Yes, We're Talking About A Lot Of Snow In New England Again, Alright?

The American model forecasts more
than 18 inches of new snow in central
New England over the next few days. (Click on
the image to make it bigger and easier to read) More than
eight inches is likely in all but extreme northeast
and southwest New England. 

Once again, winter storm watches are up for most of New England and most of New York State as another blast of snow gets ready to descend on the region.

Actually, there was some snow last night. Not much, an inch, two in many areas of New England, even more than that in the mountains.

It was the first salvo in what promises to be a long lasting snowfall. One that won't end until Monday night at the earliest.

Unlike past recent storms, this isn't a classic nor'easter. Or an Alberta Clipper that blows up along the coast, like some do.

As I noted yesterday, this is a stalled Arctic front to the south of New England, with little storms riding west to east along it. These disturbances help warm, wet air ride up and over the dome of cold air over the Northeast.

When that happens, the warm air rising over the cold makes the moisture condense into snowflakes, which will fall onto mostly New York and New England.

For the most part, it won't snow super hard throughout the region during the storminess, but this is going to last a long time, so it will eventually pile up. While occasion light snow has already started in the region and will continue on and off through Tuesday, the steadiest, relatively heaviest snow will probably come Sunday night and Monday

As it stands now, the biggest amounts of new snow from this, in the 14 to 18 inch range, or maybe even locally more than that,  will be in central New York, including the Albany Capitol District and the southern Adirondacks, the southern halves of Vermont and New Hampshire, southeastern Maine and the northern half of Massachusetts.

This, of course, includes a lot of the areas hit hardest by the snow in the past three weeks.

More to the north, in the St. Lawrence Valley and northern Adirondacks of New York, the northern reaches of Vermont and New Hampshire and central Maine look like they might get 6 to 12 inches of snow out of this.

In far southern New England, it's looking like there will be some mixed precipitation with this, so snowfall amounts will be less.

There will be a fair amount of wind with this once we get toward Monday, especially down in Massachusetts and especially areas sort of near the coast. That would get the blowing and drifting snow going again, which just makes matters all that much worse.

Once this goes by, I have even worse news for New England.

Chances are increasing that one of the worst cold waves on record could strike New England starting around Thursday. And this intense cold looks like it wants to last at least a week or so.

There's also some question as to whether the storm that introduces the bitter Arctic cold could dump a lot of snow. We're just not sure yet.

But once the cold wave establishes itself, we can unfortunately expect overnight lows in northern New England in the twenties, thirties or even low forties below zero, with highs below zero during the day.

Southern New England would get below zero, too.

Long range forecasts don't show many signs of a break in the weather.

All this is hard to take, given how warm it's been elsewhere lately. For instance, it was 69 degrees in Billings, Montana yesterday. Rapid City, South Dakota reached 72 degrees, ten degrees above the previous record high. It was still 50 degrees in Rapid City as dawn broke this morning. These are cities that routinely go below zero in the winter.

I don't think there's any place on Earth that will be colder, relative to normal than New England this February. For people like me who are not always enthusiastic about winter, that's a depressing thought.

But what can you do?

ARCTIC HIGH PRES OVER SOUTHEAST QUEBEC AND A STORM TRACK NEAR THE
BENCHMARK SUPPORTS A MAINLY ALL SNOW EVENT FOR THE REGION. HOWEVER A
WARM NOSE IN THE MID LEVELS MAY ADVECT NORTHWARD INTO THE SOUTH
COAST MON AND POSSIBLY INTO INTERIOR RI AND SOUTHEAST MA MON NIGHT.
HOWEVER THE BULK OF THE PRECIP WILL HAVE FALLEN BY THEN. THUS GIVEN
THE COLDER/LESS AMPLIFIED SOLUTIONS FROM THE ECMWF AND UKMET SNOW
MAY MIX WITH SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN /POSSIBLY RAIN FOR NANTUCKET
AND OUTER CAPE/ ALONG THE SOUTH COAST OF MA AND RI...AND POSSIBLY
BRIEFLY MON EVENING/NIGHT INTERIOR RI AND SOUTHEAST MA. OTHERWISE
REMAINDER OF THE REGION WILL BE LOOKING AT AN ALL SNOW EVENT.

SNOWFALL...

SNOW TOTALS A TAD HIGHER THAN PREVIOUS FORECAST GIVEN WE EXPANDED
THE SNOW GRID INTO MON EVENING. MODEL BLEND OF ECMWF AND UKMET
SUPPORT 12"+ ACROSS MOST OF MA /EXCLUDING SOUTHEAST MA/. SLIGHTLY
LESS...ON THE ORDER OF 8-12" INTO NORTHERN CT AND RI GIVEN POTENTIAL
FOR A PERIOD OF MIXED SNOW/SLEET AND/OR FREEZING RAIN LATE MON/MON
EVENING. SNOW TOTALS THEN BECOME MOST UNCERTAIN NEAR THE SOUTH COAST
GIVEN POTENTIAL DURATION OF MIXED PRECIP. EARLY INDICATIONS SUGGEST
3-6" WITH 1-3" FOR THE ISLANDS. GREATEST FORECAST CONFIDENCE IS
ACROSS MA...FROM THE MA/CT/RI BORDER NORTHWARD TO MA/NH BORDER.

HEADLINES...

GIVEN THE COLDER/WEAKER TREND FROM THE 00Z ECMWF/UKMET THERE IS NOW
AN INCREASED RISK FOR 8"+ IN 24 HR FARTHER SOUTH INTO NORTHERN
PORTIONS OF CT/RI AND INTERIOR SOUTHEAST MA. THUS WE EXPANDED THE
WINTER STORM WATCH TO INCLUDE THOSE AREAS.

RECORD BREAKING COLD POSSIBLE LATE NEXT WEEK AS ANOTHER ARCTIC BLAST
TAKES AIM ON SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. FOR EXAMPLE THE 00Z GEFS HAS -32C
AT 925 MB OVER EASTERN NY AND WESTERN NEW ENGLAND FRI! THAT`S -3 STD
FROM CLIMO!  NOW THAT SNOWCOVER IS QUITE EXTENSIVE ACROSS THE
NORTHEAST THESE ARCTIC AIRMASSES WILL MODIFY VERY LITTLE IF ANY
DURING THE DESCENT FROM THE ARCTIC INTO THE MID LATITUDES.