More snow in the forecast this weekend?

Snow-covered shovels may soon serve as white flags being waved in the air as a weekend snowstorm is projected to pile on a weather-weary and snow-covered region in northern Rhode Island.

Bill Simpson, a spokesperson with the National Weather Service, said on Friday afternoon that while it is very early in the forecasting stages, there is a “safe bet” for at least two to four inches of snow coming this evening into Sunday morning.

“It’s probably a plowable event but it’s a bit early,” Simpson said.

It’s so early, in fact, that the storm on Friday afternoon didn’t even exist yet, but Simpson was relying on computer models that were outlining when and where the flakes will start to fall. Simpson also cautioned that while it is getting late in the winter season – the first day of spring is Monday – and he doesn’t want to “overhype” the weekend weather, people are “getting sick of snow.”

This most recent late-season sucker punch from Old Man Winter follows a blast of icy weather on Tuesday that brought nearly a foot of wet, heavy snow and blustery winds that gusted to 40 miles per hour to the Blackstone Valley. While two to four inches of snow may not seem like much in the grand scheme of winter, it adds to knee-deep mounds of snow that have since hardened and frozen on street corners and sidewalks.

Luckily for weather-weary residents of northern Rhode Island, this weekend’s storm appears to have its bulls-eye trained on coastal areas in southeastern New England, Cape

Cod, and the islands. However, that won’t prevent wind gusts potentially to 40 miles per hour from impacting the region overnight into Sunday.

The first flakes will start to fall in the valley as early as sunset tonight, initially as light snow, but the moderate to heavy stuff will begin to make an impact during the overnight hours into early Sunday morning, Simpson said. Most of the accumulation will occur in a 12-hour window from this evening into Sunday.

The storm will begin to wind down in Rhode Island around the late morning or early afternoon Sunday, leaving behind about two to four inches in areas north of Providence, with the likelihood of four inches or more south of the capital city.

Some abbreviated relief is in sight, though, for residents who have spent most of the month tucked in heavy coats, as temperatures are expected to begin to warm into the upper40s on Monday and lower-50s on Tuesday. While this may feel like beach weather after the slog of wintry temperatures we’ve had recently, it is about average for mid-March.

Then, unfortunately, the region will be entering a cold snap, as temperatures are expected to drop beginning on Wednesday and Thursday when the potential exists for recordbreaking cold with overnight lows in the midteens. Follow Jonathan Bissonnette on Twitter @J_Bissonnette

Photo by Joseph B. Nadeau A plow truck rolls lowly past Depot Square on Tuesday during a harsh winter storm. Forecasters say winter will deliver another blast of arctic precipitation today and Sunday morning.

Photo by Ernest A. Brown Mark Perreault, of Woonsocket, has his hands full as he digs his apartment building out from huge mounds of ice and snow on Willow Street in the city Wednesday morning. After Tuesday's heavy snow turned to rain and froze overnight, ice was a huge...