NEW YEAR BRINGS RENEWED
Brace for bitter wind chills, variable snow
The next 48 hours’ biting cold will give way to a storm developing over the Atlantic that could bury the coast and eastern Massachusetts with a blanket of snow.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service expect 4 to 6 inches of snow to fall late tomorrow into Thursday night, though computer models are still unclear about exactly how much to expect.
If the storm hits just right, it could dump 10 inches on the city, according to a more aggressive snowfall model.
“The big question will be how strong and how close it will get to us,” National Weather Service meteorologist Eleanor Vallier-Talbot told the Herald. “Even if the storm stays offshore we will get some effects — snow, wind, and it just so happens we are at astronomical high tides.”
Most snow will fall over southeast Massachusetts, particularly a stretch from Plymouth to Falmouth, and Rhode Island, Vallier-Talbot said.
The storm will be sandwiched with more bitter cold.
Continuing single-digit cold this morning prompted schools in the Concord-Carlisle district, Everett, Tyngsboro, Lawrence and Peabody to delay classes by two hours.
Today’s high temperatures will reach the upper teens, and tomorrow will reach the upper 20s and remain warmer than recent temperatures for the duration of the storm.
The cold returns when the storm passes late Thursday.
Friday’s daytime high of 14 will lead to negative singledigit lows Friday night — amplified by strong 15 to 25 mph winds to put wind chills at minus 20.
Forecasters are warning that the “prolonged bitter cold” through next weekend can lead to “freeze-up ice jams” on interior New England waterways that can cause flooding. Sea ice in harbors, bays and inlets are also a possibility.