New England snowstorm forecast to dump a few inches to half a foot

New England could potentially get hit with its largest snowstorm of the season Sunday night, expected to dump 6 inches or more of snow across Boston and coastal areas. Or, a much milder system carrying a lot less snow could unfold, meaning that once again it’s going to come down to the exact track this storm takes.

Here’s the general setup: An area of low pressure begins taking shape across the Southeast or just off the Carolina coast on Sunday morning and begins to crawl up a frontal boundary that is stalled over New England. As it approaches, the storm will draw in warmer air and moisture off the Atlantic while cold air is pulled in from the north.

Moisture surging from the south and the steep temperature difference will set up a solid rain-snow line with this storm. Unfortunately, we won’t know for sure where that rain-snow line will fall until the weekend arrives and we have a clearer picture. It could set up south of New England or set up between Boston and the Cape.

The eventual storm track will also determine whether New England sees a modest snowfall of 2 to 4 inches or higher accumulations of possibly 5 inches or more. But the region, especially across much of Southern New England, will definitely see some snow on the ground come Monday morning.

These are the projected snowfall totals as of now, with the different models taken into consideration:

The strength of the cold front will determine whether the storm is bumped farther offshore or not. Take a look at how the Euro and GFS models are tracking this system below.

The GFS model has the storm moving closer to New England, which would bring heavier snow during a shorter window, meaning 5 to 8 inches of snow, with the bulk of it concentrated along coastal New England.

Here’s where the GFS is placing the core of the storm cutting over Cape Cod around 8 p.m., Sunday, which places Boston in the snow zone.

The Euro model, however, has the storm slipping slightly to the south, which would bring lighter accumulations of 2 to 4 inches of snow across New England.

The Globe Weather HQ model combines elements from the Euro, GFS, and others. This would push Boston toward more of a wintry mix and reduce the amount of snow for the city.

Still, other models seem to be siding more with the Euro, predicting lighter snow totals, according to Globe meteorologist Dave Epstein:

Regardless, it appears that this storm will be in and out of the region quickly, with most of the precipitation falling Sunday night and during the overnight hours.

The snow is expected to start falling between 5 and 7 p.m., Sunday and be over by early morning on Monday.

As far as storm totals go, it looks like Boston and much of Coastal and Southern New England are in for at least several inches of snow.

The details will be sorted out in the coming days, but should the track lean closer to what the GFS is initializing, then we could possibly be in for the largest storm of the season with much of Southern New England picking up at least 6 inches of snow.

Looking at all factors, the safe bet would be that folks across Southern New England can end up in a window of 3 to 6 inches from Sunday evening through early Monday morning.

We’ll continue to monitor this potential storm and continue to update the impacts, but be ready to break out the shovels come Monday morning.

Ken Mahan can be reached at ken.mahan@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @kenmahantheweatherman.