We Still Have No Clue About What That Freakin' Nor'Easter's Gonna Do

One scenario has a nor'easter hugging the coast
Monday, giving almost all of New England
heavy snow. Other scenarios make the
storm miss all but eastern New England.
We'll see.  

All of us weather geeks have been on nor'easter watch for the past few days, wondering what, if anything the potential storm will do to New England come Sunday night and Monday.

We're still wondering as of Friday morning.

The computer forecasting models are still struggling with this thing, giving a range of options from totally going out to sea, to blasting most of New England with heavy snow, except bringing mostly rain to the coast, or something in between.

Forecasting a nor'easter, especially a few days in advance, is tricky. It's even trickier when you're getting toward spring time.

The whole weather pattern in the northern hemisphere is usually in a state of seasonal transition by now, so the weather is even more unpredictable than usual.

Last evening, a lot of the computer models seemed to trend the storm more to the west, which would put virtually all of New England and the New York metro area under an increasing threat of a big late season snowstorm.

This Friday morning, many, but not all, of the computer models are trending a little east again, which would still keep eastern New England under the threat of a big snowstorm, at least for now. But that eastward model trend would place more western and northern areas, like Vermont, under much less of a threat for heavy snow.

Still, nobody is out of the woods. The forecasts could trend west again. Or not.

I hate to give you such short notice of a potential larger storm, but I don't think any meteorologist or forecaster will have a good handle on where this nor'easter will go until tonight, or more likely Saturday morning.

My much earlier than normal new daffodil shoots in my
St. Albans, Vermont gardens got reitroduced to
winter this morning.  

Just keep an eye out and we'll see. Maybe there will be a big snowfall, maybe there won't.

We do know we are transitioning back to winter, at least temporarily today. Early this morning, a cold front arrived where I am in northwestern Vermont, bringing a burst of snow. That front will sweep south today, and it will turn wintry.

As noted yesterday, it won't get above freezing in most of northern New England Saturday. Not odd for mid-March, but a shock after the warm weather we've had, and the springlike showers and thunderstorms we had Thursday.

Even if parts of New England do get a big snowstorm Monday, the snow on the ground won't last. If you get toward this time of year, snow melts fast.

Plus, although it will be somewhat colder than normal through Tuesday, it looks like a warming trend might set in for the second half of next week.

It probably won't get as toasty warm as it has in the past week, but the second half of next week will likely have near to somewhat above normal temperatures.

If it does snow Monday, the warmth late next week would melt the stuff. The weather pattern still looks unsettled, but there will be occasional precipitation next week. Probably nothing on Tuesday, and chances are at this point that anything that falls from Wednesday on would be rain in most spots in the Northeast.