Afternoon Forecast, Thursday, April 2, 2026

0:00From the Fairbanks Museum in St. John'sbury, welcome to this midday edition of The Eye on the Sky Forecast. A winter weather advisory will go into effect this evening from Grafton County Northward in New Hampshire and from the Green Mountains Eastward in Vermont. This is to address the risk for some light freezing rain which is expected to take hold perhaps in somewhat of a spotty fashion and primarily or exclusively over the mountains and hills with most or all precipitation in the valley locations expected to remain in the form of plain rain. With high pressure presently positioned over the Canadian Maritime's cold air is feeding in at the surface on Easterly winds while moisture starts to feed in a loft ahead of a warm front bound from our southwest. This will bring the risk of a freezing rain tonight into early Friday, mainly over high terrain along and east of the greens before considerably warmer air arrives tomorrow set to stick around in some way during the weekend. There are some wrinkles in the weekend, the temperature forecast, but a day like today is not anticipated until perhaps Monday.

1:06For this afternoon, look for mostly cloudy skies to persist, maybe some drizzle or freezing drizzle, mainly over high terrain, valley highs this afternoon, only in the upper 30s to mid 40s and we have winds generally out of the east at 5 to 10 miles an hour. As we look at our weather map, the high pressure centered to our northeast is presently the primary controller of our weather with the moisture getting introduced ahead of a strong warm front. That warm front is presently positioned well to our southwest roughly over the southern Great Lakes near Lake Erie. It will continue to slowly lift toward the north and east as we go through the overnight and into the day tomorrow because of the fact that the cooler air presently near the surface is considerably heavier and more dense than the warmer air that will initially arrive a loft. The shooter models can often be a little bit overly optimistic about the ability of warmer air to penetrate from our south and west in these kinds of situations and in fact human forecasters who don't necessarily learn their lessons sometimes also fall into this category.

2:10In any case, it does look like the risk of freezing rain even east of the greens should end within the first couple of hours of daylight tomorrow, even though the winter weather advisory nominally goes until 10 a.m. tomorrow. In areas west of the green mountains, we could well see rising temperatures late tonight, especially in the Champlain Valley where the southerly winds tend to get focused because of the surrounding topography. And so on Friday, the warmer high temperatures taking hold earlier in areas west of the greens east of the greens that will probably take a while for the warmer air to dislodge the colder air that will be somewhat entrenched. And so the warmer air probably arriving last in the northeast kingdom and northern New Hampshire where some folks might not get out of the fifties, but most locations are expected to reach the sixties during the day tomorrow. And could be a few rain showers around not a lot of precipitation expected in association with the warm front and in fact the related cold front will be coming through fairly quickly on its heels by Friday night and that'll be dropping temperatures back down into the thirties or even forties Friday night for the most part Saturday.

3:16Again, looking much nicer than today has been, although not as mild as Friday is likely to be the best chance for folks getting well into the sixties would be in areas near the Massachusetts border while those near the international border on Saturday might actually struggle to get into the fifties still considerably nicer weather than what we've got going on right now. We have for Saturday night another warm front lifting in and might actually have a situation where there's some limited freezing rain risk, especially over the high terrain of northern New Hampshire. In a worst case scenario, we could even have a so called backdoor cold front coming in on Saturday afternoon in New Hampshire, possibly causing falling temperatures during the mid to late afternoon hours. In any case overnight temperatures getting even cooler on Saturday night, a somewhat similar situation then relative to what we expect for tonight with that warm front coming in from the southwest and the colder near surface air being rather stubborn in terms of wanting to get out of the way and then for Sunday again a decent April day, but temperatures a bit cooler than those of either Friday or Saturday much stronger cold front coming in late Sunday ahead of that front.

4:28It looks like probably some scattered even numerous showers during the day on Sunday into Sunday night early ending in some snow showers probably and then well below average temperatures, although mainly dry taking hold on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before we get a little moderation and temperatures during the middle and latter portions of next week in our current short term details for this afternoon look for mostly cloudy skies with the chance of drizzle or freezing drizzle mainly over high terrain. Valley highs in the upper 30s to mid 40s east winds 5 to 10 miles an hour for tonight mostly cloudy rain showers likely north chance in the south areas of win tree mix from the green mountains eastward mainly over high terrain. Lows from the upper 20s to mid 30s except mid 30s to around 40 in the broad valleys west becoming breezy in the broad valleys west late on Friday mostly to partly cloudy chance of win tree mix along in the east of the greens otherwise scattered morning showers diminishing then scattered afternoon showers mainly from the northern greens. Westward highs on Friday in the load of mid 60s some upper 60s in the broad valleys west and mid to upper 50s northeast south to southwest winds 5 to 10 miles an hour east of the greens 5 to 15 and gusting to 25 in the west except gusting to 35 miles an hour in the Champlain and Saint Lawrence valleys Friday night periods of clouds scattered showers mainly before midnight lows in the upper 30s to mid 40s north 40s to lower 50s in the south.

5:52And for Saturday mostly cloudy chance of afternoon showers especially far south and from the green mountains westward highs on Saturday from the upper 40s to mid 50s north upper 50s to mid 60s in the south winds becoming east 5 to 10 miles an hour and gusting to 20. I'm meteorologist Lawrence Hayes with an eye on the sky.