Updated Mar. 6, 2020 3:06 PM
Two storms are converging off the New England coast to end the week, but the impact from a weaker storm from Canada will far outweigh the impact from a storm moving up from the Southern states.
The influence from an Alberta clipper storm on the Northeast's weather into Friday night will be about 80%, while the participation from storm sweeping northward off the coast will be about 20%.
"The result will be unsettled weather conditions with some snow and perhaps a couple of inches somewhere in a narrow band, but not a debilitating widespread snowstorm for the Northeast," according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Dombek.
Alberta clipper storms tend to be starved of moisture and move along too quickly to bring more than a moderate snowfall. In the case of this particular clipper storm, snowfall will tend to be light, but there can be briefly heavy snow squalls across the interior Northeast that can create hazardous conditions for motorists.
The situation is a bit different when compared to last weekend's snow squalls in that the air moving in is not nearly as cold. That will translate to much less lake effect and fewer incidents of roads being covered with snow. While these conditions can still occur, they will tend to be much more isolated in nature than last week.
Where snow falls from the evening to the start of the daylight hours, there will be a better chance of a slushy accumulation on roads and other paved surfaces.
As for the participation from the storm swinging up from South, the center will remain a few hundred miles offshore. This is the same storm responsible for heavy rain, flooding and severe weather in the Southern states during the middle of the week.
However, some of the moisture from the Southern storm will feed into the approaching Alberta clipper and have some impact on coastal areas. This means that a zone of steady precipitation could occur within 100 miles or so of the coast.
"One patch where we are watching for perhaps a few inches of wet snow is from parts of northeastern and north-central Pennsylvania to the southern tier of New York state," Dombek said.
Another area that could experience impactful weather will be across far eastern Massachusetts along the Cape. Along with wind gusts potentially topping 50 mph, 2 to 4 inches of snow is possible along the Cape Cod National Seashore.
It is conceivable that the Interstate-95 swath receives a few tenths of an inch to a couple of inches of snowfall that breaks the snow drought, but the snow may only accumulate on grass and elevated surfaces and not on paved surfaces.
With marginal temperatures, much of the snow that falls may melt on road surfaces, especially during the daylight hours. Other areas may get only a few hours of a rain and wet snow mixture as other places still may only have a bit of rain from the setup.
It has been many weeks since much of the I-95 corridor has received measurable snow with the region in the throes of a snow drought. Measurable snow is 0.1 of an inch or greater.
Boston picked up 0.3 of an inch of snow on Feb. 6, but the last measurable snow in New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., was way back on Jan. 18. New York City managed to pick up 2.1 inches on Jan. 18, but only 0.2 of an inch fell on Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The last measurable snow in Baltimore back on Jan. 7, when 1.5 inches fell.
Despite the snow drought, there have been other years with very lean snowfall, such as the winters of 1997-98, 1979-80 and 1972-73.
However, while this year won't break lean snowfall records, time is running out for the "big one."
"It's been the same story for much of the winter in the Northeast, with one swing and a miss after another," AccuWeather Meteorologist Brandon Buckingham said.
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"Storms have either taken a track well inland and over the Great Lakes and allowed warm air to surge into the Northeast or have ventured too far off the Atlantic coast to become snow producers for the I-95 corridor," he said.
The same conditions have resulted in a lack of lake-effect snow events this winter. Instead, there have been several episodes of snow squalls.
In the case on Friday, it won't be a strikeout, but rather a foul ball as the two storms will eventually merge into one powerful storm. The combined and more potent impacts will be felt mainly in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, including gale-force winds, pounding seas and a swath of heavy wet snow that can affect parts of the provinces.
A strengthening dip in the jet stream associated with the Alberta clipper storm is likely to have fast enough west-to-east movement to prevent one big storm from cranking up and parking along the New England coast.
"A lack of an atmospheric road block over Greenland, related to a strong and well-contained polar vortex will be the main deterrent against a multiple-day snowstorm with feet of snow, battering waves and coastal flooding," Buckingham said.
After the impact from the Alberta clipper storm and the associated dip in the jet stream move on, warmth will be waiting in the wings for next week. A substantial temperature rebound is forecast over the Central states this weekend with eyes farther to the east.
The upcoming pattern could bring the highest temperatures of the year so far to many areas of the Northeast with widespread high temperatures in the 60s and 70s, where there is no snow on the ground. But even the northern tier should experience a significant climb in daily high temperatures from Sunday to Tuesday.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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