Weekend Snow Chances Diminishing

A quick update on the prospects for any weekend snow...

Since the last post here, computer guidance divided into two distinct camps with regard to any weekend snow fall. The NAM/GFS were merging towards a similar scenario - one that would track a low pressure center off the North Carolina coast and just close enough to the region to deliver a 2 to 5 inch snowfall to the Cape Saturday night. Meanwhile, the CMC/UKMET/ECMWF were trending further offshore with the storm center and only grazing the region with some clouds and perhaps some very light flurries.

Well the most recent runs of the NAM and GFS have jumped onto the further offshore idea posed by the international model guidance. The 500 mb flow is not expected to buckle enough to capture the offshore storm and allow it to travel close enough to the region to bring much if any precipitation into the area. Instead it looks as though the storm will travel more east than north as it follows the less amplified jet stream alignment.

So, in terms of sensible weather, look for clouds to increase during the day on Saturday and some flurries or a few periods of very light snow to try and work onto the Cape for a couple of hours Saturday night. Unless something dramatic changes, this doesn't look like a big deal at this time and its not out of the question that flurries only make it as far north as Nantucket. The NAM model does have a very brief window of time when winds turn northerly between the surface and 850 mb late Saturday night, which could be enough to spark a few ocean effect flurries, but that would be minimal if it were to occur at all.

Colder air still looks to work into the region during the day on Sunday and hold firm into Monday. Thankfully, the ferocity of the cold is slightly less in today's charts, so I was able to tack on a few degrees to Monday's temperatures.

A small disturbance in the jet stream will try and send milder air northward on Tuesday, this will be our next chance of precipitation when some light snow breaks out across the region.