Current Observations

Light snow is falling across most of southern and central New Hampshire and Maine this morning in association with an ocean storm that trended closer to the coast than originally forecast. Based on Google Traffic maps, the roads are in horrible shape -- be careful out there, especially south of the North Country into southern New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. The traffic cameras provided by the NH DOT hosted at Plymouth State University also show snow-covered roads and slushy roads across much of the state (with the exception of Littleton, NH). 

It will be tricky getting up into the mountains today as a band of moderate snow is setting up across central New Hampshire that extends from southwest New Hampshire, through the Lakes Region, and into central Maine that will be capable of putting down 1-2" of snow. Locally higher snowfall totals are possible in the southern portion of the eastern White Mountains and into western Maine. The skiing and boarding today should end up fairly decent with 1-2" of new snow on the ground going into a cold weekend.

The radar image below is from the National Weather Service at Gray, Maine and illustrates a band of moderate snow across the region:

 

Weekend Forecast:

The Alberta Clipper system that we have been watching for this weekend has also been impacted by the rather sudden volatility of the weather models. The trend was our friend with the latest storm (and surprise snows Friday morning), but is not our friend for Sunday's clipper. The clipper is expected to skirt farther north of New England on Sunday. The 54-hour NCEP GFS computer model forecast valid at 7 AM on Sunday morning is shown below courtesy Levi Cowan at TropicalTidbits.com:

Widespread snows of 1-3" are unlikely now across the region. Localized regions of 1-2" of snow are now more likely, with the best chances of snow at more northern locals such as Jay in Vermont, Bretton and Wildcat in New Hampshire, and the Sunday River, Sugarloaf, and Saddleback trio in Maine. The forecast is subject to change -- just like the forecast today unexpectedly changed with short notice. 

The "NDFD" National Weather Service forecast is shown below. Notice that the big winners from Friday storm will be across Eastern Massachusetts where places like Wachusett and Blue Hills (not shown) will end up with 6-8" of new snow. Outside of those hilly downhill ski locations across southern New England, you might enjoy cross country skiing at some of the flatter spots. 

Long-Range Forecast

Nothing like more bad news to start your Friday going into the weekend. The computer model guidance for next week has decided to throw us some disappointing solutions to snows on Tuesday. The forecasts that we've been watching initially had a system heading east off the Great Lakes merging with a coastal low (a.k.a. phasing) to produce a Nor'Easter capable of putting down 6"+ snows in New England. Latest multi-model (GFS/ECMWF) guidance has the coastal low heading farther out to sea with phasing unlikely over New England. As a result we end up light snow possible in association with the system heading east off the Great Lakes and across New England in mainly Northwesterly flow. This set up will be conducive to upslope orographic snows at more northerly ski resorts (e.g., your Jay's, Brettons, Wildcats, etc) and cloudy, cold conditions across much of the North Country Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday. Some of the longer-term guidance suggests more snow later in the week, but I'm hesitant to make any forecasts more than a few days in advance given how uncertain many of the details in the forecast have been as of late. 

I wish I had better news to leave you with on this snowy Friday morning. I'll update the forecast later today with the latest model guidance if it shows any significant changes for Sunday or Tuesday-Wednesday's snow. Expect an update again on Saturday morning for the weekend; there is no scheduled forecast discussion for Sunday. On Monday we will start to have some students from the Plymouth State Meteorology program helping with these forecasts. The goal is to continue to bring you quality forecast discussions on a daily basis -- but there may be some growing pains as I get the students into the swing of things.

Enjoy the snow while it's here! 

Jay Cordeira - Plymouth State University/New England Daily Snow