2 storms in 4 days and the 2nd is starting to look tasty

There are two storms to discuss in this update and we don't even need to take a trip to some fantasy island or log into to Twitter (joke) to do it. Though temperatures finished the week on the mild side, it will not be mild enough when it counts. Not for the next 5 days anyway.

Temperatures will be within a few degrees of 30 Saturday morning and snow should begin during the mid morning hours. Only slightly later than lift opening time. The storm responsible is more of the garden variety-type; intensifying as it interacts with the southern New England coastline but never achieving classic nor'easter strength before quickly exiting the region Sunday morning. Still, we are finally getting a more optimal track from this sucker and should thus get some decent snowfall rates for a few hours during the ski day Saturday. I am going to stick with the early 4-8 inch thinking on this for now, but this is certainly enough to produce some awesome skiing late in the day Saturday and again on Sunday even with the snow being long gone. Temperatures should fall back into the 20's by late in the day Saturday and readings will generally be in the low 20's Saturday night into Sunday.

Some more innocuous warm advection type snow is then expected to impact much of the state Monday as our promising looking mid-week snow-event begins to take shape in east Texas. This next storm has a lot of upside since it involves the merging of some Pacific and southern stream jet energy. But since a more epic storm requires a "phasing" in the jet stream, it would be wise to temper expectations.  Jet steam phasing is a sensitive topic. Lots can go right and lots can certainly go wrong, even in the late innings. With that disclaimer written, I am a bit more optimistic as of Friday afternoon. The European model has given us a bit of run-to run consistency and has some support from the Canadian simulation. The timing on such an event is late Tuesday into Wednesday and the downside on such an event is not a shut-out but rather just a few inches so plan accordingly. Without a doubt however, this storm has the potential to be the best of the season.

All this will be quite fun while it lasts but milder temperatures will begin encroaching on the region following a blustery but seasonable Thursday. Readings are likely to approach the freezing mark Friday afternoon and eclipse it for a time on Saturday. There are 1-2 trouble spots being indicated in the period from January 12-19 and this stems from what is a fundamentally adverse winter weather pattern that has been discussed for several updates. There is little doubt we will playing some defense and be dealing with some above-freezing temperatures and this might even continue beyond the 19th. Though it looks bad however, the mild air appears to be concentrated over the south-central, southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. while colder air is indicated to push-back somewhat in the Great Lakes and interior northeast. We won't win all the games in such a set up but at least we may stay in most of the games and avoid a miserable full-scale torch such as what we received throughout 2015-2016 and in late February 2017.