A MIDWEEK RESPITE BEFORE A MOISTURE-LOADED STORM ENDS THE WEEK...ARCTIC COLD WELCOMES THE SAN DIEGO CHARGERS TO THE HOME OF OUR NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS AND COLD STICKS AROUND THROUGH MONTH'S END

A respite for most of New England is underway Tuesday through Thursday with another storm lined up for Thursday night into Friday.  An arctic blast will move across New England just in time for the Patriots game this coming Sunday.

For the time being, our Tuesday finds a lingering band of clouds stretched from the Great Lakes across Upstate New York and into Southern New England.  These clouds linger along what's left of a lower and mid level frontal boundary, and are being enhanced by an energetic upper level system diving southeast from the Great Lakes to the Mid-Atlantic coastline.  The clouds over Southern New England will continue to billow, with enough dry air to keep clouds fewer and farther between in Northern and Central New England, with the exception of moisture lingering as clouds in the Champlain Valley and along the Western slopes of the Green Mountains where the westerly wind pushes up against the mountain faces.  With the passage of the energetic disturbance off the Mid-Atlantic coastline Tuesday evening, clouds will diminish over the Northeast with any afternoon snow showers and squalls - heaviest in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts - dying off and giving way to a partly cloudy and cool Tuesday night.

Expect a dome of high pressure to provide quiet weather Wednesday and most of Thursday before another storm runs the coastline.  This next storm is anything but your run of the mill coastal storm, however, and is likely to be a prolific precipitation producer.  In fact, the ingredients for the storm are already on the map over North America, with a clearly discernible northern and southern stream disturbance.  The northern disturbance is ripe with energy, moving east across the Northern Rockies on Tuesday after moving through the Pacific Northwest off the Eastern Pacific late Monday and Monday night.  This disturbance has produced heavy mountain precipitation, and will dive southeast on Wednesday.  At the same time, an upper level storm evident on satellite imagery east of the Baha Peninsula will move over Mexico and to the Texas coastline, where it will breed a weak low pressure center already evident near Brownsville, Texas, that will move through the extreme northern Gulf and pull copious amounts of moisture over the Southeastern United States.  This energetic disturbance will shear to pieces as it encounters fast winds aloft, and some of its associated moisture will spill over New England on Thursday as increasing high and middle altitude clouds.  Farther south, though, the low pressure center and moisture left behind will prime the atmosphere in the Southeastern United States for continued storm growth as the northern stream energy digs across the Central and Southern Plains , ushering a strengthening southwest wind ahead of it.  This southwest wind flow will actually tap a supply of moisture from the Bay of Campeche - SOUTH of the Gulf of Mexico west of the Yucatan Peninsula - which will load the storm with enough moisture for flooding rains to the Gulf Coast of the U.S., and the potential for tornadoes as well.  The storm will ride north along the coast Thursday night into Friday, carrying such a tremendous amount of moisture, and as that moisture streams ahead of the system Thursday night, snow will develop over New England from south to north.  With so much Gulf of Mexico input, there's bound to be a feed of plenty of tropical warmth, and a rain/snow line will push north across New England on Friday, likely into Southern New England by early Friday morning, and marching across Central New England from there.  This would leave the North Country and much of Vermont in line for a blockbuster storm with so much moisture.  Having said this, it's really important to understand that with a slug of cool air coming in behind the system, there will be a tight rain/snow line by the way it looks right now, and any slight deviation in storm track (of which there's likely to be with three days to go) would have major impacts on the forecast.

Though cooler air streams in behind the storm on Saturday with upper level energy lingering for plenty of clouds and scattered snow showers, the deeper arctic air will lag behind a bit.  If this deeper arctic air were to come in quicker, we'd be dealing with a superstorm along the coastline, the likes of which haven't been seen in years, but at this point it looks like the arctic blast will be delayed just long enough to avoid this scenario, instead coming across New England on Sunday with highs only in the single digits north and teens at Foxboro Stadium as the Pats take the field, with an active wind dropping wind chills near or below zero!  It'll be TWO cold NFL playoff games on Sunday, as Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, will only top out in the single digits for highs.  Colder than normal conditions will continue to the end of the month!

Matt