By AccuWeather senior meteorologist
Published Dec. 4, 2020 11:10 AM | Updated Dec. 5, 2020 3:42 PM
The official start to winter is less than three weeks away, but Mother Nature didn't get the memo apparently. Less than one week after a storm hammered parts of the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes with heavy snow, forecasters are warning of a storm that will develop hundreds of miles farther to the east and is likely to bring heavy snow and punishing winds. Not only is it likely to become the first nor'easter of the season, but it can evolve into the first blizzard of the season across part of New England this weekend.
The storm that brought heavy snow to parts of the southern Plains at midweek will re-energize along the Eastern Seaboard and take a track just off the coast of the northeastern United States into Saturday night, putting central and northern New England in the path of the heaviest snow.
Heavy rain began falling in the I-95 corridor from Washington D.C. to Boston early Saturday. By late-afternoon, rain had dissipated in the mid-Atlantic and rain had changed to snow near the Boston area.
Into Saturday night, the storm should continue to rapidly strengthen, tapping into colder air and Atlantic Ocean moisture with New England in the crosshairs.
"Boston will be on the edge of the heavy snow with 3-6 inches forecast in the heart of the downtown area as some rain will fall for a time, but a more snow accumulation is expected around Route 128 and to the north and west," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist John Feerick said.
From central and southern New Hampshire to northern Maine, as well as parts of New Brunswick and the Eastern Townships of Quebec, an all-out blizzard is anticipated with the worst conditions from late Saturday to Saturday night.
Forecasters expect the combination of heavy snow and wind gusts frequenting 40-60 mph (64-97 km/h) to cause not only extensive blowing and drifting snow but also whiteout conditions. Travel will be dangerous and may be impossible for a time with 12-18 inches (30-45 cm) of snow in store with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 36 inches (90 cm).
Snow may fall at the rate of 2 inches (5 cm) per hour or greater in the heaviest snow bands of the storm. Snowfall of this intensity, combined with blowing and drifting, is likely to overwhelm road crews and some roads may close as a result.
A small amount of accumulating snow is forecast over parts of northwestern New Jersey, the Hudson Valley of New York state and even in the mountains of West Virginia, western Maryland, northern and western Pennsylvania and parts of western and central New York state from the storm into Saturday night.
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In addition to the storm evolving into a nor'easter and blizzard in New England, forecasters will also be monitoring for the potential for this storm to go through the process that meteorologists call bombogenesis. A nor'easter is a storm that simply brings stiff northeasterly winds to a broad area along the coast in the eastern part of the United States. Bombogenesis, or rapid strengthening, occurs when the central barometric pressure of a storm plummets by 0.71 of an inch of mercury (24 millibars) within 24 hours. When a storm undergoes this level of intensification, it is referred to as a bomb cyclone.
Regardless of the classification of the storm, winds can become powerful enough along the coast in New England and on eastern Long Island, New York, to break tree limbs, knock over poorly-rooted trees, lead to sporadic power outages and even cause minor property damage.
An AccuWeather Local StormMax™ wind gust of 70 mph (113 km/h) is forecast to occur from eastern Massachusetts to Nova Scotia and southeastern New Brunswick.
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As quickly as the storm will arrive early this weekend, it will be just as quick to exit on Sunday. However, blustery conditions will prevail in the mid-Atlantic, and winds are likely to still howl across New England as the snow exits northern Maine, New Brunswick and eastern Quebec.
Chilly conditions are forecast to linger through early next week from the Great Lakes to a large part of the Atlantic coast in the wake of the storm, and that may set the stage for a round of winterlike conditions in areas farther to the south.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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