I love numbers and there are a lot of them being thrown around right now. Some of these numbers are about snow already on the ground, others are about what’s coming. Let’s look at them both. I want to start up to Maine where the snowfall numbers are quite impressive.

Eastport Maine Sets Record For State
Since January 24th this far eastern spot on the coast has gotten 76 inches of snow, more than Portland would the entire winter! This new record is about double previous records for the area, putting an exclamation point on the unusualness of this period. Bangor received a much less total of 44.5 inches during the same period, but still record breaking.

In Portland 38.5 inches of snow fell in the 7 day period ending on Monday. This breaks the old record set in January 1979. I can clearly remember that month. I watched a planter outside my house disappear under all that snow.

Further south, the numbers are equally as impressive. In Boston the 40.2 inches of snow that fell from January 27th until Monday broke the old record by 9 inches that was set during the incredible 100 plus inches of snow winter in 1996. In Worcester there has been 72.6 inches of snow so far this season and that is almost exactly double what average is for early February.

With all that snow in the record books we turn our attention to what’s next. Tomorrow brings some accumulating snow to the area, but it’s not a big storm. Here’s the set-up for the snow.

We have a mass of arctic air pushing south towards southern New England. Ironically, it’s this cold dense air which likely will prevent us from seeing a big snow event Thursday. As this arctic air moves south, it will bring a period of light snow. This is the light to moderate snowfall will come from tomorrow.

While this is happening, another area of moisture will be moving north from the southern states. This area of precipitation much more intense and if it linked up with the cold air we’d be looking at another major snowstorm. Meteorologists call this linkage phasing and I don’t see these two storm phasing. The lack of phasing is the reason the snow totals are low.

You might wonder if these systems could still link up. The answer is they will, but it should happen too far in the ocean to bring any snow back to Maine.

I expect snow to fall from about 11PM tonight into the morning commute Thursday. The snow will end by 9AM.

Cold
The cold air will be what you notice on Friday. It will be close to the coldest morning of the season which was back in early January when it went into the double digits below zero in many locations. Back then I mentioned that day could very well be the coldest morning of the winter.

After the arctic-like start to the morning temperatures will rise into the mid-teens during the afternoon. It will be a day similar to yesterday. If you get out in the sunshine and out of any wind, it won’t feel that badly.

The long range models have been showing the chance of even colder air arriving here around Valentine’s Day. If these models are correct, then it’s more below zero air for President’s Day Weekend.

Snow
Sometimes boundaries between air masses get stuck and when this happens areas of precipitation like to ride along the contrast. This is exactly what is going to occur later this weekend and the first couple of days of the workweek. As these impulses move along the boundary they will help create areas of snow. This means snow will be in the forecast for 3 days in a row.

These set-ups usually don’t lead to one big storm, rather you end up getting a few inches each day and then when you look back at what occurred over an 84 hour period, there was a lot more snow. Since the boundary will be south of New England, Maine may be far enough north to avoid a lot of accumulation during this period, but each impulse will bring a forecast challenge so keep checking back here for the latest.