The first measurable snowfall of the season could cover the Boston area and other parts of southern New England next week, with a nor’easter forecast to bring snow to the region from Tuesday night into Wednesday night.
The Northeast’s active weather pattern on Monday is expected to continue into Tuesday when a new storm system, a nor’easter, arrives. The track of this Nor’easter will determine what type of precipitation we get, snow or rain, but some areas of New England are likely to get their first good amounts of snowfall of the season.
If you’re wondering about potential winter weather, it’s still too early to predict timing, total snowfall and roughly where the rain-snow line will fall. Those are just guesses at this point. Right now, that weather system is still coming in from Alaska, so the data is sparse and will get better over the weekend as it approaches the West Coast. I’m usually hesitant to talk much about a storm that’s several days away, but I also realize that people want to know what the chances are so they can plan.
But I am comfortable showing you the probability map. The map below gives us a chance of at least an inch of snowfall, according to European groups. To refresh what an ensemble is, it is a series of predictions made by a model with minor variations. Think of it like following a recipe. In one version of the recipe, you may sift the flour and in the other, you may not. It’s the same recipe, but you get a slightly different result.
As I noted earlier, the track of the storm will be key to what type of weather we experience in New England from Tuesday through Wednesday. If the storm hits the coast, bringing warm air from the Atlantic, which is still relatively mild this time of year, we will see rain mostly east of I-495.
But if the storm is a little off the coast, the rain-snow line will be closer to the coast and even Boston could see its first measurable snow of the season. Climatologically, it’s unlikely that the Coastal Plain will see anything other than a freezing rain or wet mix, but if the storm moves a little further away from the coast, some snow could accumulate over Boston, which will keep the cold air in place. Parts of the polar vortex are expected to bring cold air to the US over the next few weeks, but fortunately, New England will remain on the edge of this cold front and should only see high temperatures in the upper 40s and slightly below average 30s.
It’s too early to determine where the rain-snow line will fall or which areas will get more snowfall than others, but just know that your plans may be disrupted on Tuesday. Of course, that’s still days away and there will be more on that later on in the weekend. Stay tuned!
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