Even in the middle of winter there’s always warm air present well to the south of New England. Sometimes this warmer air moves north associated with what we call a warm front.
One of these warm fronts is going to press towards the region overnight and into Wednesday. This situation creates what we call overrunning. Cold air is heavier than warm air because it contains less moisture. As this warm air rides northward over the cold air, it will produce a little period of wintry weather overnight Tuesday. There are winter weather advisories for those who are expected to see over 2 inches of snow.
When you get up Wednesday morning, it’s probably going to be snowing in many areas. There will be anywhere from a coating to an inch along the coastline with 1 to 2 inland and up to 3 in in the Berkshires.
This obviously isn’t a big system but when something like this occurs during the morning commute it can definitely cause slippery travel. We will still be on the cold side of the frontal boundary and it will feel rather raw all day.
Temperatures during the snow will be just below freezing making it easy to stick and the roads are still cold from the recent arctic air. It doesn’t take much to create slowdowns even from minor snow events. It will be near 40 by the afternoon, so ice won’t be an issue.
There will be a little break in the action Wednesday afternoon before the next round of precipitation arrives for later Wednesday night and during Thursday. This will still be caused by that same front, only this time it is likely to move far enough north to bring in the warmer air. We will see a few waves of rainfall into early Friday and most places will have received up to an inch of precipitation including the melted snow by the time everything winds down Friday mid-morning.
Temperatures will be well above average Thursday and Friday reaching into the 40s to the lower 50s as that warm air surges northward.
There’s a break in the action for Saturday with a mix of clouds and sunshine but we’ll have to keep an eye on another storm system for Sunday. Low pressure will move up the eastern seaboard and could bring a mixed bag of precipitation along with some wind to end the weekend. It’s still too early to know exactly how this system is going to play out. There’s not a lot of cold air around but there is enough that if the track is just right we could end up with accumulating snow.
