By most standards this will be a fairly simple week of weather, as the early and late parts of it will be mainly dry and chilly. It’s the middle part that gets tricky, as a storm will be chugging our way from the southwest.

As is often the case, we’ll be dealing with a few pieces of energy coming together to form a new storm along the coast at midweek, the track of which will ultimately determine what happens in the Boston area. In the midst of conflicting model data tonight, I’ve come up with a best-guess solution that will take a developing storm from the Mid Atlantic Coast Tuesday night to just southeast of Cape Cod by Wednesday morning. This system will have alot of energy with it and a very strong slug of moisture, but should be moving along rather progressively. Some mixing due to warmer air at the surface from the ocean may get involved along the coast mainly south of Boston, and especially over Cape Cod.

With all of this in mind, expect snow to begin in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, be heaviest during Wednesday morning, then slowly taper off through the remainder of the day. Due to the progression of this system, and the fact that I think the precipitation may be somewhat overforecast by the computers, I’ll start out by predicting a widespread 5 to 10 inches of snow for a good swath of eastern MA including Boston, with lesser amounts especially along the coast as you head south, dropping down to 1 to 3 inches over Cape Cod, where wetter snow & a period of rain will likely occur.

Behind this system, the 2nd half of the week looks dry & rather cold.

Looking well out into the future, a system may bring some snow showers Sunday, and provide at least a chance of some flakes in the air for the Patriots / Jets playoff game. It’s a long way off but we’ll see how it goes as we get closer.

There are signs of a more significant outbreak of cold air near or just after MLK Jr. Day.