The Christmas week dry stretch will come to an end Friday as rain, sleet, and snow all push into New England. However, the sleet and snow window is brief and by and large this is a rainstorm. The timeline below shows that brief window. Timing wise, it’s pretty unfortunate — right during the morning commute. If you drive the Mass Pike, 495, or 95 north of the Mass Pike, watch for a few slick spots with the freezing rain potential, but most snow accumulations should stay up toward the Massachusetts/New Hampshire state line and only accumulate to an inch at most. By mid morning, strong south winds will warm us up enough to change everything over to rain and stay that way all day. So if there is a coating of snow, don’t worry about shoveling… the rain will take care of that through the day. It will also be pretty windy tomorrow. Note the winds plotted on the timeline below with the future radar.
Snowfall amounts will not be significant and most of us will be lucky to see a coating at best. Our higher spots in the viewing area will only be about an inch. near the state line, as mentioned. It’s more of a timing issue — during the morning commute, and why the Winter Weather Advisory was issued by the National Weather Service. We will see rain last for a while, but I’m not too concerned about a flooding risk with this one. Most of us will only see about a half inch of rain. Note on the timeline above the heavier rain and longer lasting rain on the South Coast, Cape Cod, and the Islands. Rain totals here could get close to one inch. There may be a little street flooding on those with poor drainage, but that’s about it for the flood risk.
The rain will remain steady through late afternoon/early evening before becoming more scattered after that. As the storms system exits, it will pull in cold air behind it and temperatures will crash for the weekend. Temperatures in general will be wonky over the next 36 hours. Overnight tonight, we’ll start to see temperatures climb after midnight, putting sunrise temperatures right near freezing and thus the sleet/freezing rain potential. From there, strong winds (gusting to 40 mph or more through the afternoon) will push temperatures in the mid 50s for afternoon highs. Usually from here, we’d see temperatures start to fall, but instead we’ll continue climbing through the overnight — getting close to 60° for some! We’ll stay mild briefly on Saturday morning, but a quick wind shift to the northwest will cause temperatures to crash through Saturday afternoon.
