We are tracking a double winter whammy for later this week, the likes of which we have not seen this winter.
More than half of the Country is going to be severely impacted by either a major winter storm, a potential record-setting Arctic outbreak or BOTH!
This will become a major news story in the next couple of days as we will start to see blizzard and ice storm warnings in dozens of southern states.
As for the impacts to New England…the cold is a certainty while the storm is still TBD…more on that below.
FIRST, the winter storm/blizzard
There are two pieces of atmospheric energy that are going to merge in order to form the monster storm.
Currently, the northern piece is sitting west of Alaska and the southern piece well off of the California coastline.
Thus, we have a long way to go (forecast-wise) before we can truly nail down any sort of specifics here in New England.
We are in what forecasters would call the “mid-range” portion of the forecast right now. This means it is too early for specifics, and we are largely watching model trends and large-scale atmospheric changes. I would anticipate some waffling around in the forecast track in the next 48-72 hours before we can safely and confidently predict an impact in New England.
The setup is absolutely classic. Over the next few days, there will be a massive area of high pressure descending southward from Canada into the middle of the Country bringing with it record-setting cold.
At the same time, a moisture-filled, river of Pacific air will invade the southern -tier, supplying the developing storm with loads of moisture.
The result…the biggest winter storm the United States has seen this year, and perhaps in several years.
There will be a swath of heavy snow about 1,000 miles long with accumulation between 1-2 feet!
Currently, the jackpot zone includes cities like; Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Nashville, Charlotte and Washington DC.
Just to the south of the snow-zone, an even more hazardous area of ice.
A major ice storm is currently forecasted in cities like; Dallas, Shreveport, Jackson and Atlanta.
The big question for New England…will that storm take a northward turn Sunday night and Monday or will it pass harmlessly to our south, out to sea…
Again, as of this writing, the majority of our weather models keep the storm too far south for a major impact here.
The National Weather Service and most models are currently highlighting the Mid-Atlantic area and points just south of there for maximum impact.
That forecast COULD CHANGE. New England is NOT out of the woods. A major winter storm is NOT out of the question here later Sunday and early next week.
As always, we will keep you updated with each and every model run, twist and turn.
On to the cold…
This will NOT miss New England. We can say confidently that the temperatures this weekend will be the coldest of this season and likely the coldest in several years.
The airmass is coming directly from the North Pole and will settle over New England late Friday and through the weekend.
How cold are we talking?
Daytime highs on Saturday and Sunday will range from the single digits to teens in most of southern New England. Morning lows will largely be below zero north and west of Boston and single digits to the south and along the Coast.
Up in Ski Country (central and northern New England), temperatures will drop as low as -10 to -25 degrees and, in many locations, temperatures will stay below zero all day.
