A brief, but sharp surge of warmth will be arriving in New England today as warm air advection ramps up amid a southerly flow. Clouds will likely begin to break up in the afternoon, which will only help temperatures rise. Highs will be in the low 40s north to low 50s south.
Another surge of warm air advection will come on Saturday as the region gets into the warm sector of a system passing to New England's north. There is a chance for daily record highs to fall on Saturday as temperatures surge into the mid 40s north to mid 50s south. Some areas of southern New England may make a run at 60°.
Just how warm Saturday afternoon can get will likely come down to cloud cover. Clouds will try to break up in the afternoon to allow for peaks of sun. How much sun is able to poke through will play a big role in temperatures. At this point, cloud cover may win out, limiting the chance for 60s to isolated areas. Even with this cooler scenario, highs should still push well into the 50s for southern and central New England.
Heading into Sunday, that cold front on the graphic above will be dragged across New England. This front is weak and may produce another round of scattered showers as it passes Saturday night into early Sunday morning. Being weak, this front will not result in a sharp temperature decline, but it will be cooler on Sunday. Highs will top out in the 40s for most.
Another item to keep an eye on this weekend is the astronomically high tides. Minor coastal flooding will be possible during the weekend high tides with the Sunday morning tide looking the highest. Any coastal flooding that does develop will likely remain very minor.
Tide observations and forecasts for Portland, ME and Scituate, MA:
On Monday, a secondary cold front will likely begin to drop through New England. This will allow colder air to begin to filter into New England. This will be a gradual process and highs on Monday will likely be similar to Sunday, though a couple degrees cooler. This colder air will try to set the stage for an incoming storm Monday night. A big question will be the exact timing of the colder air. We wish we could say confidence with this system has increased from yesterday's article, but that's just not the case, yet.
Weather map for Monday morning showing the cold front coming into New England as the storm system approaches:
The trends on the Tuesday storm have been shifting south with a less amplified system and less phasing between the northern and southern stream energy pieces. This would lead to a less impactful storm for much of New England. As of now, the further south you are in New England, the more likely you are to get into steadier precipitation.
This season, models have shown storms passing well to the south of New England before trending back northward as the event gets closer and being a few days out still, shifts in guidance will continue to be likely. We wouldn't be surprised at all if the storm did trend further north in the coming days. We just need to keep watching. The track will be very important as there may be a rather sharp northern cutoff in precipitation.
A more southerly trend in the track does support a colder storm with more frozen precipitation rather than wet precipitation, especially for southern New England. Still, temperatures will likely be marginal, so we'll need to watch to see just how much snow can fall. Several inches will be possible, but where and exactly how much remains in the air. Overall, more is currently pointing to this not being a major event for much of New England.
With tides still astronomically high heading into early next week, we'll need to keep a close eye on the potential for coastal flooding. With considerable uncertainty in both the track and timing, it's impossible to pinpoint a threat level at this time, but there is potential for flooding and beach erosion.
This is especially true considering New England's coast has taken a beating already this winter. Depending on just how much coastal flooding is able to develop, this could be the biggest impact.
Euro, CMC, GFS and ICON models for Tuesday morning. You can see just a bit of a spread remains:
Overall, there remains quite a bit of uncertainty on just how all of this plays out. The good news is that we're approaching the time frame where models should start coming together. More details on impacts will likely begin to come together in 24 hours (i.e. by Saturday morning).
What's much more certain (and has been rather certain for a while now) is that New England is in for colder times next week, with 20s north and 30s south for highs through the week after Monday. There may also be a brisk breeze for much of the week, resulting in wind chills knocking feels-like temperatures down a bit further.
This chill may have some staying power, with below average temperatures favored for the rest of February. This has been expected as pretty much all long-term signals have been pointing toward a colder second half of February versus the more mild start.
