It's a mostly rain event Friday and more very mild air is poised to invade New England between March 19-21

The non-wintry outlook remains in place through the middle of March. Temperatures are a bit closer to seasonable levels as of Wednesday, March 11 and should stay that way over the next week or so. As I suspected however, the late week weather system appears to be mostly rain. The wet weather will arrive early Friday (just before dawn) and it follows a mostly cloudy day Thursday. The rain could be mixed with a few wet snowflakes on the mountain but temperatures should hold steady in the mid to high 30's. We can expect a bit less than a half inch of rainfall overall and it should end rather abruptly late in the ski day.

We have a bit of modified arctic air that will work its way into northern New England in the wake of Friday's rain. It will be a bit blustery Saturday but temperatures will remain very March-like with readings in the 30's on the mountain during the day and falling off into the 20's Saturday evening. Sunday and Monday will be two of the more winter-like days on the mountain with temperatures staying mostly below freezing during the day and falling well into the teens during the night. Fortunately the Saturday through Monday period will feature healthy doses of sunshine and Sunday and Monday will should see relatively calm winds.


Before temperatures modify during the middle of the week, we actually could see a bit of snowfall, quite possibly even the biggest snowfall of the month (which isn't saying much in this pattern). The warm-up late in the week however appears intense and is likely to feature another multiple day stretch of 50-plus temperatures (perhaps even warmer) and some additional rainfall.

The large ridge positioned over the Gulf of Alaska which has been generally driving the early melt-off is expected to migrate toward the Bering Sea by around the time of the Spring Equinox. Though it won't put the focus of cold on New England it will result in more cold weather in North America as a whole with some of this reaching Vermont. The snow potential is likely to remain low through the weekend of March 21st and 22nd but some is certainly possible in the week that follows.