Still Looking Like Icky Vermont Weather Christmas Day

It's going to feel like you're on Winters Lane no matter 
where you're driving in and near Vermont Christmas Day.
Freezing rain and some snow is unfortunately 
in the forecast, so travel will be iffy. 

 UPDATE 5 p.m FRIDAY

Unfortunately, so far, little change in the yucky ucky forecast for Christmas Day in Vermont.

The timing is bad. The snow and freezing rain starts early, before dawn for most of us, and doesn't end to late Christmas night.

The Champlain Valley and the warmest valleys of southwestern Vermont still look like they might go over to plain rain for a little while. 

But pavement temperatures are low, so even if the temperature is say, between 33 and 35 degrees, the rain might still freeze on roads.

Especially if they are untreated. More on this first thing tomorrow morning

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

It doesn't take much of the wrong kind of precipitation to mess up your day, and that's still looking like our fate here in Vermont on Christmas Day.  

Roadways will be hazardous due to light snow, quickly transitioning to freezing rain in much of Vermont.   

The fact that precipitation will be light, and could be plain rain in spots actually makes driving all the more hazardous.

It leads to overconfidence. It's barely sprinkling, that can't be a problem! The temperature gauge on the dash board says it's 33 degrees, there can't be ice on the roads! 

Um, no. You're cruising along on wet pavement, your speed has increased to 50 mph. Then suddenly you have to brake, just as you've hit an iced-over area. Not good.

So if you're like me and have to travel around Vermont tomorrow, don't get full of yourself. Just assume everything you're driving or walking on is ice-covered. 

It's still a tricky Christmas Day forecast. As the National Weather Service in South Burlington notes in their forecast discussion, temperatures will be near 32 degrees through a pretty thick layer of the atmosphere. 

That means almost anything can be coming down at any given time.  The latest thinking - still subject to change - is that snow will quickly go over to freezing rain south and west of Interstate 89 tomorrow morning.  Areas north and east of I-89 have a shot at staying all snow most if not all of the day. 

Warmer places like the Champlain Valley from Burlington south and some of the Route 7 corridor in Rutland and Bennington counties might go over to plain rain for a time late in the morning and the afternoon.

This isn't just Vermont under a winter weather advisory.  The eastern two thirds of New York, most of southern New England and the southern half of New Hampshire are under similar alerts for icy roads and such on Christmas Day. 

As the weak storm causing this mess heads east Christmas night, mixed precipitation will change to light snow overnight here in Vermont. It'll taper off Sunday morning, lingering longest in the mountains. 

Still, the "snowiest" places will only probably see one to three inches out of this. 

Since the precipitation will be light, we won't have to worry about trees and power lines caving in under the weight of ice. There just won't be that much of it. 

Snowfall looks meager, too. Even in places in the Northeast Kingdom that manage to avoid any freezing rain.