Thursday January 8 2026 Forecast (7:18AM)

76 Comments

DAYS 1-5 (JANUARY 8-12)

An area of high pressure brings us fair weather with plenty of sunshine today. Lower dew points, a breeze, and high temperatures above freezing should allow any remaining ice on surfaces to melt and then dry off for the most part, so walking conditions will improve in areas that they are still not so great. A few remaining puddles can re-freeze tonight, however, so keep an eye out for that heading out early Friday. Friday’s weather will end up milder after a chilly start, and clouds will be on the increase as low pressure tracking through the Great Lakes and into southeastern Canada drags its cold front in our direction. This front will produce scattered rain showers late afternoon and early evening from west to east, then drier air follows it later at night into early Saturday. During the day Saturday, the next storm system heads for the Great Lakes while a little bubble of high pressure to our north supplies some lower level colder air. This type of set-up is fairly typical for winter in our area and has implications on the impact from the next low. This system will be a fairly elongated low pressure area stretching eastward from the Great Lakes, and the colder air that drains down from the north will hold pretty tight near the surface, as the low redevelops just to our south Saturday night and early Sunday. Precipitation arrives by Saturday evening from southwest to northeast, but the air can be cold enough for a mix of snow, sleet, and rain in areas generally north of Route 2 and west of I-95, so this will be something to watch for. At this point I think the surface temperature should be just warm enough to prevent any freezing rain, but will watch that in case it ends up lower than expected. It should be milder enough by Sunday morning to have the last of this system occurring as just rain, before it pulls eastward and drier air returns during the day Sunday. This will be accompanied by a slow temperature drop and wind increase, and possibly a few scattered snow showers later in the day as the colder air becomes more established. Monday’s weather will be dry, breezy, and seasonably chilly with a northwesterly air flow.

TODAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 35-43. Wind NW 5-15 MPH.

TONIGHT: Mostly clear. Lows 23-30. Wind variable to S up to 10 MPH.

FRIDAY: Increasing clouds. Late-day rain showers. Highs 43-50. Wind S to SW 5-15 MPH.

FRIDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Evening rain showers. Patchy fog overnight. Lows 33-40. Wind shifting to N and diminishing to under 10 MPH.

SATURDAY: Cloudy. Late-day rain likely except may be mixed with snow and sleet interior northern MA and southern NH. Highs 36-43 except 40-47 Cape Cod and South Coast. Wind N shifting to E up to 10 MPH except SE 5-15 MPH Cape Cod / South Coast.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Cloudy. Rain likely but may be mixed with sleet interior northern MA and southern NH evening. Patchy fog. Temperatures steady or rising slightly. Wind E up to 10 MPH.

SUNDAY: Cloudy early with a chance of rain until mid morning. Clouds break late morning leading to a sun/cloud mix afternoon and a chance of a late-day mix/snow shower. Highs 40-47 in the morning, falling into the 30s afternoon. Wind variable 5-15 MPH shifting to W increasing to 15-25 MPH with higher gusts during the afternoon.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Lows 20-27. Wind NW 10-20 MPH, higher gusts.

MONDAY: Partly cloudy. Highs 33-40. Wind NW 10-20 MPH, higher gusts.

DAYS 6-10 (JANUARY 13-17)

Active pattern sends a couple unsettled weather chances our way, and while at this point things don’t look to come together for a major storm, the details of timing and precipitation type(s) cannot be determined at this point. Most likely period for the unsettled weather is January 15-16.

DAYS 11-15 (JANUARY 18-22)

Similar idea here, with a slightly better chance of a more formidable storm system, favoring late period.

76 thoughts on “Thursday January 8 2026 Forecast (7:18AM)”

    1. First guess landed the last 3 letters in the correct spot and 2nd guess luckily created the word they were looking for.

      Reply

      1. My 1sr guess got me the 1st 2 and the last letter in position, plus one out of position which is the same as having 4 in position. 2nd guess was rather easy from there.

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  4. https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=sfcwind_mslp&rh=2026010806&fh=69&r=us_ne&dpdt=&mc=

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=ecmwf_full&p=sfcwind_mslp&rh=2026010800&fh=72&r=us_ne&dpdt=&mc=

    As TK discusses for Saturday, if your inland, cooler to maybe a lot cooler than some forecasts may be suggesting.

