We Can Forget About That Potential Nor'Easter (I think!)

It looks like instead of a big snowy nor'easter early next week
we'll get more of this. Typical November gloom. My backyard
sure is no longer lively, with mulched garlic, clymatis dying
back brown hydrangea in the background and 
dead leaves strewn everywhere. 

 There's been lots of speculation about a potential nor'easter early next week that would disrupt Thanksgiving travel in and near New England. 

The good news is that nor'easter is looking less and less likely, at least for now. The bad news is there still might be some travel disruptions. 

Disruptions even without any real blockbuster storms to talk about. More on that in a minute.  

The nor'easter speculation came because of a big developing blocking high pressure system near Greenland.  That would gum up the works in the normal, general west to east flow of weather systems.

That would allow a storm coming in from the west to plow into this blockage and help develop the nor'easter and keep it near the coast.

It still looks like that storm from the west will come and generate that nor'easter. But the blocking high pressure area near Greenland now looks like it will develop a little later and a little too far to the east to steer the storm toward New England.

Instead, chances are increasing it will develop well east of New England and meander around, well offshore. It'll be close enough to keep us in a cool northwest flow for the first half of next week, and maybe generate a few snow showers for us, especially in the mountains, but that's about it.

Forecasters will still need to watch this in case the storm does manage to form closer to the coast. It still could happen, but the chances of that seem to be diminishing. I think you're safe from that storm unless you plan to be on a boat a few hundred miles east of Cape Cod next week. 

That's not to say we won't have travel disruptions. Things are so sensitive with airlines now.  They have staff shortages, Covid restrictions, and very heavy travel demand between now and Thanksgiving. It won't take much to throw a monkey wrench into the whole system.

That monkey wrench could prove to be that initial storm coming in from the west. In the grand scheme of things, that storm isn't anything extreme for November.

It will throw some wind and snow through the Great Lakes. The Northeast, including Vermont, will have a bout of wind and rain, especially on Monday.  That all could  trigger a few flight delays, which would have a cascading effect of more canceled and delayed flights as airline staff would end in the wrong places at the wrong times as a result.

So be patient. 

At this point, it doesn't look like we'll have any big snows to screw up driving along Vermont's highways over the Thanksgiving holiday.

On the bright side these mid-sized, but frequent storms recently have been good for Vermont. The U.S. Drought Monitor took northern Vermont out of drought conditions three weeks ago.

Ground water levels haven't fully recovered in far northern Vermont east of the Champlain Valley, so that area is still considered "abnormally dry."  A continued active weather pattern should help with that.