Some Last Nor'easter Updates, And A Nasty Christmas Storm?

A man was trapped for 10 hours in this car, which had
been entirely buried in the snow near Owego, NY.

 It's cold this Saturday morning with most of Vermont and surrounding areas seeing subzero temperatures early on. 

The exception was the mountain tops, as we had a big temperature inversion going on.  

The normally frigid summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire was at a reasonable 18 above, and the summit o Vermont's Mount Mansfield was at 21 degrees. 

On calm, clear winter nights, cold air drains readily into the valleys, so the summits turn into the warm spots. The contrast was even bigger than usual this morning.  The snow cover in valleys that got hit by that snowstorm earlier this week are most prone to the cold.

Speaking of which, Vermont might have broken the state record for the most snow in a 24-hour period.  Peru, in southern Vermont, reported 44.8 inches of new snow Wednesday.  Investigators will look into whether the snow was measured properly there.

If so, it will set the new state record for most snow in a 24 hour period. The current record is 42 inches at Jay Peak. 

The snowstorm turned into a harrowing experience for one man in central New York.  His car went off the road in the torrential snowstorm, then the car got buried by a passing snow plow, whose driver didn't see him . 

The car broke down, so the driver had no heat.  He tried calling 911 but the connection was weak.  Police did launch a search for him, but the motorist was stuck for 10 hours and suffered from hyperthermia and frostbite.

The man was near death, but finally, a New York State Trooper searching for him thought he'd run across a row of mailboxes that were buried.  The cop dug anyway, and found the car and the man, probably less than an hour before the motorist would have died.

NEW, BAD STORM?

For the next few days here in Vermont, we'll see a warming trend with no exciting weather. Small disturbances will trigger snow showers now and then, which could be mixed with rain in the warmer valleys.

But there are signs of trouble for Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Early indications call for the risk of a squirt of very warm air, and the possibility of heavy rain and damaging winds. 

It's all uncertain at this point, but if things come together, there could be flooding from the thaw and rains in places that got a lot of snow. High winds could bring down power lines and trees, too. 

This is still something that's just coming together, so we don't know the details or even if this will happen. But stay tuned, this could pose some holiday trouble.