    Looking at the isobars, can see that bagginess look to the isobars from southwest ME extending southwestward all the way down into the CT river valley.

    Reply

    1. It would be pretty rare that a 3 lands one in the caboose.
      3 is a pretty fine score, not matter what the word is.

      It’s funny, on occasion I had used today’s word as my first guess.
      Should have used it today. 🙂

      Reply

  9. Thank you TK!

    Joining the 3 car today and happy to watch JPD and Tom drive!

    The town of Pembroke did zero treatment on the roads this morning and they were a sheet of ice. My son had a very scary ride to work but thankfully arrived safely. They ended up delaying school by 90 minutes. Every other town around had no issues.

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    1. Tom and I will take good care of you all!! We’ll even upgrade you to the club car, whatever that is. 🙂

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    1. Thank you. Hoping everyone watches this. Sadly, we will ignore or excuse as cyclical rather than admit to the pollution we have created that leads to this.

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    2. You are on quite a run !

      If I have been paying attention correctly, its been plenty of 3s and now a 2. Well done !!

      Reply

  15. https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=sfct-imp&rh=2026010812&fh=294&r=conus&dpdt=&mc=

    Understanding after 4 days out is highly unreliable ……..

    There have been hints in the last few days of Canada becoming frigid again in the extended range, possibly dropping into the US

    I don’t know what our coldest high/low has been to date, but I don’t think we’ve had our coldest weather yet and I expect we’ll have a truly arctic episode or 2 before the cold season is finished.

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  16. Thanks TK.

    Still 100% snow cover when I left the house this morning. We have had a steady snowcover for the past 14 days, since Dec 26. If we cant have a big storm, I’ll take the pattern of sustained cold and frequent light snows we have had the last few weeks any day.

    Of course, this is all about to change in the next 24 hours but it was good while it lasted. Should be a fleeting January thaw at least, pattern looks much better for cold and snow the second half of the month, potentially starting late next week.

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    1. Agree. Majority of my lawn which has a solid couple of inches is melted. I was not terribly unhappy as I was able to get to thr bord feeders.

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    2. As of today, California is the ONLY state with no abnormally dry or drought conditions to report. 🙂

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      1. That’s cause trump emptied the damns…..

        Oh wait. Did I say that out loud. I’m putting myself in a time out. Again

        Reply

  19. Thanks, TK.

    While the sun is nice, I don’t like the warmth and melting. Sweated like was 80F on my run today.

    It doesn’t have to snow – Philip’s marker can go to 2,000 as far as I’m concerned – but I do have one weather god request: At least another 10 sunny and cold days, 20s, this winter.

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  21. Loving the bit of warmth. It’s 40 which is hardly considered warm, but the sun is lovely. I have several windows open

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    1. My yard is puddley too. But it pales in comparison to the barn paddocks and the mid cakes on the horses winter coats when they roll. That has to be brushed out

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  23. This is an olympic year, and this week after the holiday season ends (January 6), I start watching all of the pre-olympics competitions and olympic trials on Peacock, etc. It’s a fun build-up for me being the olympics junkie that I am. 🙂

    I’ve always loved the spirit of competition and the countries coming together to be in this. It reminds me of a mini version of world peace – for 16+ days.

    Reply

    1. I was going to comment on the Drought Monitor shared above, and it’s also in this update here. We’ve had a fairly dry winter, so it’s no surprise there is a lot of “abnormally dry” and in northern New England quite a bit of drought still to be seen.

      If this trend continues into spring, that doesn’t bode well for the growing season, but there’s a lot of time to see things change still.

      Reply

  25. Quick glance at the 12z …

    In general, no real changes to report with the outlook.
    The chilly air at the surface Saturday will be colder than the short range models say, but not enough to cause a big issue with icing or anything like that. If we had an arctic high to the north, we’d be talking a whole different thing – so in that sense we’re dodging a bullet.

    In the medium range: If you browse social media you’re seeing all kinds of posts about the “big pattern change” and all the stops being pulled out .. get ready for real winter starting on January 15. No. That is not correct.

