Weekly Significant Weather Outlook
November 5-7 Rainfall
Before moving on to this week’s outlook, note that much of southern New England received copious amounts of rainfall Thursday through Saturday of last week after nearly three weeks of no rain. This was due to a series of low pressure waves that traveled along a very slow-moving frontal boundary immersed in moisture-rich tropical air. In summary, generally 2 to 4 inches of rain fell along the Boston to Providence corridor and 3 to 5 inches across southern RI and southeast MA with even some 5+ amounts in the vicinity of Buzzards Bay and the upper Cape. To the northwest of the Boston to Providence corridor, generally 1 to 3 inches of rain fell except lesser amounts over the Berkshires and Connecticut River Valley of MA.
A question that sometimes arises after such an event is whether it can be attributed at least in part to climate change. To really answer that question, a rigorous study is needed by experts on climate attribution (an evolving area of scientific research). The amount and intensity of rainfall with this event is consistent with the fact that warmer air makes more water vapor available for precipitation, although there were a few factors that came together to produce this specific scenario. Indeed, it is challenging to attribute specific events to climate change as those events are usually the result of multiple factors coming into alignment. Nevertheless, taken together, such events as heavy, intense rainfall can imply a climate fingerprint in the background.
Potential Late Week Precipitation Event
The primary focus for this week looks to be in the Thursday night to Saturday morning time frame when a fairly robust upper trough and associated surface low center may bring significant precipitation to the region. This is also the first weather situation of the season when precipitation type could be an issue.
As one might expect 4 to 5 days out, model solutions are somewhat diverse. The UKMET, Canadian, and ECMWF (AI version) depict the surface low passing far enough south of New England to limit the amount of precipitation that falls. The operational GFS (seemingly somewhat of an outlier) brings the surface low pressure over southern New England with potentially significant snowfall across northern New England (especially at the higher elevations) and potentially just heavy rain across southern New England. The operational ECMWF and the AI version of the GFS have been depicting a surface low passing near or a little inside the 40N 70W benchmark, although the latest run of the ECMWF (0600 UTC run) trended closer to the more offshore scenarios. The various ensemble runs tend to mirror their operational counterparts but with a percentage of runs on either side of an average track and a range of intensities. The bottom line is that there will likely be at least some precipitation toward the end of the work week, but confidence in the surface low track and associated sensible weather remains low several days out.
The air mass turns colder by Friday. The most likely scenario is a cold rain across most of southern New England with possibly wet snow mixed with the rain over the interior, especially over the higher terrain of the Worcester Hills and Berkshires. There is a low probability that the surface low track and low to mid atmospheric temperature profile could be just right for some accumulation at the higher elevations of the Berkshires and Worcester Hills. If nothing else, there does appear to be a few scenarios where the precipitation could end as flurries or scattered wet snow showers Friday night over interior southern New England, albeit probably with little/no accumulation.
Seasonal Outlook
In the end, the system late in the week may just be a reminder that we are getting later in the fall and starting to approach the winter season. Speaking of the winter season, the outlook from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) suggests a milder than average and wetter than average winter for southern New England. That would imply (although not ensure) a likelihood of an above average proportion of rain versus snow events in southern New England. However, there are a few notable caveats. Although this is somewhat of a typical outcome during an El Nino episode, the correlation of the ENSO phase and New England winter weather is not all that tight given the influence of other factors with less long term predictability (such as the phase of the North Atlantic Arctic Oscillation (NAO), Arctic Oscillation (AO), phase of the Pacific North America (PNA) mid-level long wave ridge/trough pattern, etc.). Also, this is a record strong El Nino that may have outcomes different from what has been observed in the past. And finally, one or two major snow or ice storms in an otherwise mild season could change our overall subjective perception of this winter.
Next Message
The next message will depend upon developments of the late week system, which may or may not prompt a series of blog messages. Otherwise, will issue the next weekly significant weather outlook on Monday November 16.
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Message issued November 9, 2026 by:
Bob Thompson
Retired National Weather Service Meteorologist
Blue Hill Observatory and Science Center Advisory Council member
