Friday January 16 2026 Forecast (7:09AM)

117 Comments

DAYS 1-5 (JANUARY 16-20)

Today will be a blustery, cold, but dry mid January day with a westerly air flow between low pressure in Atlantic Canada and high pressure to the southwest of New England. The wind quickly relaxes tonight as the low moves away and high pressure slides east, during which time the next low pressure system moves into the Great Lakes. This broad-reaching system will send some of its moisture our way with two episodes of precipitation Saturday. Milder air means rain at first along and east of I-95 with mix / snow to the west, with a trend for this to trend eastward bringing a change to wet snow into the coastal plain with time, before precipitation moves out Saturday evening. This results in some accumulation over interior areas and maybe a slushy coating of snow closer to the coast, with not much of any snow accumulation in southeastern MA. A second low pressure system will form to our south and slide east of our region Sunday night, sending its snow shield into the region from late Sunday afternoon to late Sunday evening. The greatest chance of accumulating snow from this short-lived event will be over areas that do not see it on Saturday, basically the I-95 belt eastward, favoring southeastern MA and Cape Cod where up to a few inches of snow can occur, with amounts quickly diminishing as you head west. Behind that system, yet another low pressure area heads into the Great Lakes and down the St. Lawrence Valley Monday and Monday night, and this one will drag an arctic cold front through our region with a snow shower / snow squall possibility later Monday, followed by dry but very cold weather across the region for Tuesday.

TODAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 27-34. Wind W 10-20 MPH, gusts around 30 MPH.

TONIGHT: Increasing clouds. Lows 20-27 evening followed by a slow rise overnight. Wind SW 5-15 MPH.

SATURDAY: Mostly cloudy. Periodic light rain eventually mixing with and changing to snow coastal plain, mix to snow inland. Snow accumulation ranging from slushy coatings coastal plain to 1/2 to 2 inches west of I-95 with a few over 2 inch amounts in higher elevations of north central MA and southwestern NH. Highs 32-39 inland and 38-45 coast occurring before midday followed by a gradual temperature fall. Wind S 5-15 MPH shifting to N from west to east.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Decreasing clouds. Lows 23-30. Wind N 5-15 MPH.

SUNDAY: Increasing clouds. Highs 33-40. Wind N 5-15 MPH.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Cloudy. A period of snow mainly I-95 belt eastward with best chance of up to a few inches accumulation over Cape Cod. Lows 22-30. Wind N to NE 5-15 MPH, higher gusts along the coast.

MONDAY: Sun / cloud mix. Chance of late-day or evening snow showers. Highs 25-32. Wind shifting to W 10-20 MPH, higher gusts.

MONDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy with a chance of snow showers evening, then clear. Lows 10-17. Wind W to NW 10-20 MPH, higher gusts.

TUESDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 18-25. Wind NW 10-20 MPH, higher gusts.

DAYS 6-10 (JANUARY 21-25)

Dry, cold weather at midweek may be followed by brief light snowfall as it turns a little milder. Watching the end of week for a potential winter storm impact, but low confidence outlook this far in advance.

DAYS 11-15 (JANUARY 26-30)

This period of time continues to feature a leaning toward cold weather and a couple of wintry precipitation chances, with it being too far into the future for any details.

117 thoughts on “Friday January 16 2026 Forecast (7:09AM)”

  2. Thanks TK !

    Wordle: 5

    What a cold wind this morning after the last few days. Turned a short walk into school into a forever one. 🙂

  4. Good morning and thank you TK.

    19 this morning

    Ocean: 42

    Wordle: 6 and it was ugly.
    2nd day in a row in the caboose.

  5. NWS snow map

    https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/Prob_Precip/idss-map/mapgen.php?office=BOX&summary=true&pointpreferences=BOX&ptype=prob_sn&product=expected&2026011612

    Snow to west mostly tomorrow’s system. Snow to east Sunday night.

    Not sure what then nws is seeing???

    Right now canandian models, gfs , Ai gfs and euro ai have the snow for Sunday night. All others snow off shore or mostly off shore, including main euro.

    Curious to see what the 12z suite shows.

    1. The NWS explained nicely in their discussion their high uncertainty on the late Sunday system, and this map is for both systems, combined, and will be updated.

      They are a little “nervous” because of the newer AI guidance being further west. But this is “machine-learning” guidance and doesn’t have many systems of this type to have sampled yet.

      1. I Know it is for both and I outlined that. I still think it is a strange map. Hope it verifies.

      2. Nervous of the AI guidance. Interesting. Both the Gfsai and euroai have had the snow for Sunday night pretty much all along

        Fascinating.

        Can’t wait for the 12z runs.

            1. There’s something wonky about tropicaltidbits. I got the error message. Then I went to the parent directory and was able to view it:
              https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/ecmwf/2026011606/

              Once there, I searched for the image file name from the original URL:
              ecmwf_mslp_pcpn_frzn_neus_23.png

              I clicked that and it worked fine. Even weirder, once I did that, clicking the original URL started to work normally.

              Computers, they’ll never catch on 🙂

  8. JPD – I earned a spot with you in the caboose by getting Wordle in 6.

    Is the caboose heated? I guess we’ll find out today.

