Thursday Snow Showers

A bit of a tough forecast for Thursday across the state. Spread between our computer models has opened up for tomorrow. A weak upper level system is going to swing through New England and produce a period of "lift" in the atmosphere. That would argue for a period of precipitation but it's never that simple.

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The question is will there be enough moisture for a period of moderate rain and snow across the state during the morning or will there be too much dry air? Our models offer up two different depictions. 

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Here's the NAM's depiction of how the atmosphere will look at 7 a.m. Thursday. Notice where the green line juts to the left several thousand feet above our heads? This is very dry air and would lead to a quick and painless death for snowflakes falling from the clouds. The RGEM, on the other hand, moistens that layer up quickly and brings in a burst of precipitation between 7 a.m. and noon - nearly 0.2" of liquid. 

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So which is right? While the RGEM and our in-house RPM models would argue for some minor accumulation in the hills (around an inch) this is likely overdone. The GFS and the European models both agree on a drier scenario along with all but 1 of the 20 member Short Range Ensemble. Given marginal temperatures and marginal precipitation rates we're going with little or no accumulation tomorrow. Speaking of which... here's the forecast:

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