Major ice/snow potential Wednesday

The January 7th storm has been followed for about a week now, and continues to offer a significant wintry impact to New England. A piece of energy will dive into the SW US, as another short wave approaches British Columbia Sunday night. These two pieces of energy will move east, and phase in the midwest on Tuesday. Two areas of low pressure, one to the north end of the wave and one to the south, will move into the Ohio Valley. The southern low will rotate northward and trigger secondary (or tertiary) development near the delmarva peninsula. This coastal low will rapidly deepen as it moves north-northeast, likely passing over Cape Cod.

The GFS continues to be towards the southeast side of guidance, with the Euro is further west. While normally in these situations I would expect the Euro to score on this storm, I believe with the -NAO block in place, we'll be looking at a solution closer to the GFS or even further southeast. As it is, we are looking at the potential for significant icing of around a half inch somewhere in SNE. At this point, I would expect this area to be to our south, with greater snow accumulations in SW NH. There is a good consensus for total QPF of over .5" and up to 2". These water equivalents will be partitioned into ice and snow, but I think that the chance for any rain is very low north of route 2.

My current confidence levels for Keene (7pm Tuesday - 7am Thursday):
>1" Snow ... 80%
>4" Snow ... 55%
>10" Snow ... 15%
>.1" Ice ... 70%
>.25" Ice ... 40%
>.5" Ice ... 15%

--- Snowday potential ---
Especially considering the threat for significant ice, a cancellation Wednesday is almost looking likely. If the threat continues through tomorrow, I'll raise percentages to 60%. In addition, at this point, timing is very good for a cancellation. However, I did include percentages for both a delay and an early release should timing shift at all.