The Stretch Continues...
Mild conditions will continue over the next few days and an unorganized system will slide through tomorrow night and Friday morning with rain for most and some higher elevation snow for others. Clouds will be dominating again by tomorrow afternoon as the weaker storm approaches. rain should overspread the area in the evening after dark...some sleet pellets will be possible as the precip commences in the evening, but mild southerly flow will keep surface temps safely above freezing so that no icing will occur. That warm surface layer will extend up to around 1500 feet so rain will be the primary player for most. Higher elevation in Worcester County and SW NH and certainly Northern New England will see wet snow and the ski resorts will pick up a few inches. The storm will depart early Friday morning and clouds will break up for afternoon sunshine.
Behind the storm we will see a cooldown but the air isn't frigid...highs in the mid 40s on Saturday. Then things get interesting for Sunday. There are two distinct solutions within the models. The first is that the Southern stream of the jet stays separate from the northern stream and the large storm stays south of us. The second is that they come together and phase. The second solution would produce a large nor'easter type storm as the storm would slow down and wait for additional upper level energy producing a large low with ample precip...several inches of snow, very strong wind and potential coastal flooding. It really could go either way at this point but with the way this Winter is going the safest approach is to side with the miss. With that said, if this storm does materialize, while there will be several inches of snow, there will not be a source of deep cold and therefore mixing will likely be an issue near the coast.
I hope we will have some more clarity later tonight or tomorrow morning but the bottom line is that some of the energy getting entrained into this evolution isn't even in North America yet...it is still over the Pacific Ocean.
