Looks like we swing and miss on both storms over the next few days I am sorry to say

Weekend storm comes close, very close, but this area of low pressure will pass east of Cape Cod and move northeast from there. Parts of eastern Mass, southeastern New Hampshire and eastern Maine will see some good snow very late Saturday and into Sunday but we needed this storm to track 100 miles further west for a significant dump. A shift in the "11th hour" is not impossible but not likely given what the consensus of data is indicating. Temperatures will sneak up to within a few degrees of the freezing mark on Saturday making it one of the milder days of the month so far and perhaps the last chance to eclipse the freezing mark until well into February. The milder temperatures, albeit the brief appearance, will come in advance of a clipper system that arrives late Saturday into Sunday bringing much colder air with it. I had hoped the clipper would bring some replenishment with it, but coastal system will steal some of its thunder and prevent that from happening. Still, we could see some snow showers and an inch or two Sunday if we are lucky. Temperatures Sunday will remain in the teens and plummet in to the single numbers during the evening.

The second of the two potential coastal storms will get squashed by the weight of the polar jet early next week. It was just a timing issue in this case. If Monday's system could have arrived a bit quicker, we might have had a phasing and a nice accumulation up this way but the snow will fall across southern New England in this set up while bitterly cold, dry and unmodified arctic air dominates the region in its stead. Temperatures will be sub-zero Monday morning and struggle to reach 10 during the afternoon. Tuesday will be a repeat of Monday.

The polar jet will be a persistent force throughout the upcoming period through the early days of February before receding around the time of February 4th. It will be tough to get an organized storm system from the southern branch of the Jet but we can continue to see clippers and we should see one in the later part of next week. This will mark the advance of another reinforcing blast of cold and hopefully some snow will accompany the advance of this chill. There are indications of some extreme temperatures in the time frame between January 31 and February 3rd. We could see a clipper or a disturbance bring some light snow but unless we see some fundamental chances in this pattern, much of the big precipitation will likely fall to our south. This is typical for January around here and honestly I am happy to get through the month without a major thaw.

The upcoming cold is being driven by the persistent ridge across western North America which is expected to strengthen briefly late next week before retrograding into and evolving into a high latitude block across the Bering Sea. The jet stream in the Pacific is expected to remain loose however and this means arctic air should remain on the playing field. Can't complain about a pattern that continues to support some cold and not one dominated by the "evil empire" but it's unfortunate about the two misses and what looks to be a drier forecast in the days that follow. Hopefully something intriguing shows up on the ever-changing weather map sooner than later.