Watching A Weekend Storm With Big Potential

BOSTON (CBS) --Words NOT overheard between fellow commuters and office workers in Boston today: "Ooh look, it's snowing outside." Words actually heard: "(Censored)."

It's getting old -- fast. "Snow" has become the dirtiest of four-letter words as of late, conjuring up feelings of anxiety, anger and pain. Unfortunately, it is my duty to inform you that there is more coming. More long commutes, more overgrown gigantic piles of snow, more back pain from shoveling.

Mother Nature is seriously pissed off. . . is it something we said? What did we do to deserve this, why us? While the rest of the country has enjoyed early tastes of spring, we have had NO breaks. Temperatures have been below average for a stunning 17 straight days. Snow has fallen on 14 of those 17 days, totaling 77.4" in the city of Boston.

By the end of this weekend we will have more snow in just three weeks than we normally get in two full years. We will also likely be in the top five snowiest winters ever recorded in Boston's 120-plus years of record-keeping. We're literally one big storm away from being the snowiest winter ever recorded, and it is only mid-February.

Still searching for a sign, any sort of atmospheric signal that this historical pattern will come settle down, there are none. The beat goes on. . . and on. . .

Today:
Nuisance snow. Ocean-effect snow will stream in from the Atlantic off and on through the day today, mainly inside of Interstate 495 and close to the coast. Scattered coatings to as much as an inch or two in spots, mainly just frosting on the enormous cake of snow.

Thursday:
I guess you could look at this one as perhaps our first "break" in quite some time. Another "clipper" zipping out of Canada and through the upper Midwest will redevelop to our south and quickly deepen into a powerful ocean storm. This is a story we have read over and over again the past few weeks.

However, this time we get spared the brunt of the storm. We will catch the very beginning of its development as it passes by Thursday afternoon and evening. On the far northwestern fringe of this storm, we will only see some light to moderate snow for about a 3-6 hour period between 4-10 p.m.

The "jackpot" zone from this storm will be out over the open waters, one for the fishes. In eastern Massachusetts, a general 1-3" is expected, hardly even a storm by the lofty standards we have set this winter. The best chance of 4 or 5" would be over Cape Cod and Nantucket, the areas closest to the developing storm.

Friday:
A snow-free day? Could it be? We just might get through Friday without any additional snow accumulation. That's the good news, the bad news is that it will be absolutely frigid. Daytime highs only in the teens with wind chill values well below zero. Friday night will likely be our coldest night of the season (and that is saying something). Nearly all of southern New England will dip below zero, even Boston could see a rare subzero night.

Weekend:
Break over. Another storm, the latest in a series of "Canadian Clippers", dives southward toward New England. Some light snow and flurries could break out as early as Saturday afternoon but the timeframe to watch is Saturday night into Sunday morning.

Once again, this storm will develop and strengthen rapidly as it "bombs out" to our east over the Atlantic. This one is certainly one to watch. There is a fairly high ceiling with this storm, lots of potential with regards to snow and wind. Too early to get specific but a nor'easter-type event is certainly a possibility as is another foot of snow.

I would stress that there is still a ways to go with this forecast. The piece of energy chiefly responsible for the formation of this storm is currently up in the Arctic Ocean, more than 2,000 miles away. Therefore, there is very limited data and atmospheric sampling at this time. We should know a lot more in another 24-36 hours. As always, stay tuned…

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• Nor'easter
• Terry Eliasen