First Snow Of Season Coming To Southern New England
BOSTON (CBS) - It seems like just yesterday we had a record breaking 87 degrees amidst that beautiful Columbus Day weekend.
Now just a few weeks later we are forecasting the first snow of the season for many folks in southern New England.
Check: Current Conditions | Weather Map Center | Interactive Radar
This is not that unusual.
Typically, our first snow in Boston comes right around November 4th, even earlier in the suburbs.
Just two years ago on October 18th, 2009 there were snow squalls during a Patriots game in Foxboro and Boston got .1 inch.
And just 6 years ago, on October 29th, 2005 Boston received 1.1 inch of snow.
While it certainly not without precedent, it always comes as a bit of a shock when those first flakes begin to fall.
TIMELINE
There will be none of it for most of the daylight hours on Thursday, just all rain for southern New England through the afternoon.
However, as night begins to fall, the winds will also begin to shift to a more northerly direction and start to drain some very cold air into our region.
This will change the rain over to snow gradually from north to south.
The first locations to see the change will be in southwest New Hampshire and northern Worcester County, where evening commuters will likely see a mix or complete change to snow between 4-to-6 p.m.
The rain snow line will work south and reach Boston's northwest suburbs, near I-495 between 6 and 8 p.m.
It will be a race against the clock for residents of Boston and suburbs to the south as the precipitation will be shutting off around the time that the air becomes cold enough to support snow.
There may be a brief glimpse of snowfall after 9 p.m. in the city before the precipitation comes to an end around midnight.
HOW MUCH?
As for accumulation, it is very tough to do this early in the season.
Among the many factors working against accumulating snowfall include a warm, moist, unfrozen ground and closer to the coast a very mild ocean.
The best chance for some light accumulation (1-to-3 inches) would be in elevated areas (elevation means a bit cooler at ground level) such as northern Worcester County and southwest New Hampshire (Monadnock Region).
Closer to I-495 and Route 2 there could be a dusting on the grass and car tops.
No accumulation on roads is expected except for locations in the highest elevations.
The sunshine returns on Friday and we await our next shot at snow, just one day later.
Watch Melissa Mack's forecast:
We are tracking a coastal storm for Saturday evening which could have a more significant impact on our region depending upon how close it tracks to our coastline.
Tides are astronomically very high through the weekend, so coastal flooding and beach erosion would be likely with any significant storm.
More on that to come.
You can follow Terry on Twitter at @TerryWBZ.
