Still waiting for next week to get sorted out but I have yet to have any good news to report

Portions of southeastern New England will see more significant snow from what appears to be a "Norlun Trough" Friday. Admittedly I am not too familiar with the term but NWS employee friends have clued me in on the lingo and Matt Noyes has a very good explanation of the phenomena on his website (www.mattnoyes.net). The coastal system continues to churn off shore and away from the region. We were never expected to get much from this and it proved for the most part to be a big tease and nothing more. Telefest however should consist of some excellent weather. Both Saturday and Sunday should feature above-freezing daytime temperatures and both days will be dry with great visibility. Saturday should be the sunnier of the two days.

The weather situation I was more enthused about was the storm or series of storms next week in the Monday to Wednesday time frame.  The right ingredients seem to be on the table for "something" being that we have an energized southern branch of the jet stream, some incoming cold air by late Tuesday or Wednesday and a block in the upper air pattern to our north. Ensembles have been keying in on this time frame, particularly the European Ensembles, for some time. In the last update I had indicated the lack of hard evidence to support any big snowfall in spite of all the hype I had injected into the prognostication. As of now this continues to be the case. We have yet to see indications of a critical phase between at least a piece of the southern branch energy and any incoming cold. Warm air is in fact  indicated to envelop much of interior New England by early next week, enough to allow for an initial period of rain Monday. Thereafter, much of the energy in the southern branch will move to the coast as the northern branch of the jet begins to usher in colder temperatures to the Great Lakes and New England. How the two impulses interact with one another depends on timing and models continue to struggle to sort it out. The initial period of rain Monday could simply be followed by colder temperatures later Tuesday into Wednesday along with a few inconsequential snow showers. Or, the initial period of rain Monday could be followed by an additional period of rain Tuesday or Tuesday night. Or, the initial period of rain Monday could be followed by some significant snowfall in the middle part of the week. I don't want to completely kill that possibility yet though models seem to have declared it dead if your keeping score at home.

That end of next week through St Patrick's day weekend should consist of normal or below normal temperatures. Although the southern branch appears dormant again after the early part of next week, there are indications of clipper systems and at least some limited amounts of new snow from that. The blocking that is anchoring the pattern is expected to continue through the next 10 days and then weaken. As of now however, there are still no indications of a major March thaw though I would expect the chances will increase (not a bold prediction) after March 20th.