"Wide Right"

UPDATE 4PM: Okay, the GFS and NAM have been painting us to have some snow showers tomorrow afternoon and night as an inverted type of trough tries to throw some snow into eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The 18z NAM just came out and is probably overdoing it, but throws a band of snow from the Cape up into southern NH that drops between 0.1" to 0.25" of QPF from Plymouth to Manchester, NH, not making it past the eastern suburbs of Worcester. Given, thats a 1-3" snowfall with ratios of 20:1, that could be a sneaky 2-4" event for eastern SNE. It paints over 0.25" on the Cape and Islands, so they could see closer to that 2-3"+ type of fluffy snowfall with ocean enhancement and ocean effect keeping the snow going down there for a few more hours. I would not be surprised if a place like Chatham or Truro, MA wound up with 4-5" of pure fluff with liquid equivalency of 0.2" to 0.25"; that would not shock me at all. For now, I want to see the 18z GFS come out and see if it comes in with a similar idea, likely less agressive than the NAM, but will make me look at it nonetheless. For now I will go for 1-2" of snow on the South Shore and Cape, but want to stress that the outer part of the Cape could see more like a 2-4" event, by the way it looks right now. For the rest of us from Boston point north and west, I am going for mainly snow showers with a coating possible. This will extend into RI and western MA and southern VT and NH. A coating is possible in these areas, but the best chance of seeing snow will be the farther south and east you come. This could be one of those storms that kind of sneaks up on us last minute, so stay tuned, I still don't think it will be that big of a deal, but fun to watch nonetheless.

2PM UPDATE We will be on the edge of a gigantic developing ocean storm tomorrow with mostly cloudy skies and a few flurries around in the air tomorrow. If the pattern was a little less progressive, we would see the storm develop nicely near the Del Marva and shoot northeastward to give SNE a nice dumping of snow close to a foot. However, with our grossly progressive pattern with zero blocking, this storm will develop too little too late and head harmlessly out to sea and give the fish a whallopping. Areas that may see a finger of snow as the storm develops would be southern NJ and DE. Here, they could pick up a quick 1-3" of snow before it rushes offshore. The Cape and Islands have an outside shot of seeing up to an inch of snow tomorrow night as the storm blows up SE of the benchmark. This will usher down some real chilly air for Friday as temperatures will stay in the mid 20's with a biting wind.

Moderating temperatures will be the rule on Sunday with highs getting back into the middle 30's. There is an outside shot of some light snow or flurries on Saturday night, but that would not amount to anything, so don't worry about it. We continue to warm up heading into next week with temperatures in the low 40's on Sunday and higher yet on Monday and Tuesday as an ocean storm misses us again, but it would have been all rain anyway, so no worries there. Temperatures will be pushing 50 degrees come Tuesday and we will see our second mini January Thaw to end out the month. We should see a 3-4 day window with temperatures in the +10 to +15 degree dept. from normal daily highs. Then we get colder, but doesn't look all that bad in the long range or good if you like snow. It looks like we will have to wait for a block to develop over Greenland before we can really start to talk about any significant snows. December was pretty much a lucky month with no persistent block, just one storm after another that took the perfect condtions to get SNE seasonal snowfalls up to the 35-50" range thus far. January hasn't been that good at all, barring that storm last week that dropped a widespread 6-12".

More on the forecast tomorrow.