April in January?!

We are now past the halfway point in January and one thing has come to mind, its January? Well, the coating of snow and the past two nights of lows in the single digits and teens have reminded us that it is still January, but looking at the forecast, you would think we were in the middle of April.

Today will be a fairly average January day with highs in the middle 30's with increasing clouds this afternoon. We may even see a mix of rain, sleet and snow after rush hour and areas well north and west of Boston may actually see a coating to an inch of sleet and snow. Tonight, however, temperatures will rise to the upper 30's to lower 40's and any inland ice should quickly turn to rain, but areas to the north, mainly in the mountains may stay in the form of frozen precipitation until about noon with an accumulation of 1-3".

Tomorrow morning the rain will get heavy and the temperatures will soar into the low-middle 50's with a raging South wind on the order of 25-35 mph, with gusts on the order of 45-55 mph. Scattered power outages are possible. With the heavy rains and deep snow pack in Worcester County and beyond, the National Weather Service has issed a FLOOD WATCH for possible street flooding and basement flooding especially in western MA and southwestern NH where they received 8-12" of snow this past weekend. Finally, we should see about 1" to 1.75" of rain throughout southern New England. At the very end enough cold air may actually make it in to change the rain to a few snow showers in southwestern NH, including Keene, NH. Little or no snow accumulation would occur.

After this mild rainy storm system, we will have a westerly wind with mild temperatures in the low-mid 40's with partly cloudy skies. After that 50's will rule Friday and Saturday and we may have to contend with more rain sometime on Saturday, and it will be in the form of rain, not snow. Snow will be limited to far northern New England near the Canadian border, if that. Also the highest mountain tops above 2500' may see some snow Saturday. Again, it will cool off Sunday into the 40's only to warm up again possibly later next week.

For the snowlovers out there, including myself, it looks like we can't catch a break. Maybe February will bring some relief.