Thursday: Cold and sunny, a bit breezy. Highs around 30 degrees, wind chill in the 20s.
Thursday Night: Clear and cold. Lows around 10, below zero north.
Friday: Mostly sunny, except a chance of Cape Cod flurries. Highs around 30 degrees.
New England has entered a stretch of quiet and dry weather for several days, though the temperature will feature a pretty big swing from week’s end to weekend.
All of the weather New England – and the entire northern tier of the United States – will see in the coming days comes as a product of a huge area of high pressure, or fair weather, migrating east-southeast from Canada to the northern United States.
South of this large dome of dry and cold air, a storm system loaded with Pacific and Gulf of Mexico moisture is soaking some of the Southeast and snowing on others, causing air travel delays and traffic trouble from Dallas and Houston to Nashville and Memphis to Raleigh and Charlotte.
Caltrans via AP
Cars and trucks are seen stopped traffic on Interstate 5 near Dunsmuir, California, in this photo taken Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2019, provided by Caltrans. A "bomb cyclone," which triggers a rapid drop in air pressure, brought snow to the mountains and wind and rain along the California and Oregon coasts. Drivers on Interstate 5 near the Oregon-California border spent 17 hours or more in stopped traffic as blizzard conditions whirled outside. Some slept in their vehicles.
Jeffrey McWhorter/AP
Matt Younger, right, a pastor at Northway Church, embraces facilities associate Robert Lusk in their church's severely damaged sanctuary on Oct. 20, 2019, after a tornado tore through North Dallas. The twister knocked out power for tens of thousands of customers and destroyed buildings in North Texas, including the front of Floors Masters building that collapsed.
Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images
A man walks through the flooded feeder roads off of highway 69 North on Sept. 19, 2019, in Houston, Texas. Imelda dumped over 40 inches of rain in southeast Texas over the week.
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department via AP
A family is rescued via fan boat by a member of the Texas Parks & Wildlife department from the flood waters of Tropical Depression Imelda near Beaumont, Texas, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019.
Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images
Cars pull to the side of the freeway of highway 69 North to get by the flood waters on Sept. 19, 2019, in Houston, Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott has declared much of Southeast Texas disaster areas after heavy rain and flooding from the remnants of Tropical Depression Imelda dumped more than two feet of water across some areas.
Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images
A man tries to direct a school bus on the Imelda-flooded Hopper Road on Sept. 19, 2019, in Houston, Texas.
David J. Phillip/AP
Angel Marshman wades through floodwaters from Tropical Depression Imelda after trying to start his flooded car, Sept. 18, 2019, in Galveston, Texas.
Martin Meissner/AP
Nanook the polar bear dives into the water during an extreme hot summer day at the zoo in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, July 24, 2019. A second heat wave moving through Europe has cities in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and more bracing for soaring temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Geilenkirchen recorded its all-time record high at 104.9 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday, with even higher temperatures predicted for Thursday.
Getty Images
Lifeguard Luke Orot of Anchorage watches over beachgoers at Jewel Lake on July 4, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska is bracing for record warm temperatures and dry conditions in parts of the state.
Lance King/Getty Images
A welcome sign at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport shows 86 degrees weather at 3:07 pm on July 4, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska is bracing for record warm temperatures and dry conditions in parts of the state.
Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images
A policeman stands next to vehicles buried in hail in the eastern area of Guadalajara, Jalisco state, Mexico, on June 30, 2019. - The accumulation of hail in the streets of Guadalajara buried vehicles and damaged homes.
Charlie Riedel/AP
Cleanup continues at a destroyed home, May 30, 2019, after a tornado tore through the countryside near Linwood, Kansas. The National Weather Service say they received 934 tornado reports for 2019 alone, up from the annual average of 743.
John Minchillo/AP
Storm damaged homes remain on May 28, 2019, after tornadoes passed through Indiana and Ohio on Memorial Day evening in Brookville, Ohio.
Savannah Weingart/Tornado Adventures
A tornado rips through McCook, Nebraska, on May 17, 2019. A string of severe weather swept Midwest states from Nebraska to Texas, bringing along floods, hailstorms and tornadoes across the region.
Salvatore Allegra/AP
Mount Etna spews lava during an eruption on May 30, 2019. Sicily's Mount Etna has roared back into spectacular volcanic action from Thursday morning, sending up plumes of ash and spewing lava.
Saviano Abreu/United Nation OCHA via AP
Mozambique's Macomia district is badly damaged, with some houses totally collapsed, in the aftermath of Cyclone Kenneth on April 27, 2019. Approximately 160,000 people in Mozambique were at risk from Cyclone Kenneth, which swept the area six weeks after Cyclone Idai killed 600 people in central Mozambique.