    So let me go into this a little bit more without getting too long winded. First off, most of those posts are coming from non-professional people who will look for ANY model run that gives them a glimmer of hope, when their own wish-casting fantasy is added, and then they’ll post it with this great explanation of how it’s all about to change. There’s one thing they are forgetting to do, mainly because they don’t care to or don’t know how to, and that is to actually perform meteorology, in this case analyze the actual pattern and apply the science of predicting its evolution.

    Doing that myself I come up with this…

    Yes there can be unsettled weather around mid month – which wouldn’t be a surprise because take any 3-day period of time in any month, especially November through March, and you’ll likely hear from at least one disturbance or low pressure system. That statistic in itself doesn’t guarantee you anything specific, other than “unsettled weather chances”. For the details, more is needed. Can we have a measurable snowfall somewhere in our region in the January 15-16 time frame? Sure. But we won’t know that with any more clarity until we get closer to it. And who’s to say it has to be January 15-16? The social media posts that keep picking those dates out? Here’s an idea: Guidance may be mis-timing things and the threat could be January 16-17, or January 17-18, or after that.

    All of that said, if you want a classic winter set-up for this area with a really decent shot at a significant snowfall for at least a portion of the region, you’re probably going to need to wait until at least January 20.

    P.S. I left out the details of my analysis, but MJO is a big factor. I’ve mentioned it recently and we’ll talk more about it soon.

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  26. Where it has been a January to Remember thus far is Scotland. Big snows, especially in Aberdeenshire. The Scots have a good sense of humor.

    James Melville on X: “Two feet of snow in Scotland. https://t.co/S2WRCTl9Qi” / X https://share.google/BItoY6mD7zkxQq9di

    And while the West Coast of the UK has been spared the harsh cold of recent days, a major Atlantic storm is rolling through affecting Cornwall.

    James Melville on X: “Gusts of wind of up to 100 mph in Cornwall. Having spent 15 years living down there, I am very fond of the people and place. I hope everyone hunkers down and stays safe tonight. #stormgorreti https://t.co/HCZmQPupR0” / X https://share.google/5kLCb75bTggpBY1Sl

    Because there’s still that stationary Arctic high to the northeast, more snows are on the way for Northern England, Scotland, and the low countries.

    While December over there was especially mild, The last few days of the month and the first week of January have been much colder than normal and quite snowy. Much more wintry there than here in SNE.

    Reply

      1. It’s been quite epic in parts of Scotland.

        I am wondering if there’s also some sea enhancement, we talk about lake-effect snows and ocean enhancement. There must be North Sea enhancement, too?

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        1. My ex-wife went to college at Durham University in the Northeast of England in the late 70s. She said the snows there could be quite intense.

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  28. Thanks, TK!

    I took the outdoor Christmas decorations down this afternoon and the warmth of the sun felt so good! No wind nor clouds!

    There were a couple of small temblors down here last night:
    A 1.8 magnitude earthquake was reported in southern Massachusetts on Wednesday, one of two in the same day in southern New England.

    The quake was reported at 9:11 p.m. in Acushnet/Mattapoisett, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

    That quake followed a 1.9 magnitude one earlier in the day, around 5:36 p.m., near East Haddam, Connecticut.

    (Source: NBCBoston)

    Tom: Your comment on “6-7” was hilarious! How have you kept your sanity this school year? 🙂 It must be particularly crazy for you as a Math teacher when “6-7” must come up in equations or problems many times in a class or school day!!!!

    Happy 91st Birthday, Elvis.

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  29. Major bushfires starting up in Australia, underlying drought, low water tables, shallow soil moisture allowed for excessive fuel loads with strong winds yesterday and especially today, matching conditions of the 2019 and 2020 fire seasons. Very large and fast moving fire. Towns have been wrecked, and it’s moving southeast at the moment, can see it from satellite. https://x.com/Souza101Matt/status/2009449049242620357

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      1. i live on the coast in a rathe protected area from bushfire in southwest Victoria, its probably one of the best places to be. It also has a very strong and large fire service and they create fire lines real quick with help from the farms that surround the area.

        Reply

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