Cold, Ice, Snow Grind On For U.S.; Vermont Cold, Could Still Turn Snowy

A huge 75 car pileup near Fort Worth Texas this morning is
yet another result of the winter storms causing problems
pretty much coast to coast. 

The devilishly cold, icy, snowy weather across the nation is grinding on, with no stop to the rough weather for the next several days. 

This isn't necessarily the most intense winter weather the nation has ever seen. What's making it notable is how long it's lasting.  This is no quick shot for many places. 

There are sure signs things will start to ease in the coldest places next week, but the storminess seems set to continue.

It's hard to keep track of each storm, there's so many, but here goes.

The first one is still bringing ice and snow in a stripe through the Tennessee Valley on up to the Mid-Atlantic States.  There's a wide swath of traffic accidents, and in some cases downed trees and power lines from Texas to Tennessee and Kentucky. (There was one particularly nasty 75-vehicle pileup on an icy highway near Fort Worth, Texas this morning, for instance).

This icy storm will zip out to sea well south of us later today and tonight, with no effects on us here in Vermont. 

The jet stream, which guides storms across the Unites States (and all over the world for that matter) is fairly flat in the eastern half of the United States. So the cold air comes down from Canada and then heads east. That makes us cold here in Vermont, but at least the air is modifying as it comes in. 

We end up with wind chill advisories, a few nights between now and Monday below zero, and daytimes that won't get much warmer than the low teens until Sunday, when we start to flirt with 20 degrees. The weather for the next several days will otherwise be pretty quiet in northern New England for the next few days.

Meanwhile, storms keep coming in off the Pacific Ocean, causing episodes of rain and snow there, and through the Rockies. These storms eventually head east, and over the past week or so have been zipping out to sea south of New England, so we in Vermont only get little bouts of light snow, nothing special. 

That jet stream, which has been pretty much west to east once it gets past the middle of the nation, shows signs of changing.  

It will start to aim southward toward Texas and the Gulf Coast, giving those areas a better chance of snow and ice over the weekend and early next week. 

That jet stream will then start to gradually bend more and more toward the northeast, eventually aiming from near the Gulf Coast to near us.  

If this change really does happen,  we become more prone to storminess here in Vermont. The storms would have a better chance of coming closer to us, and will have more moisture with them, having scooped up water from the Gulf of Mexico.  

The beginning of this shift in the jet stream will begin late this weekend, but will come too late for the next storm on Sunday. That one will bring a bunch of freezing rain, sleet and some snow and to much of the East Coast from probably New Jersey south to parts of the Carolinas.

This storm, like a few of the recent ones, will also  go out to sea too far south to give us anything.  (Some earlier forecasts had this storm coming further north and giving us more snow, but it turns out that's not happening).

Instead, a weaker system will probably dust us with an inch or two of snow Saturday night and Sunday. No biggie. 

Getting into the longer range gets iffy. The trend is for the next storm to be able to make it further north as the jet stream in the East keeps developing more of its south to north orientation. If that happens, we could get a larger snowstorm Tuesday. No promises, as the computer models are still all over the place with this one. Some forecast give us a bunch of snow others take it out to sea for another whiff. 

Yet another storm seems like it might follow on its heels later next week, but who knows what that will do. Just count on an active weather pattern for the next couple weeks. There will be a constant spray of storms coming across the nation. Lots of places will continue to get snow and ice through the end of the month.

Even as the cold eases somewhat, people from coast to coast will surely be battling snow and ice for the rest of the month. 

How many of these storms actually hit us in Vermont later in the month, and precisely how they hit us remains an open question.