Will Vermont's Anti-Rain Force Field Briefly Weaken With Rain/Snow Friday?

Will a nor'easter forecast on Friday
give any drought relief at all to
northern Vermont? And did someone
say snow?  Questions abound, for now.

My rant yesterday about how storms are all veering around bone-dry Vermont might have gotten the attention of the weather gods. A little bit, anyway. And just maybe. 

A storm due Thursday night and Friday could give southern Vermont, anyway, a good dousing - at a cost. 

Some of that precipitation could come down as snow.  It's also still questionable how much precipitation, if any, the especially dry northern half of Vermont might get out of this. 

A pretty good nor'easter is still widely forecast to develop somewhere near New England Thursday night and Friday, but as always, the devil is in the details. 

The question we started asking remains: How far north will this storm get before it's diverted off to the east by blocking high pressure in Canada.  

It's clear already that northern Vermont won't get as much rain and snow as the southern half of the state. But will the north get anything at all?  Still a question, but we'll take anything at this point. I'm still skeptical, if only because we always seem to get cheated out of rain chances lately. 

That's not a particularly scientific viewpoint, but still. Sue me. 

Southern Vermont looks like they could get an inch of rain and melted snow. There, I said it. The four letter "S" word. The southern Green Mountains have the potential, actually, for a lot of snow.

It's true that it's been quite warm and will continue to be that way today and tomorrow. Nor'easters, though, are pretty adept at manufacturing their own pocket of cold air and this one looks able to do that. 

At this early stage of the forecast, signs point to snow levels falling to below 1,500 feet.  That sets the stage for the potential of six inches or more of snow in the high elevations of southern Vermont, and maybe some accumulation in the valleys.  Don't break out the snow shovels yet, this is just a preliminary look, but things are starting to look wintry with this forecast. 

A snowfall of this magnitude is definitely unusual for this time of year, but not unheard of. It has happened before. 

It's still only Tuesday and the storm isn't due until Thursday night or Friday. That means we're sure to see major adjustments in this tricky storm forecast over the next day or two, so stay tuned! 

The potential Friday storm means all of us Vermonters will probably have a bit of an interruption to this oddly warm weather pattern on Friday.  Highs then will only be in the 40s. That'll come as a shock after all these days in the 60s and 70s, but such relatively chilly daytime temperatures are pretty common for mid-April.

We'll bounce right back into the warm and dry weather over the upcoming weekend, but we don't know how long that will last. Signals seem all over the place in the long term forecasts for the second half of the month. Some forecasts keep us a fair amount cooler than normal, which would put the brakes on this spring, which is racing far ahead of schedule.

Other forecasts keep us on the warm side.  As usual, we'll just get through this week and then see what happens.