Saturday Evening Vermont Storm Update: More On Way; Southern VT hardest Hit Again

A brief burst of heavy snow swept through St Albans,
Vermont around noon, but that snow was bookended
by rain in the morning and late afternoon.

This has really been a heavy, wet storm in Vermont today, whether you got a bunch of snow or you got a mix of rain.   

The result was a lot of power outages, especially in southern Vermont, which once again was the hardest hit part of the state. 

At one point, about 21,000 homes and businesses in Vermont had no power, but that was down to around 11,000  late this afternoon, now that precipitation is lighter. 

The dense, wet snow was coming down at a rate of up to two inches per hour in the high elevations of southern Vermont.  

Since this wasn't the usual dry, powdery stuff we usually get in the winter, and not the dry powdery stuff that came down epically in mid-December.

That meant the power failures really added up. 

No wonder, with wet snow totals including, so far, 16 inches in Woodford, 12.6 inches in  Landgrove and 11 inches in Readsboro and Halifax. So far.

Further north, higher elevations got generally five or six inches of snow, mixed with rain. 

In the Champlain Valley, it was mostly rain but a burst of convection -basically heavier showers -  brought down some colder air from aloft around noon. The resulted in a burst of heavy snow that produced 2 inches of snow in Burlington and an inch of slush here in St. Albans.

Then, at least in the Champlain and in much of the Connecticut River Valley, it went back to a light rain mixed with a little snow. 

Up in Quebec, heavy wet snow caused power outages for about 42,000 homes and businesses. 

Back here in Vermont, it ain't over yet!

The original storm system is moving away up into Canada.  However, the storm's upper level support  is going overhead tonight, and the storm now in Canada, will swing some rather moisture laded winds with it 

That means most of us will get some more snow overnight and into Sunday. It won't be much for large swaths of Vermont but there will be some accumulation. 

It will stay warmish tonight and for much of Sunday, so the warmer valleys will not see much accumulation. And what does come down will be wet and soggy. Snow will continue to be mixed with rain in the lower, broader valleys this evening. 

Still, a couple inches of additional snow could appear in the Champlain Valley between now and tomorrow afternoon.  Low and mid elevations in central and northern Vermont could get a few inches. 

This situation looks GREAT for higher elevations.  The heavy, wet snow we saw today establishes a nice base. The snow tonight and tomorrow up there will be a little lighter and more powdery, which is icing on the cake. 

Some of the higher peaks and maybe a few of the western slopes are in for at least six more inches of snow  

All in all, the National Weather Service in South Burlington, and the army of other meteorologists in Vermont did a fantastic job of forecasting this storm.  It worked out pretty much as expected, which is amazing since this was really a challenging forecast.

The only quibble I had is this storm over performed again. That's been happening with a lot of storms that affect us in recent years. At least in my opinion, the storms by and large have been a little bigger and more intense than many forecasts.