Snow Coming Wednesday, Thursday
BOSTON (CBS) - Just as spring rolled in on Sunday night, our atmosphere was undergoing a major pattern change.
It's ironic that as we finally welcome spring to New England that we revert back to a pattern similar to that one which caused us so much angst in mid-winter.
Check: Current Conditions | Weather Map Center | Interactive Radar
The main culprit back in January was a block in the atmosphere well north of our latitude.
This block was largely responsible for pushing everything farther southward, including the cold air.
That block is now re-establishing itself to our north for at least the next few weeks.
Besides sending cold air our way, the block in the atmosphere also prohibits storm systems from heading to our west.
Typically, when storms pass by to our west they draw in mild air on southwest winds and make our precipitation mainly rain.
Instead, the blocking pattern shunts storms to our south, meaning we either get snow or storms which affect places like New York City and the mid-Atlantic states and spare us.
This is exactly what is going to happen over the next several days.
A fairly sizeable storm system is headed east out of the Midwest. It is being "blocked" from heading into New England and instead will slide to our south.
Weather models are struggling a bit as they typically do when we have a major pattern shift, and disagree on how far north the shield of snow will extend.
TIMELINE
The best estimate right now would have light snow breaking out for most of southern New England late Wednesday afternoon or Wednesday evening.
The snow would continue overnight, but steadiest and heaviest to our south (closer to the storm system).
It will likely still be snowing lightly in many areas Thursday morning and taper to snow showers by Thursday afternoon.
AMOUNTS
We are forecasting a widespread one-to-three inches for Boston and areas north of the Mass Pike from this event.
Amounts will quickly taper off to near nothing north of the Massachusetts border.
South of the Pike there is a slightly higher potential, so we will forecast three-to-six inches in that area. I think amounts will be closer to three inches than six in most spots, ramping up to near six inches in parts of Connecticut and closer to New York City.
AFTER THE STORM
Temperatures will remain below normal for several days following the storm and we will keep an eye on the track of another storm heading to our south Saturday night and Sunday
At this point, it appears as though this one will be pushed even farther south than Wednesday's storm, and likely will be a miss for New England.
