While the weather over the next few days will be on the calmer and drier side for most, there will be three distinct clipper systems moving through the region into Thursday. This will be followed by another shot of Arctic air late next week. This will come after a brief and subtle warm-up early in the week.
The first clipper will pass to the north of New England on Sunday. The system will first lift a warm front across the region in the morning followed by a trailing cold front. These fronts will provide the focus and lift for snow showers across New England. The most widespread snow will be confined to the north of New England, closer to the center of the low, over Quebec. New England will see more scattered activity along the fronts.
Scattered snow showers may begin to break out shortly after sunrise across the higher elevations of Vermont before spreading eastward into New Hampshire and Maine. Scattered snow showers will likely continue through much of the day across the northern tier. There's a decent amount of instability associated with the system's cold front (at least by mid-winter standards), so brief heavier snow showers may be possible.
Forcing for snow showers will weaken moving south, away from the center of the system, so very little, if any, snow showers activity is expected in central and southern New England. An inch or two of snow will be possible across the north where snow showers are more persistent. Outside of the snow chance, the day will see variable clouds. Milder temperatures will be on the way as New England will sit in the narrow warm sector between the fronts.
Below: Probability of at least an inch of snow through Sunday:
A much stronger clipper system will pass well to the north of New England Monday afternoon into Tuesday. This will keep widespread snow to the north of the region on Monday. A few snow showers may drop into northernmost Maine Monday afternoon and evening. As the system pulls northeast toward Greenland on Tuesday morning, it will drag a strong cold front across the region, providing a focus for snow showers across the north once again.
The timing of the cold front appears to have it passing through northern New England through Tuesday morning. This will allow for a line of scattered snow showers to move through with the front. Winds will likely become quite gusty as the front pushes south. With strong forcing and a tight thermal gradient near the front, there is the possibility for some snow squalls. The squall threat doesn't look widespread, but it will be worth watching out for.
As the front continues to push south in New England, it will likely begin to dry up and with less and less snow shower activity as you move southward in the region. Little, if any, snow showers are expected across southern New England once again. Low pressure development along this front on Tuesday is not expected, so a longer period of light snow is very unlikely anywhere in New England. Without a low pressure system, snow amounts will once again be around an inch or two where snow showers are more persistent and/or briefly heavy.
Below: CMC showing potential weather around midday Tuesday:
One final clipper system is poised to drop out of the Great Lakes on Wednesday and ride along Tuesday's cold front. By Wednesday, this front will likely be draped near southern New England. The position of where the front is when the clipper rides along it will determine the clipper's track through the region. The most widespread period of snow will occur on the northern side of the system.
The track of the system will play the biggest role in where the blob of snowfall sets up over New England, as it often does. With the most snow falling on the north side, those that remain on the south side of the front will be milder with much less activity. Trends over the past 24 hours have pushed the system farther north, traversing northern New England. This would bring colder weather and snow across northern New England with milder and drier weather to southern New England for Wednesday.
Should the track begin a trend back southward, the colder weather and snow will be pulled farther south with it. With that said, we're still in the zone where flip-flops can still happen and operational model run snapshots can't be taken too seriously on their own yet. While moisture will be limited with this system, snow ratios will be high given the fresh Arctic air mass entering the region. With that in mind, this could be a light to moderate snowfall event somewhere in New England. It won't be a significant, nor'easter-like storm.
Below: Model roundup (Euro, GFS, CMC and GraphCast) for Wednesday:
Despite a bit of an active pattern no major storms are on the docket. This is because these systems will be coming from the northern stream, which are typically more moisture-starved and, remaining separated from southern stream systems, can struggle to produce heavy or widespread precipitation. These systems will be coming through New England due to a weak trough within the northern stream, keeping it more active. The northern and southern streams will generally remain separated, preventing larger storms from forming.
Below: Jet stream map early next week, showing the zonal southern stream and northern streams remaining separate:
The next blast of cold air will enter the picture after that cold front crosses the region late next week. Trends have been steadily heading in a colder direction for this Arctic blast. As of now, it may be on par with the Arctic blast that is currently exiting the region, though exact temperatures remain uncertain at this point.
Below: Euro showing temperature departure from average late next week:
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