    1. Well, I think I am full of enough hot air to keep it warm enough for the both of us! 🙂 Welcome!

    1. Not that the ICON is exactly right, but that northern stream energy isnt digging further south and sharpening the trof, it is moving east southeastward and that won’t get it done.

  14. Wordle was tough. A ton of choices. I got very lucky with my new first words. I’ll keep them for a while. Maybe.

    Wordle 3.

    Please don’t let me drive by myself. We’d all be sorry

      1. Oh Doc Cohen. 🙂 🙂 🙂
        Good for him. 🙂 🙂 🙂

        We’ll take it for what it is worth, thank you.

  25. Re: Sunday Night
    From NWS earlier today

    So in a nutshell…given all the uncertainty there probably is not a
    ton of value in a deterministic snowfall forecast Sun into Sun
    night. That being said…appears the greatest risk for a plowable
    snow might be near and southeast of the Boston to Providence
    corridor. That possibility could extend back into western MA and CT
    if the western solutions verify. And it is also possible that there
    will be little if any snowfall even into the Boston to Providence
    corridor. We do think we should see the models getting a much better
    handle on this in the next 12-24 hours.

    1. They’re a bit too hung up on the model solutions over the meteorology of the setup, and a little too influenced by the “machine learners” aka the AI versions of the global guidance which have minimal “learning experience” with systems of this origin.

      1. That makes sense. As much as I want it to snow, common sense would indicate that the bulk will be off shore. Will be most interesting to see what develops.

        I will continue to monitor either way. Euro will be out soon.

        Cheers

  26. Thanks, TK.

    Beautiful day today!

    Give me 9 more days like today this winter and I’m set.

    At this point, I’m not at all counting on much snow.

    Perhaps my prediction of 17 inches in aggregate will verify. Who knows? It’s early still. At least 80 days left of chances of accumulating snow.

  29. I am very much interested in how the operational forecasting community “ingests” AI-based models (pun intended) in their work. The models are RADICALLY different than the physics-based models (which is what I’ve spent my career using). In some ways AI models are much closer in spirit to what you do here: e.g. look at solutions, decide what makes sense and what doesn’t, what might seem like a more typical evolution etc (being keenly aware of current model biases, tendencies, problems etc). It is just that the AI model doesn’t require the physics-based model intermediate step to prognosticate evolution. That being said, figuring out what they (the AI models) do well, what they don’t do well, how to use their output sensibly, etc. is a big jump that I expect will take time, trial and error etc.

    As an aside comment, there is an influx of math/AI people working in university atmosphere and earth science departments these days, younger generation. The unfortunate thing is that I found many have deficiencies in their more traditional knowledge of atmospheric science, climate dynamics etc. (as an old generation guy, I went through a very long list of atmosphere-ocean based graduate-level classes; I think they are replacing a chunk of these fundamentals with computing, math, and stat classes).

    Also, I believe the AI models are trained on ERA5 going back to 1980 or so (or at least the ECMWF one is); it should have say plenty of training Miller A cases over this window. This is the most important training step. A second level of “operational” training is indeed much shorter (8 yrs?), but I think the goal of this second level is to improve/tweak the shorter range output. For Sunday/Monday I would think the long-term training would be the most important consideration. That being said, I’m not an expert here nor have read the papers on this work so take my comments with a grain of salt.

    2. Fascinating. I don’t understand most but think I have a basic concept. Your comment on traditional knowledge has had me unsure about AI used in other areas also.

  30. While the NWS map “looks good” for snow lovers, it makes absolutely no sense to me given the Saturday system brings quick snow to mostly light rain for our area and the bulk of the Sunday system stays just offshore with maybe the Cape getting brushed at best.

    TK – Should AI be used for entertainment purposes only and be treated as an outlier for all future forecasts until it’s perfected?

  32. I believe the ai models to have a wide precipitation field bias and when I say that, look at the location of the lows and look at the precipitation fields, the deterministics seem to have more of a rigid look, while the ai have a more smooth look kind of more like the ensembles.

    2. It hasn’t really moved at all. What it’s done is corrected for a really bad bias of not generating enough precipitation coverage near low pressure systems. It’s been doing this for a long time now, which is one of the reasons I don’t use the 12km version and haven’t for quite some time. Most of my colleagues have also abandoned it.

      1. When will the NAM be retired?

        I’d be interested to see how the RRFSA does with this system.

        Will be watching the 0z run for changes. 🙂

  34. Mr. Spock … Thank you for your comment! A lot to consider there. I’m going to mull over some of what you said and also talk to a couple colleagues and I’ll have more to say about all of this soon!

    Philip … I wouldn’t use them as “entertainment” necessarily, even if sometimes they are entertaining .. haha! As a scientist it’s important to observe these tools, what they seem to do well, what they need improvement on, and listen to colleagues and others who may have any amount of knowledge about them. It’s really a mass learning process. We know the regular models have their limits, and there’s no reason to believe the AI models would not have limits as well – they may just come from a different base in some cases.

        1. I’ve been watching the behavior of that model at certain time ranges with certain types of systems based on origin, in comparison to my own meteorological analysis of the situation. I also don’t let single-run changes have much of an impact on my thoughts.

