We are close to the midway point of meteorological winter, and the snow-lovers in Southern New England have a lot to moan and groan about. There have only been 5.6″ of snow in the Providence area since November. That’s only 40% of normal, and that number will shrink in the coming days with no chance of accumulating snow into the weekend. The last time there was less than 20″ of snow in a winter in the Providence area was 2011-2012, when there was 17.8″. There was 15.1″ in 2006-2007. The all-time low was 1979-80 when there was only 9.7″ for the winter. While it only takes one storm to change the snow fortunes from “historically low” to just “lower than normal”, this winter has been a dud so far.
So, is there any chance of that big snowstorm in the next couple of weeks? The pattern does not look extremely promising for that to happen, but it will likely not be a completely boring pattern, either. It will probably not be as cold as the first two weeks of the month, but I don’t expect a blowtorch pattern to develop in the Northeast. The first shot at precipitation is on Sunday into Monday, and it looks like rain. If current trends are correct, it will be soggy for the AFC Championship game Sunday evening in Foxboro.
Looking ahead to next week, there will likely be another cold area of high pressure (fair weather) early in the week, followed by a frontal system that could bring rain/snow showers in the mid workweek. Later in the week, a bigger system may move out of the Southeast and head for the Northeast. It does not look like it would be an exclusively snow event, but that’s no surprise given the prevailing storm track this weekend. The 12-16 day timeframe continues to look fairly active, and seasonably cold, so that means there is at least a chance of some snow in that period.
