The screaming west wind will go from “damaging” to just plain old “windy” over the next 12-18 hours. The gusts will be 25-35 mph instead of the 45-60 mph that roared through Southern New England on Monday. The winds were strong enough to cause isolated power outages, and that’s without any snow or leaves on the branches. It will be a cold night with lows in the upper teens to mid 20s on Tuesday morning. Expect some sun on Tuesday, but it will be cold for late February with the temperature struggling to get much above 30°. Wind chills will be in the teens for most of the day. Tuesday night looks very cold with lows in the teens and lighter winds.
Snow likely Wednesday PM into Thursday AM
An Alberta Clipper system approaches from the northwest on Wednesday. It will likely bring accumulating snow between late Wednesday afternoon and mid-morning on Thursday. There are still some questions about the storm including when the snow will arrive and how large the area of steadiest snow will be Wednesday night. It may start as soon as early Wednesday afternoon in western CT or it could hold off until after sunset. I hope to have the start time nailed down by Tuesday afternoon. The steadiest snow is likely Wednesday night into the Thursday morning commute.
It’s not an intense storm, but could bring a strip of 3-6″ of fluffy snow through most of CT, RI, and SE MA. It’s unclear how wide the area of steadiest snow will be, and a slight shift in that axis could mean a big difference in snow amounts. On the edges of the system it will only be a coating-2″ of snow. On the high end, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the storm system brings 6-8″ if it starts before sunset on Wednesday and brings a very fluffy snow. It will be cold with temps in the teens inland to mid 20s at the coast Wednesday night into early Thursday. Snow ends from west to east Thursday morning, and there will be some sun in the afternoon. Expect highs in the low to mid 30s before it falls back below freezing after sunset.
Another system may clip part of Southern New England with snow showers Friday morning, and it’s a close call with a couple of disturbances coming together for some weekend snow. There is a ton of uncertainty with the Friday-Sunday forecast, so stay tuned on that. In any event, do not expect any kind of big warm-up into and maybe through the first week of March. I’m still watching for another storm threat in the middle of next week…in like a lion.