Light/moderate snowfall event Wednesday, January 16th, 2013

A weak area of low pressure sliding south and east of southern New England is expected to bring snow/sleet/freezing rain/rain to all of southern New England beginning during the early pre-dawn hours Wednesday morning.  What precipitation type or types your area receives will all determine where you are in relation to the system and we'll get into these details a little further down!

This storm system is not expected to be overly strong and produce significant snowfall amounts, however, given how the timing of the storm will be occurring during the AM rush hour this will make the morning communicate very difficult.  Expect a great deal of school delay's/closings.

Precipitation is going to begin breaking out between the hours of 2-5 AM with extreme southwestern southern New England getting into the action first and extreme northeastern southern New England getting into the action last.  It is also very possible that a few isolated pockets of precipitation occur across some locations even sooner than that.  Initially, with the exception of the immediate coastlines of CT/RI/SE MA, precipitation will begin as all snow.  Across the immediate coastline locations precipitation is expected to begin as a mix of rain/snow or perhaps even all rain.  Any snowfall across these areas should transition over to all rain rather quickly and snowfall totals should be less than a dusting and this is mainly on the grassy surfaces.  As we work through the early morning hours the rain/snow line should gradually begin working back towards the north and west as warmer air begins to work in both at the surface and in the lower levels of the troposphere.  This will line work northwest through eastern MA/RI/CT during the AM hours.  As this line works northwest we will begin to see many locations transition over to a period of sleet/freezing rain/rain and some places will eventually turn over to all rain as the system is winding down.  Areas across western/central MA and extreme northwestern CT are expected to remain all snow though a brief mix of sleet can't be ruled out.  One thing that we will have to watch out for will be a period of icing which will be possible if any locations can maintain a surface temperature in the lower 30's while temperatures aloft begin to warm.  Freezing rain is not expected to be a major issue but we could see a glaze of icing or perhaps maybe even an accumulation of around 1/10th of an inch.  This potential will be for the areas ending up right around the rain/snow line and will be highlighted with the map below.  Precipitation will begin winding down mid to late afternoon.

The area encircled in red is where the best likelihood of freezing rain/glazing has a chance of occurring.