Storm System to Impact southern New England 1/16/2016

If you're a huge snow fan living here in southern New England the winter of 2015-2016 has been nothing sort of depressing.  After the warmest December on record across many locations we finally have more frequent cold outbreaks transpire across the region, however, the cold has come without any meaningful snow.  Unfortunately this trend will continue this weekend as the next major storm system is set to bring predominately rain to much of the region with perhaps some snow mixed across higher elevations and the further north into New England you go.

When looking at the track of Saturday's storm system we see a track which brings the surface low pressure just to the south and east of southern New England.  Typically, especially this time of year a storm track like this would be yielding not only snows but some hefty snowfall totals for someone:

If the storm track is favorable for snow then what's the problem?

Re-posting the same graphic above, however, looking at the continental United States as a whole, there are three key pieces to note:

1) The primary low pressure system moving northward through the Great Lakes.  When certain conditions are in place, these primary areas of low pressures can "transfer" their energy to just off the east coast of the United States.  When this process occurs and when the primary low pressure weakens, the secondary low begins to take dominance and this can help to bring down colder air from Canada (the flow around the low coming from the N to NE brings down colder air).

2) The secondary low pressure development and track just to the south and east of southern New England.  Unfortunately with this weekend, the secondary low pressure development is just going to occur too late and the primary low stays way too strong.  The end result is warmer air advecting into southern New England from the south and southwest.

3) The lack of a high pressure system to our north.  A good chunk of our snowstorms, especially bigger snow producing snow events all have an area of high pressure to our north.  What this does is reinforce colder air into the region from Canada.  Unfortunately, with a lack of high pressure to our north, there is nothing to reinforce cold air and nothing to prevent warmer air from working northward.

Unfortunately this system is going to produce precipitation mainly in the liquid form, however, higher elevations areas and central/northern MA will mix in some snow.  We are looking at 1-2'' of rainfall region wide with some areas picking up 3'' of rain.  Flash flooding will be an issue in the typical flood prone locations.  As this system departs another surge of Arctic air will arrive, perhaps even with some snow squalls later in the day on Sunday.