Bitter Blast To Follow First Winter Storm Of Season Across MA: See Snow Totals

MASSACHUSETTS — The first significant snow of the season across much of interior Massachusetts will lead into the coldest weather since the dead of last winter later this week as frigid air drops temperatures to the single digits — and wind chills below zero — early Friday morning for many.

Much of Tuesday's steady snowfall was confined to the Merrimack Valley and Worcester County on Tuesday as schools were out for much of the central and western part of the state. Cities and towns inside of Route 128 mostly experienced a cold rain with pockets of mixed precipitation.

Here are some of the top snowfall amounts across the Bay State, according to official National Weather Service spotters.

• 8.9 inches — Ashburnham
• 8.5 inches — Sterling
• 8.3 inches — Westminster
• 7.7 inches — Fitchburg
• 7.5 inches — Gardner
• 7.2 inches — Pepperell
• 7.1 inches — Ashby
• 6.5 inches — Townsend
• 3.9 inches — Worcester Airport
• 2.4 inches — Tewsbury
• 1.9 inches — Andover
• 1.9 inches —Hudson
• 0.6 inches — Blue Hills Observatory

The next two days will be seasonably cold, but sunny with lighter winds, with highs near 39 degrees on Wednesday and 38 degrees on Thursday.

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Thursday night is when temperatures will drop sharply with lows around 10 degrees, and wind gusts up to 30 mph, making for wind chills as low as -2 degrees.

Friday will not see much of a recovery with a high of 27 degrees and winds switching around to the southwest and calming later in the day.

The next chance of snow comes Friday night and early Saturday morning. But that should be light with clearing skies by midday on Saturday.

It should be a nice weekend for shopping or securing holiday lights and decorations, with a high of 37 degrees on Saturday and 36 degrees under cloudy skies on Sunday.

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)