Winter Storm Watches Posted

A winter storm watch was issued by the National Weather Service in Taunton for Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, Worcester, Middlesex, and Essex county from Saturday Afternoon-Sunday Afternoon.

NWS Boston Advisories 

All systems are go for a moderate to major storm.  Again we will not see the Blizzard of 2013 again but this time around Southern New England is in for heavy wet snow which will take down trees and power lines.  First lets talk about today's weather.

Current Conditions

HPC surface analysis 529 AM EST

High pressure still in control in Ontario, a major snowstorm is cutting towards the Great Lakes and also occluding, and a front/low pressure loaded with precipitation is working through the Southeast.

HPC 24 hour precip totals

The transfer from the upper level low to the coast will begin tomorrow morning but before that we will have a calm relatively mild Friday.

06 NAM 2 m T Friday 4 PM EST (image weatherbell)

Most will rise into the upper 30's and some lucky ones will get into the low 40's.  

Storm Update

Rumor has it that the TV stations are all over the place with snowfall totals (I honestly do not look until the evening news, missed it last night).  That makes sense as the rain/snow line is a nightmare to forecast.  Also some models are indicating more precipitation than others.  I am splitting the difference in essence and going with the HPC QPF

3 day precip totals HPC thru Monday 7 am

This puts most of Southeastern New England greater than 1 inch of liquid precip.  My take is that some models (including EURO OP) are overwarming the surface.  At the 850 mb level it will be cold enough to support all snow from the CT/RI/MA border on north.  There is no classic high pressure to the north (like we saw in the blizzard) but these systems can create there own cold air when the precipitation is heavy.  

The snow/rain begins to fly around 4 or 5 tomorrow afternoon.  It will last into Sunday afternoon but the heaviest will be overnight Saturday into Sunday morning.  Snowfall totals...

My forecast

You can probably chop some of the 4-8 off Northern Maine- the 12+ is going to be tricky.  I will refine tomorrow morning.  I think Boston comes in over 6 inches, but under the 9.4 needed to set the February record.  Lets also keep in mind yesterday's North American Meso Model runs at 12/00z- they advertised much more snow with a stronger system.