Welcome to astronomical winter! Almost. Our winter solstice at 10:27p.m. Thursday marks the Northern Hemisphere's greatest tilt away from the sun, making Thursday the shortest day length of the year, with Friday only about a second more, but the start of our day lengthening trend.
Abundant sunshine regionwide across New England comes courtesy of dry air, pushing in on a northerly wind and moving out of Quebec, where a high-pressure dome is centered this Thursday morning.
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That high-pressure cell is loaded with cold, polar air holding high temperatures across New England in the 30s at best Thursday afternoon with the northerly wind at 10 to 20 miles per hour, creating a wind chill factor in the teens to 20s.
Of course, this means the cold nights continue to be a burden for those who are still waiting for power to be restored after our early week storm.
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Low temperatures Thursday night will drop into the teens across most of New England with lows around zero in the far North Country. Friday is just as cold, but continued sunny, and the big change is the wind will be far lighter. In fact, at times Friday, the wind will be nearly calm, so while the thermometer may produce a similar reading to Thursday, the body will feel about 5 to 8 degrees warmer without the wind as a factor.
As milder air returns for the weekend ahead of an approaching but weakening storm center moving east out of the Great Lakes, temperatures rise above 40 degrees on Saturday, but clouds fill the sky. Enough dry air will remain in New England to avoid any raindrops or snowflakes during the day Saturday, but Saturday night a few rain and snow showers are expected to break out.
As milder air continues to move in on Sunday, clouds will continue to outweigh sunshine and isolated rain showers are in the forecast for southern New England. Likely to depart by the evening for Christmas Eve travel and unlikely to be impactful either way.
Weather Stories
This opens the door to mild and fair conditions for Christmas day, to the tune of 45 to 50 degrees, with a fair sky. As mild air continues to take root in New England, the next storm slated for midweek next week — Tuesday night into Thursday morning — is expected to produce mild rain for nearly all of New England.
At this point, that storm does not look nearly as powerful as the one we were dealt earlier this week, but if rain total forecasts increase, the storm could become an aggravating factor for spots of renewed flooding.
Our First Alert Team will keep you posted.
