First Accumulating Snow Of The Season On The Way

First Accumulating Snow Of The Season On The Way

The first accumulating snow of the season is likely in parts of Rhode Island Saturday night. Most of us saw the first slushy flakes of the season Thursday night as a cold front moved through the area, but a strong east coast storm will form and likely move just offshore late Saturday bringing a few inches of the white stuff to areas away from the coast by Sunday morning.

The storm should start as rain Saturday afternoon but strong northerly winds will drag colder air into the system and likely change the rain over to snow Saturday night. As is typical with storms of this type at this time of year, the highest accumulation will be over higher elevations north and west of Providence where up to 6 inches could accumulate. Elsewhere the slushy accumulation will taper to 2 to 5 inches in the Providence metro area and West Bay then to 2 inches or less near the coast. The heavy, wet snow could cause some tree damage and thus scattered power outages. It should all wind down early Sunday with the sun coming out for Sunday afternoon and any snow accumulation melting quickly thereafter.

As you know, forecasting snow accumulation is a tricky business any time of the year but especially in fall storms, since the storms are usually a mixed bag of snow and rain and the ground is still relatively warm. I’ll have further updates.
 

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