7:39AM
DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 6-10)
Note to self: Next time you are confident of your low temp range, don’t let someone else convince you to lower it. You would have been right then and chances are it may happen again. But be wrong on your own, not with someone else’s help. Yup, all us forecasters struggle with this one. This morning’s temperatures are in my original range, not the one I ended up putting down in the final product yesterday. Blah! On we go. No big changes for this update. A more “realistic” winter feeling today after 2 days of spring preview. This sets up a dicey situation for tonight as cold air at the surface will combine with an area of rain moving in from the west. This means a period of freezing rain for a good portion of southern New England, exceptions being just liquid rain near the South Coast where it’s not cold enough for icing, and potential sleet along and north of the Route 2 corridor to start as the layer of cold air may be thick enough to freeze the raindrops before they reach the ground for a while. Eventually, the slightly milder surface air should work far enough north and west to change everything to straight rain in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, lastly of course over interior valleys, but by then much of the precipitation will probably be gone anyway, other than some lingering drizzle. The frontal boundary in the area will have some difficulty pushing to the north, and the short range computer guidance almost always tries to take these fronts more quickly northward than they actually get, as the models are not that great at figuring out the cold air trapped at the surface, so I’m going to lean toward a slower movement of this front and therefore cooler temperatures right through Thursday night, but by the time the next period of rain arrives by then, surface temperatures, I suspect, should be above freezing, thwarting a second episode of icing. Will keep an eye on it for any tricks. A brief surge of milder air should get in here early Friday but a quickly-moving cold front will bring rain showers then a quick drop in temperature as it dries out Friday evening. Wind will pick up and start to dry things out but any lingering puddles and wet areas on the ground may freeze quickly, so we’ll have to watch for areas of ground ice forming during Friday night. Then the weekend will feature dry but cold weather, windy on Saturday between departing low pressure and approaching high pressure, and more tranquil Sunday as high pressure moves overhead.
Forecast details…
TODAY: Sunshine dominant into afternoon then clouding over later in the day. Highs 33-40. Wind light N.
TONIGHT: Cloudy. Precipitation arrives west to east evening as sleet and freezing rain southern NH and northern MA, freezing rain much of MA and northern RI, and rain South Shore and South Coast, changes to rain most areas overnight before tapering off to drizzle from west to east pre-dawn. Patchy fog. Lows 28-35 evening, rising slowly overnight. Wind light N shifting to E.
THURSDAY: Overcast. Chance of drizzle. Areas of fog. Highs 35-40 north, 40-45 south. Wind light varying from E to N.
THURSDAY NIGHT: Overcast. Periods of rain. Areas of fog. Steady temperatures 35-45 evening may rise slightly overnight. Wind light varying from N to E evening, E to S overnight.
FRIDAY: Mostly cloudy with rain showers likely through mid afternoon then becoming partly cloudy from west to east by late in the day. Highs 45-52. Wind S to SW 10-20 MPH shifting to W 15-25 MPH with higher gusts by late-day.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny. Windy. Lows in the 10s. Highs from the middle 20s to lower 30s.
SUNDAY: Mostly sunny. Lows in the 10s. Highs from the upper 20s to middle 30s.
DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 11-15)
Will continue to watch the February 11-13 period for potential unsettled weather that can feature any or all types of precipitation from rain to ice to sleet to snow. Don’t read this automatically as “big winter storm”, just a period of unsettled weather in which the details are yet to be known. Dry and seasonably cold weather expected to follow this.
DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 16-20)
A bit milder overall but changeable temperatures with a somewhat drier trend to the overall outlook.