Caroline Haga/IFRC via AP
Floodwater drench the port city of Beira, Mozambique, on March 18, 2019. The Red Cross says that as much as 90 percent of Mozambique's central port city of Beira has been damaged or destroyed by Cyclone Idai. Mozambique's President, Filipe Nyusi, say more than 1,000 people may be dead.
Nebraska Sen. Sasse and Gov. Ricketts
Photos shared by Nebraska Sen. Sasse and Gov. Ricketts show the devastation being left by severe flooding, which includes massive ice chunks.
AP
Canada geese battle choppy water as a late winter storm packing hurricane-force winds and snow sweeps on March 13, 2019, in Denver. A bomb cyclone slammed into the Midwest on Wednesday, cutting power lines, grounding flights and stranding motorists on the road.
Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire
A severe storm made its way over Santa Barbara, California, on Tuesday, March 5, 2019. Santa Barbara County Fire's Mike Eliason caught some of the lightning strikes over Santa Barbara as numerous thunderstorms made their way through the region.
John LocherAP
Snow accumulates on a median along the Las Vegas Strip at the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign, Feb. 21, 2019, in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is getting a rare taste of real winter weather, with significant snowfall across the metro area in the first event of its kind since record keeping started back in 1937.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
People play in the snow in Las Vegas, Feb. 21, 2019, during a rare winter snowstorm. The rare event dumped up to eight inches of snow in some parts of the city.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
A view of the roof of a home that was swept down a hill by a mudslide during a rain storm on Feb. 14, 2019, in Sausalito, California. Fifty homes in the town of Sausalito were evacuated after a mudslide struck homes and sent at least one sliding 75 yards down a hill.
Lance Endo via AP
Snow gathers at the Polipoli Spring State Recreation Area in Maui, Hawaii, Feb. 10, 2019. A strong storm that hit Hawaii knocked out power, brought down tree branches, flooded coastal roads — and even brought snow. Snow is not unheard of in mountainous parts of the tropical island chain, but officials say the coating at 6,200 feet at a state park on Maui could mark the lowest-elevation snowfall ever recorded in the state.
Brent Edwards via AP
Snow dusts black volcanic cinders at the Polipoli State Recreation area on the slopes of Haleakala near Kula on Maui, Hawaii, Feb. 11, 2019. A strong storm hitting Hawaii has knocked out power, brought down tree branches, flooded coastal roads — and even brought snow.
Kiichiro Sato/AP
Commuters wait for a train as snow falls on Jan. 28, 2019, in Chicago. "Possibly life threatening" wind chills could dip to negative 55 degrees in northern Illinois throughout the week - low temperatures not seen in the last quarter century. Cities in the northeast are seeing temperatures dip from a mid-week blast of cold Arctic air moving south. Some southern states like Mississippi and Alabama are even expected to see snow.
Courtesy Inge Groot
Extreme temperatures froze parts of the Niagara Falls at the Canada-U.S. border, as seen in this photo taken on Jan. 22, 2019.
Here at home, subtle weather changes day-to-day will come from a shifting wind. Thursday’s northwest wind will couple with an atmosphere already favorable for puffy cumulus clouds to develop to create some healthy, bubbling clouds in especially our hills and mountains, where a flurry or two are possible.
For the rest of us, these fair weather clouds may shadow the sun at times and even a light breeze will be enough to create a wind chill some 10 degrees cooler than the actual high temperatures of 30 degrees south and 20 north, but by Friday the wind shifts just enough that some ocean-effect clouds will likely drift over Cape Cod during the day, perhaps even dropping some snow flurries from time to time while the rest of us remain sunny.
The puff of ocean moisture over the Cape Friday will dissipate by day’s end, and from that point forward the weekend will feature sun and clouds as a warm front crosses from west to east Friday night and opens the door to more moderate air, bumping temperatures into the 30s and 40s Saturday, and near 50 for some by Sunday afternoon!
New England is no stranger to piles of snow being dumped onto the region each winter. Take a look at some of the worst storms to hit in modern history.
With dry weather expected, this opens the door to skiing on firm snow Thursday and Friday, softer snow Saturday and Sunday, great snowmobiling for extended rides and even puts a round of golf or a trip to the driving range on the docket when some courses are opened in snow-free parts of southern New England.
Next week starts dry on Monday with temperatures continuing to gradually rise ahead of the next storm system that finally arrives to New England from the west with mild showers by Tuesday and Wednesday.
As the storm marches from the central U.S. to the Northeast, it will carry a burst of snow behind it, and it’s possible we see rain showers end as snow showers or a burst of snow next Thursday depending upon how the storm evolves, but either way, another shot of cold and dry air is expected to start next weekend at the end of the exclusive First Alert 10-day forecast.
