Attempts At Winter In Vermont Are Staying Gentle So Far

The setting sun Tuesday afternoon shines through a snow
shower that was dusting my St. Albans, Vermont yard.
So far, not a lot of wintry weather this month. 

 I was doing some yard clean up for a client yesterday and it snowed most of the time. 

Sounds annoying and unproductive, but it wasn't. The snow was just flurries, and the temperature stayed above freezing all day here in the Champlain Valley of Vermont, so nothing accumulated, and I was able to get my work done.  

It could be a lot worse than that in November, that's for sure. At least I'm still able to get outdoor projects done. 

A year ago yesterday, the low temperature in Burlington was a record low 7 degrees and there was several inches of snow on the ground. 

We've gotten to the point in the calendar in which getting outdoor stuff done without snow in the way, and without Arctic cold, is getting to be a gift. I'm sure snow lovers are unhappy, but we still have a lot of time for winter. 

This gentle approach to the onset of winter looks like it will continue.  Oh, sure, there's a dusting of snow on the ground this morning, and the temperature will not get above freezing this afternoon.  We can definitely put today in the colder than average territory. 

But, this coldish snap will be short lived, and we will soon be back to mostly above normal temperatures for quite awhile, it looks like. 

The overall pattern through at least Thanksgiving will mostly favor a quick west to east flow across the United States.  That will tend to keep Arctic intrusions up in Canada, where it belongs, at least in my opinion. 

True, we might squeeze in occasional quick squirts of colder air from time to time, but that fast west to east weather pattern will keep scouring those cool shots out quickly. 

We won't be able to build up any kind of near record warmth like we saw earlier in this month with this pattern.  Every time it starts to get warm, a cold front from the west will zip in to cut any toasty air off at the pass. 

These cold fronts are coming mostly from the Pacific Ocean, not the Arctic, so it won't get frigid behind any of these fronts. Just coolish. 

We could still use a lot of rain from the drought that settled in during the summer and fall.  November has been quite dry so far.  The signals are mixed on whether we'll get good doses of rain or not. Each cold front will bring a chance of rain or showers, or even a little snow. But the fast pace of these systems will keep the precipitation short lived.

If any of these fronts can scoop up some good moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, we could get good shots of rain. Or if a battleground between the Arctic stuff in Canada and the warm air in the southern United States sets up near us, we could also get some decent precipitation. 

It's kind of hard to forecast that much in advance, so we'll wait and see.

In the short term, we'll start to recover from this brief sort of cold spell tomorrow, with highs reaching around 40 degrees.

After a fairly decent day Friday, a weak cold front will push temperatures down slightly for Saturday, but there will be almost no precipitation with that one.  A somewhat stronger system Monday could give us some rain, and maybe a bit of snow in the mountains. Nothing earth-shattering, though.