As I explained in my blog Saturday morning, "meteorological winter" ends this week. But, as Bri mentioned in her blog Saturday evening, it looks like winter isn’t over just yet. In fact, the 7 day forecast is a bit more complicated than it looks.
Weather-wise, the week starts off quiet and almost spring-like. Wednesday is when things start to get interesting. With high temps in the upper 40s to low 50s Wednesday afternoon, there is no question that any precipitation that falls during the day will fall as rain. However, it looks like the precipitation may actually begin in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday morning. Temps will be in the upper 30s in the Boston area at that time. No problem there. BUT, the usual cool spots (I’m looking at you northern Worcester county, western Mass and southern Vermont), could be cool enough for a brief period of freezing rain or sleet Wednesday morning. Later that day, a blast of cold air moves in. Most likely the moisture will be out of the way before the cold air gets here. BUT, there are a few computer model forecasts now indicating that the moisture will linger around long enough for the precipitation to change back to something wintry before ending Wednesday night. At this point it doesn’t appear that there will be anything significant either way and I’m a bit more worried about gusty winds than wintry weather.
It looks more and more likely that we are in for a blast of cold air for the end of the week. Temperatures will likely be well below average for Thursday – Saturday. However, what is less certain is the track of the next storm system. It appears a storm will move up the east coast during that same time period. About half of the computer models say the storm will pass well south of us and not bring us any precipitation. In that case, we stay dry, but the storm may help to pull down air that is even colder than what we are currently expecting. In other words, it might be even colder than the numbers you currently see in the 7 day forecast. The other half of the computer models bring the storm on a track that is nearly ideal for producing precipitation in New England. In that case, it might be slightly warmer, but still cold enough that any precipitation will likely fall as snow. Stay tuned!!
Either way, don’t get used to the spring-like temps we currently have, winter temps are making a comeback!