It is not warm. It’ll likely snow this weekend.

That’s all we need to know, right? My job would be a lot easier if it were…

The cold air has made a triumphant return today and with it comes a biting breeze out of the north & northeast. Temperatures have dropping into the 30s and that’s where they’ll stay for the daylight hours. With a mixed bag of sun & clouds, the breeze out of the north will continue to gust over 25 mph occasionally, so it’ll feel like the 20s all day. Lovely.

The breeze backs off tonight as skies clear out, but since the cold air has sunk into place, temperatures will drop into the 20s by dawn tomorrow. More sun is expected on what will be a calmer day as things remain on the cold side. Highs will hold in the mid 30s.

Then as we go into the weekend … is when this all gets fun. A coastal low is taking shape and with it will come our next round of rain and snow.

Look for rain showers to move in from the south by Friday night. Afternoon temperatures on Friday should climb into the 40s! But there will be cold air nearby to the north, so by the late night hours and into Saturday morning, that rain flips over to snow. Snow likely takes us through Saturday morning, with the possibility it lingers into the early afternoon hours.

The wind out of the northeast with this system will get cranked, so we’ll have to keep an eye on the high tide Saturday morning, around 6 a.m., there could be a few areas of tidal flooding.

As for the snow, accumulations are likely with this next round – but as for how much is still uncertain. We know the northeast will get slammed, potentially a blockbuster of a storm. For us? Maybe more of something we can handle.

It’s still way too early for specifics, but as of now we can say there’s a solid chance we’ll deal with a few inches of snow, and even a decent shot at seeing several inches.

Questions arise with the timing of this system and where the rain/snow line sets up. A faster paced system would bring less snowfall, whereas a slowly moving storm would dump more snow. If the rain snow line is farther north on Friday evening, that means more rain than snow. If the rain snow line is farther south Friday evening, that means more snow.

Long story short – it’s still a bit early to nail down exact specifics, but things are in much better agreement and alignment at this point in the forecast compared to last week. So expect snow by the time we wake up Saturday morning!

As always, this is a fluid situation succumb to changes to keep checking the forecast for updates in the next few days!

Good news (similar to last week) with this round is the timing. Most precipitation doesn’t move in until the end of the day Friday, and it starts as rain, so we don’t see any big issues on the roads for the rest of the workweek.

Still plenty of time to watch and prepare!

Meteorologist Steve Fundaro