          This particular model is an infant. The time to learn its early habits is now.

          I have observed these things so far…

          -It has an early very good handle on convection.
          -It tracks northern stream cold pattern systems too far south.
          -It generates too much precipitation on the left side of the track of southern stream systems until inside 60 hours, then corrects.

          This is based on quite a few cases for convection, and only several to a few on the latter 2, so there is still much to observe.

          1. Awesome. I am amazed at the details you observe.

            In this particular case, I hope you are incorrect sir. 🙂

            Many thanks

          2. Even with it’s short comings, you have generally been pleased with the results to date? Yes? At least over the NAM, that’s obvious. 🙂

            Many thanks

            1. I have, yes.

              Nothing is going to come out of the gate without a few issues. It’s the nature of modeling the atmosphere.

              But overall, I am pleased with the early results. We’ll see how things are tweaked and what those adjustments result in.

  38. MJO outlook…

    It has emerged from the circle in phase 6, as expected.

    In about 5 days it will begin a weak to moderate trek through phases, 7, 8, and 1 over the next 2 to 3 weeks, at which time our winter weather opportunities will go through a cycle of higher probability. This was also previously outlined as an expectation for the pattern. In short, nothing has changed.

  39. I’m thinking Tom , myself & sue could see some snow on Sunday night , thoughts Tk

    1. You will, but I’m not sold on it being all that much. At the moment I favor a slightly east, weaker track on that system. That said, a 1-3 inch snowfall is certainly on the table as a potential.

      2. The thing Tk & Tom mentioned it recently & I 100% agree that all the snow events down our way have all been overachieving. Of course I took the Monday Holiday for the Double Time & a half pay and don’t want to drive in it , I guess we shall see if we can get another overachiever down here .

  40. Impressive.

    “ JUST 10 MINUTES AGO: NFL legend Jason Kelce broke his silence with a powerful statement defending Drake Maye following the New England Patriots’ gritty 16–3 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers in the AFC Wild Card round:
    “The way people are coming for this kid is a crime against football — a blatant betrayal of everything this sport stands for. How can people be so cruel? You’re criticizing a young man who’s carrying the weight of a legendary franchise on his shoulders, who’s out there every week giving his absolute all, never asking for attention, and never blaming a soul — even when he’s being hit with baseless accusations.

    To me, Drake Maye is one of the most special players I’ve seen enter this league in a long time. He’s standing tall amidst the noise and winning games the right way. Instead of trying to tear him down or calling it a ‘fluke’ every time the Patriots win, people should be getting behind him and respecting the heart he shows on that field.”

    FULL ARTICLE https://valexo.live/posts/crime-against-football-jason-kelce-blasts-critics-rallies-behind-drake-maye-ws-lananh123-tntg”

        1. I check and recheck every political post. But you’re right that it is everywhere and it is so sad. I line the words and am tired of many comments about Maye. But still …..this is fake

  44. TK, AI modeling is a new technology and will take some time to get an understanding of. My question is as I understand it, AI has the ability to learn as it goes along, does this mean that these models will have the ability to analyze what they modeled and look what actually happened and learn from this, and have the ability to recognize the biases of the operational models? I may be way off base here but just a thought.

    1. I absolutely agree that it’s new and developing. And exciting. My hesitation is many will abuse it. Hopefully there can be a safeguard

    2. Here’s the whole schedule:

      Saturday

      Bills v Broncos @ 4:30 on CBS / Paramount Plus

      49ers v Seahawks @ 8:00 on Fox / Fubo

      Sunday

      Patriots v Texans @ 3:00 on ABC / Fubo

      Rams v Bears @ 6:30 on NBC

  47. Vicki, whether AI based or not, the sentiment behind the message couldn’t have been more well stated. Aside from being a special young player, Maye seems like a classy guy who puts the team first and shys away from personal accomplishments and attention. Like Brady, this is the kind of guy I want representing the New England Patriots.

    1. I absolutely agree. It’s why I shared it. I see some of the nonsense and, frankly, jealousy when it comes to Maye. I also suspect Vrabel tells him the very same.

  48. Looks like SNOW is on For Sunday night!! Block buster? Nope but widespread 1-3, 2-4″ inches with pockets of more. Now watch 12z runs back off.

    1. I thought we were going to split the uprights between Saturday and Sunday events. Now looking like a Saturday brush and the Sunday event is further north and west. Not sure of timing but Boston should get some. Foxboro should get more.

  49. Just read some of the comments… vicki as I mentioned before any of these articles written like a forlorn outtake from a romance novel is always AI.

    Here’s that “article” saying the same thing about:

    Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, etc. – and sometimes changing who is saying it – like having it be Larry Bird – https://ibb.co/NnmvSvbM

    You can always highlight a snippet – just six or seven words – put it in quotes and search for it and you’ll always find these articles.

    1. The facebook pages make money off shares and interactions. The sites they link to embed tracking cookies that follow your browsing history. I implore people never to share them.

    1. Forecast was for “mostly cloudy”, not a solid overcast all day. This allows the possibility for breaks of sun.

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