10-12 days of relative cold begins and chances for decent weekend snow remains but storm looks less robust

Hope everyone survived the ferocity of the wind this past Monday. There were reports that the wind exceeded 100 mph at the summit of Mansfield and 150 mph at Mt Washington. Colder temperatures now engulf the region thanks to those winds and this begins a 10-12 day stretch of relative chill that will cover a widespread area of North America through the first week in March. It's a simple question for us of how much snow can we squeeze out of this period of colder weather before a turn back to more milder conditions, which is still expected between March 8-10, give or take a few days. Though we have a nice ridge covering much of Alaska providing the fuel for this cold, we do not have the downstream blocking in the jet stream which can sometimes encourage the fun east coast fireworks we saw through the month of March last year. Still, we will have a few chances.

The first opportunity comes from a decaying area of low pressure which will progress quickly east from Illinois and position itself south of Long Island Wednesday night. Mad River Glen is on the northern edge of the moisture with this storm and will likely score 1-3 inches before first tracks Thursday. We haven't said this too much this year but the higher snow amounts are more likely over southern VT where 5-6 inches is possible if all goes well  (though even that is a bit optimistic). After a very chilly Wednesday morning (-10 in a few spots), readings will climb into the teens under the advancing clouds. Sunshine returns Thursday afternoon which will boost readings up into the lower 20's and more sunshine will greet us on the first day of March which will help push readings toward the 30-degree mark.

I continue to think our best shot at significant snow comes over the weekend but model simulations have had a difficult time pinning this storm down. A few days ago, this appeared to be a very mature system, potentially too mature with both snow and some alternative precipitation types. More recent data suggests that this system will have more trouble infusing some of the jet energy responsible for amplifying the pattern. This where the lack of downstream blocking in the jet stream, alluded to above, might become a problem. The area of low pressure will advance out of the Rockies late on Friday but will need a bit of  nutritional supplementation to become a greater version of itself. There is still room for this to happen but less room along the Atlantic Coast and less time since the storms energy is expected to clear much of New England by midday Sunday. I remain of the opinion that a half decent event is a good possibility with some snow late in the day Saturday into Saturday night resulting in some skiable powder Sunday, but the situation continues to evolve and is likely to do so in either direction so stay tuned.

Snow or no, temperatures over the weekend will be relatively seasonable during the day, not far from the freezing mark, and will turn sharply colder early next week. There is another weather system worth watching early next week, specifically Monday but the storm track will have shifted south by this point so it will be a tough ask. Smaller snow amounts from weaker weather disturbances are also possible during the middle of the week as the chilly temperatures remain in place.

A fully positive Arctic Oscillation, an increasingly energetic Pacific Jet and the demise of the ridge over Alaska all point toward a big temperature moderation by March 10. There remains some uncertainty in regards to the speed of this pattern switch and whether that will quickly throw us into spring skiing mode by the weekend of March 9th/10th or whether a "caboose" weather system can bring some snow and allow more wintry temperatures to persist until March 11. Both outcomes are still possible but the mid-March period continues to look very different than both 2017 and 18.