Monday Evening Storm Update: First Round Pretty Certain, Then A Few Questions

The snowstorm in New York City today. Photo by 
Mark Lennihan/AP

This Monday evening, the forecast for the upcoming storm in Vermont is pretty much on track, with few changes. 

I still have some real questions as to what will happen Tuesday night into Wednesday. More on that in a bit. 

That well anticipated initial band of snow with this storm was working its way into southern Vermont at sunset, as expected. It will work its way northward through the state overnight and Tuesday morning.

This band will feature the heaviest snow of the entire storm, with it coming down at a good inch per hour rate. That's pretty heavy, and will really mess with the Tuesday morning commute. 

If you must drive tomorrow morning, definitely leave early and take your time.  Anticipate lousy roads especially central and north, where the heaviest snow is likely to be in the morning. 

By the way, the Vermont Health Department says Covid vaccinations will continue tomorrow as scheduled despite the snowy forecast.

If the road conditions are unsafe and you don't want to travel to a vaccination center, call 855-722-7878, says the Health Department.

This first thump of snow should give most of us a good three to six inches of snow. There will probably be pocket on south and east facing slopes that get more than that, especially in southern Vermont. There might also be pockets that get a little less, especially in the upper Connecticut River Valley, where the White Mountains will block moisture from getting in. 

This band has been overproducing in southern New England, so the area of heavier snow expected to come through overnight and Tuesday morning in Vermont could possibly exceed expectations, so watch out for that. No guarantees but...

Forecasters are still thinking there will be a lull in the snow during tomorrow afternoon.

We're looking at more snow developing, at least off and on, Tuesday night through Wednesday, especially in northern Vermont. Even the Champlain Valley should participate in this to some extent. This snow will not fall particularly heavy. But since it will keep falling for a long time it will pile up. Overall, most of us should end up with 5 to 12 inches of snow from this by the time it's all done. 

There's one thing that could go wrong with this, though:  If the moisture feed from storminess near or off the coast of Maine doesn't materialize, or heads off in the wrong direction, that could make the Tuesday night and Wednesday snow spottier and lighter. We'll see.

By the way, it still looks like the snow will be light and fluffy, and easily dislodged from trees in the winds that will accompany the snowfall. That means power failures won't be a problem at all. That's true even in areas where the heavy wet snow from mid-January is still clinging to the trees. 

This fluff factor partly explains the relatively high snow totals. Light fluffy snow piles up fast.  A foot of this fluff stuff we're getting is actually easier to shovel than four inches of wet snow. So we're lucky there. 

ELSEWHERE 

Up here in Vermont, we're still not looking at a Super Storm, but man, areas around New York City have been getting hammered!

Near blizzard conditions were happening late this afternoon in southern Connecticut, around New York City and interior New Jersey to name a few spots.  Bridgeport, Connecticut has met the criteria for blizzard conditions, which is at least three hours of heavy snowfall, all while winds are gusting past 35 mph.

Parts of northwestern New Jersey had already collected two feet of snow by evening today. New York's Central Park had already received 13 inches of snow.  The city could end up with 20 inches out of this storm, which would make it among the largest snowstorms on record on record.

Needless to say, travel and anything else is hopeless snarled in the Mid-Atlantic States and southern New England at the moment.