“Kitchen sinken” Storm on Thursday brings rain, snow and ice to Massachusetts

Boston – Two of two earth dogs agree, winter is not over. Both Punxsutawney Phil and our local Groundhog Ms. G predicted six weeks more in winter on Sunday. Looking at the storm of storms that were potentially on the way; I have to awkwardly agree with them.

The Month in February becomes very different from the previous two winter months. It won’t be that cold, so there is … but it looks very active with several messy storms in the next 1-2 weeks.

Storm began to arrive on Thursday

For the time being, we focus on storm # 1 to arrive in New England on Thursday.

WBZ WEATHER TEAM has released a next weather alarm for what seems to be a “kitchen sink” type on Thursday. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “anything but the kitchen sink” … Yes, our area will probably see all types of rainfall with this next storm.

Believe it or not, the storm is still thousands of miles away, well away from the west coast.

Over the next 72 hours it wanders across the country, leaving different amounts of rain, snow and ice.

As for influences here in New England, we will work on the finer details over the next 24 hours.

Quick moving storm

Right now we know a few things for sure.

-It will be a quick mover, in and out of here in about 6-8 hours (about 10A-5P Thursday).

-We also know that this will not be a big storm for our area … no wind or coastal problems and snow amounts will be on the lighter side.

In the end, this one comes down to finding out what types of rainfall fall and how long.

What type of rainfall?

It will be cold enough at the start of some snow falling in most of our area, except perhaps extreme southeastern massachusetts.

Warmer air moves for thousands of meters above the ground during the day Thursday, which will change the snow to ice and eventually rain.

The difficult part right now is the timing of the arrival of the milder air … How much snow/ice can fall before it arrives?

This answer comes with more data in the next 24-36 hours.

Beat vs. freezing rain

A reminder that gossip is the little ice pellets that ping out of everything. Freezing rain is rainfall that falls like water and freezes by contact with the soil, a much more dangerous event. The change to “ice” on Thursday will largely be in the form of gossip and not freeze rain.

As is typical, areas longer north and west will be a little colder and therefore more likely to hang on the ice a little longer.

A bunch of slop

As for snow amounts, you can expect the forecast card to come out on Tuesday.

It is safe to say that there will not be much snow with this one. For most people, this will be a bunch of slop. An inch or two of snow, topped by some icy pellets, turned to fungus by rain.

Looking for good news? Temperatures become milder over time Thursday and do not fall immediately after the storm. It will certainly help clean up the effort and make roads a little less dangerous Thursday night.