A Bit Of Snow After All, Then A Quick Arctic Blast Vermont/New England

Forecast map showing the upper air flow across the
nation early Friday. Click on it to make it bigger
and easier to see. That little swirl with "L" over us
is a fragment of the polar vortex coming that
by then will have come down from Canada, 
giving us a quick shot of Arctic air. 

As always, there's a couple of adjustments to the forecast here in northern New England, as there always is when there's a lot of activity in the atmosphere. 

We ARE off to the expected start this morning, with temperatures for most of us below zero.  

It was 1 above in Burlington at 7 a.m. As of this writing, it's unclear if it got to zero in Burlington, but if it did, it would be the first one this winter.  And a very late first zero indeed! 

Now for those forecast adjustments:

I mentioned yesterday those storms that were forecast to pass by to our south leaving us high and dry in the snow department.  Well, it turns out the first one is now expected to come close enough to us to wring out a little snow. 

For Vermont snow lovers, that's just a little bit of extra glory, right?

This is by no means going to be a block buster. Just a light covering to freshen things up a bit. Plus, there's still some question as to whether all of us will get some snow or not. 

As it stands now, the National Weather Service in South Burlington is going with an expected one to three inches of snow for much of Vermont Tuesday night and early Wednesday.  There could well be less than that in parts of the north, and maybe a bit more than that in some spots south of Route 4. 

That second storm I talked about is still forecast to pass out to sea well, well south of us Thursday, and become that big ocean storm. 

But there's a wrinkle there, too. 

COLD BLAST COMING

Earlier this month I told you about something called a Sudden Stratospheric Warming, which I said would blow to pieces the Polar Vortex up closer to the North Pole. (For review, the Polar Vortex is a big whirl of cold air in the atmosphere wandering up near the North Pole.  Despite the hype in the past, this thing is perfectly normal and is usually around somewhere to our north).

Anyway, as expected, that Sudden Stratospheric Warming earlier this month indeed blow that Polar Vortex into pieces. (Don't worry, it'll re-form up north and return to something in the neighborhood of normal).

One broken piece of that Polar Vortex will be pulled southward Thursday by that future big ocean storm. The piece of Polar Vortex will move northwest to southeast almost right overhead at the end of the week.

Don't worry, the end of the week Polar Vortex fragment for us is most certainly not the end of the world.

It does mean, however, we're in for the biggest Arctic blast of the winter so far. Don't worry about that, either.  By Vermont standards, this cold snap Friday and Saturday is something we see almost every winter and won't break any records. 

It does mean windy and bitterly cold weather Friday and Saturday, with some nasty wind chills, probably in the 20s below zero.  Actual high temperatures will only get to the single numbers above zero, as it stands now, with I'm guessing 5 to 15 below readings at night. 

The cold won't last long. That fragment of the Polar Vortex will keep on going by, ending the quick cold shot by Sunday afternoon. By then it'll be up to at least near 20 degrees, and it will probably get even warmer than that heading into the following week.