Winter Slogs On In New England: Arctic Cold, More Snow

Got snow? New England does. And they're going to get more.  

In the snowy wastelands of New England, it's cold this morning. Really cold. Temperatures were flirting with minus 20 in some northern areas as dawn broke.

Berlin and Whitefield, New Hampshire were at 22 below at 6 a.m this morning.

When there's deep snow, like there is now in southeastern New England, that really makes temperatures drop even more than usual on clear, calm winter nights.

That's the case now. It was around 10 to 12 below in the suburbs outside of Boston at dawn.

It was 16 below in Norwood, Mass and 12 below in Bedford. Brrr!

Next on the New England agenda: Snow. Again.

This next snowfall will mostly target northern New England, especially Maine.

That storm from the west was crossing the Great Lakes this morning, as expected, and will move east toward New England tonight.

Forecasters still think the storm will get much stronger, very fast, once it hits the coast of New England. If anything, it will emerge into the Atlantic a bit further south than I thought yesterday, which means some of the heavier snow might also creep a little further south than I thought yesterday.

Snow forecasts for northern New England have remained consistent since yesterday.

In northern Massachusetts, north of the Mass Pike, especially in the eastern half of the state, there's a winter weather advisory for four to six inches of snow Friday into early Saturday. This includes areas just north of Boston, and in the suburbs that got hit hardest by the blizzard earlier this week.

Usually four to six inches of snow is no big deal in New England. But since the Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire winter weather advisory zone got the most snow out of the blizzard -- three feet of it -- this four to six inches of additional accumulation will be a real pain in the neck.

It's even possible they'll get more than that, if the storm strengthens faster than expected on Friday, or loops a little more south than now forecast before looping north toward the Canadian Maritimes.

Areas well to the south and southwest of Boston will probably only get one to three inches of snow out of this.

Up north, in northern New York and Vermont, which largely missed out on the blizzard earlier this week, and in much of New Hampshire, there will be a mid-sized snowfall tonight through Friday night of three to six inches.

There is a winter weather advisory from this evening through Friday evening for the northwestern half of New York, the northern half of Vermont and all of New Hampshire for that forecasted three to six inches of snow.

A little less might fall down in the southern Champlain Valley toward Middlebury and Rutland, Vermont, maybe two or three inches. In New York's St. Lawrence Valley, the northern Green Mountains and in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the snow could be a little more substantial, maybe five to eight inches.

Then there's Maine. Poor Maine. The southeastern half of the state got pounded by that blizzard earlier this week. Maine, and the Canadian Maritimes, are going to take the brunt of this new storm Friday and early Saturday.

A winter storm warning is up for all of Maine. Another six to 12 inches of snow is expected with this storm across Maine.

By the way, blowing snow is going to be a problem again region wide as the storm strengthens and north winds pick up Friday. Between the new snow and the stuff that's already on the ground, there's going to be a lot of trouble with visibility, and big drifts quickly forming on roads Friday into Saturday.

This storm will fall a little short of being a blizzard, but it will be blizzard like at times. Especially in Maine.

This weekend, it will be brutally cold in New England with some northern areas barely making it to zero Saturday afternoon, with overnight lows well below zero.

Intense winter cold will last all of next week, too, waxing and waning a bit as the week goes on.

Yesterday, I mentioned the possibility of another nor'easter around Monday or so.

The forecasting computer models are still all over the place with this one. Yesterday morning, a lot of the models had New England in the bullseye. Later, many forecasting tools had the storm heading well out to sea to the south and missing New England entirely.

The models are still all totally disagreeing on this potential storm, so it's really anybody's guess as to what, if anything will happen. I have often seen a pattern among the models of promising a storm, backing off, then at the last minute saying, "Oh, yeah, you're going to get a storm after all."

The computer models, at least several of them anyway, did that prior to the blizzard that struck earlier this week.

So, in terms of Monday's forecast, I'll throw my hands up for now and not commit to one line of reasoning or another.

I, along with everyone else, will just wait for more updated forecasts.