Vermont Will Share In The Snowfall After All, Even If We're Late To The Party

Here's kind of a first stab at snowfall predictions from 
the National Weather Service in South Burlington.
Most of us should get at least six inches of snow
out of this storm. As usual, mountains 
likely to get the most snow. 

As expected, that wide-ranging snowstorm stretching from Illinois to - eventually - New England - is in full force.  And now it looks like Vermont will share in the fun. 

A winter storm watch is up for the entire Green Mountain state, extending into eastern New York.  The watch starts at around sunset Monday and extends through Wednesday morning. This issue will last a pretty long time, as storms go.

It's also a really complicated one, as the pieces that are coming together in the upper atmosphere to create this snowfall are really messy. 

Which means the usual caveat applies, writ large, expect surprises with this. The current forecast pretty much calls for four to 10 inches out of this, depending upon where you are in Vermont.  

I'm sure a few places will end up with more than that, and a few other places will have less than this forecast. 

The only aspect of this storm I'm quite sure about is we won't have to worry about mixed precipitation here in Vermont. We'll just get snow. Easy-peasy in that regard. 

This is a sprawling, slow moving storm, which means most people affected by it will have to live with it for a couple days. This morning, it was snowing from Minnesota all the way to Washington DC. A foot of snow is likely to fall in many places in this vast area.

Usually, when a storm comes in from the west, it will re-form into a single new storm that turns into a nor'easter. That new storm usually plows toward New England and you get a day of heavy precipitation and wind up into the region. Then it ends pretty quickly 

The current setup, as I said, is messy, so you're going to get a few storm centers trying to form somewhere in the Northeast or off the coast, and it's hard to tell which will be the dominate one. 

This means storminess will definitely happen, but who gets hit the hardest is a question. It also means this will last awhile. It'll be later Wednesday before most of New England is really out of rough weather. 

VERMONT SPECIFICS

Like I said in the headline, Vermont is going to be late to the snow party.  Cold high pressure and its dry air will initially fend off this storm. 

The cold air brought the first subzero reading of the season to Burlington late Saturday evening - making it one of the latest first zeros of the season on record - but not THE latest.

It eventually got down to 6 below in Burlington. It was as cold as 24 below in Island Pond and minus 15 in Montpelier, so this was the coldest spell of the winter so far. 

Predicted snowfall with the storm throughout the 
Northeast, showing how widespread this will be.
Everything in pink is roughly 10 inches or 
more of snow. 

We'll stay cold and generally sunny today. Another clear night in northern Vermont will drop temperatures below zero again.

Meanwhile, clouds will finally start to creep in from the south late tonight and through the day tomorrow as the storminess finally tries to work in from the south. 

The way it looks now, a band of warmer air and lift aloft will come in southeast to northwest in Vermont late Monday night and the first half of Tuesday, which would bring us our biggest thump of snow from this storm. Snow could come down quite hard at times during this initial part of the storm. 

The eastern slopes of the Green Mountains will make out the best from this initial burst, and, if predictions hold, pretty much everyone will have a lousy, snowy commute Tuesday morning. 

I think there might be a lull after this initial thump of heavier snow comes through.  Then, the messy mass of storminess will work northward, roughly centered just off the New England coast. Moisture will wrap around to the north of the storm, through Maine and New Hampshire and southern Quebec and back down on Vermont.

This would favor more snow Tuesday, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning mostly in northern Vermont. This is especially true along the western slopes and summits of the Green Mountains.  Most of northern Vermont as a whole, including the Champlain Valley north of Burlington has the potential to do pretty well with snow with this setup.

Overall, the trend since yesterday has been to bring the coastal storm or storms a little further west than initial projections, which is why we now have the expectations for snow in Vermont. 

It'll get windy with this thing, especially later Tuesday through Wednesday, so expect a lot of blowing and drifting snow, even after the heaviest precipitation tapers off. 

I regard this storm as kind of weird, so I expect more surprises than usual from a mid-winter snowstorm. Definitely stay tuned for updates and adjustments from the National Weather Service in South Burlington, and the other fine Vermont meteorologists keeping tabs on this storm. 

THE STORM ELSEWHERE

This storm is going to be really in the news for the next couple days, because it's lasting so long, and hitting highly populated areas. And hitting in areas that are basically media centers - Washington and New York. 

It will be disruptive.  More than a foot of snow is a good bet in the New York City area, western New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, eastern New York all the way up to Albany and western and central New England. A few areas in here could approach two feet of new snow.

It will be very windy, so near blizzard conditions could easily set up in and near New York City Monday and Monday night. 

Bottom line: Don't travel to southern New England, New York and the Mid-Atlantic states for the next two or three days. Ain't worth it. 

Some pretty substantial coastal flooding with storm surges, splash over waves and high winds will hit the Jersey Shore, Long Island and maybe New England.

There will be some pretty wild stories, photos and videos of this storm, I'm betting.  As I keep saying, stay tuned!