Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Sanford, ME

KEY MESSAGES
1. Mainly dry through the end of the week with more seasonable temperatures that look to trend above normal heading into next week.

2. Confidence is high in a larger system taking a track out to sea in the Sunday night/Monday time frame, resulting in just some scattered light snow. The long term pattern supports active weather with the potential for more widespread precipitation later in the week.

DISCUSSION

KEY MESSAGE 1 DESCRIPTION...
Snow showers in the mountains are coming to an end this afternoon behind a departing shortwave. Clear skies will remain for the majority of the CWA, but clouds will linger in the mountains. I nudged temperatures down a little bit in the sheltered areas that usually radiate well, but somewhat of a breeze looks to keep most areas well mixed and the clouds in the mountains should keep those areas from decoupling as well. This results in single digits areawide for low temperatures.

Mean troughing remains over the region to end the week with northwest flow keeping temperatures on the seasonable side.
Daytime temperatures Friday and Saturday look to end up in the mid- to upper 20s across the north and in the low to mid-30s in the south. This will also keep nighttime temperatures cold with teens and single digits expected. As is common with northwest flow, the mountains are likely to see some snow showers especially with a shortwave crossing Friday night and then again Saturday night as a closed upper low moves across Maine with a surface cold front. If we end up with high Froude numbers some light snow showers and/or flurries are possible south of the mountains, but otherwise there isn't much moisture to work with so activity should be pretty limited. Beginning Sunday, we see an extended period of southwesterly flow that will trend temperatures above normal. Temperatures at 850mb look like they will rise to the freezing mark, if not slightly above, by midweek which should be good for temperatures in the upper 30s to near 40F at the surface. This will no doubt feel quite pleasant after this long stretch of below normal temperatures we have endured.

KEY MESSAGE 2 DESCRIPTION...
At this point I am confident in saying we shouldn't expect much in the Sunday night/Monday time frame as ensemble solutions have become clustered well out to sea. However, an approaching shortwave and surface front provides the forcing for at least some light snow during this period with minimal impacts.
Following that, the pattern becomes dominated by zonal flow and global models suggest (with some timing differences) that a frontal boundary sinks southward into our area midweek with low pressure riding along it. This now looks like our best chance for widespread precipitation and with temperatures looking to trend above normal during this time we may be looking at some rain mixing in, something we haven't had to worry about much through this very cold stretch we are finally coming out of.



AVIATION /18Z THURSDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/
Through 18Z Friday.. MVFR to near MVFR conditions will prevail at HIE, but all other terminals should see VFR prevail into Friday afternoon. Wind gusts 20-25kts continue for a couple more hours, but should begin calming after 21Z.

Outlook...

Friday night-Saturday night: Periods of light snow may bring about brief MVFR/IFR conditions Friday night and Saturday night, with HIE and LEB having the highest chance of this occuring.
Otherwise, VFR prevails.

Sunday night-Tuesday: Some light snow showers may bring localized brief MVFR/IFR conditions Sunday night into Monday with MVFR ceilings common during this time as well, but otherwise conditions trend back to VFR for Tuesday.

MARINE
Frequent northwesterly gusts exceeding 25kts will continue through tonight. Winds shift westerly and calm below SCA criteria for Friday, with seas remaining 1-3ft.

Marginal SCA conditions are possible Saturday night into Sunday as a front crosses the waters. Another system may bring about SCA conditions midweek, but otherwise sub-SCA conditions are expected.

GYX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
ME...None.
NH...None.
MARINE...Small Craft Advisory until 7 AM EST Friday for ANZ150>152-154.