from 40. Right now, Wednesday looks like the warmest day of the next week. A cold front and Clipper system move through late in the workweek. Look for a gusty wind and colder weather next Thursday. A few snow showers or flurries are possible on Friday with highs in the 30s both days.
There are some signs of a storm system coming through next weekend. The models are split on whether it will track up the coast and bring mainly rain or further east and bring an accumulating snow threat. The way it looks right now, I think it’s the best chance of at least some steady snow that we’ve seen in a while. Of course, it’s still 8-9 days away, and there’s plenty of time for that to change.
The latest EPS weeklies are split on what the weather pattern will look like through February. The model calls for near normal to relatively cold weather in New England. Snow totals are not incredibly impressive, though, with the mean amount in the next 46 days falling somewhere near to below normal in the Southern New England cities. Amazingly, the control run has practically no snow in most of CT, RI and E MA through the end of February. I’d be shocked if that was the case, and the mean of about 13-21″ in the Providence area sounds about right.