We Hope You Like Wind. And Yo-Yos.

A brief squirt of warmer air today has snow sliding off
my St Albans, Vermont roof. An active weather pattern
will continue probably through next week.

An active weather pattern is taking hold for us here in northern New England, and that means wind.  And we also hope you like temperatures that go all over the place.  

We've been in a regime for a little while in which it stays chilly here while a large part of the rest of the nation basks in near record warmth.

That pattern is starting to evolve.  We're still mostly in that chilly flow through the weekend, although today is briefly on the warm side. Today, though, will be the first of a few warm-ish squirts of air we'll probably see at least into the middle of the month.

That means lots of weather fronts will be coming through. Warm, fronts, cold fronts, occluded fronts, we got 'em all. Lots of fronts means lots of storm systems. None of the storms headed our way for the next couple weeks look as if they'll be super strong, but there will be a pretty steady stream of them. 

The changing air masses mean plenty of bouts with wind, and forecasting challenges for meteorologists in and around Vermont. 

The wind has already started today. A storm is going by just to our northwest, so a surge of gusty south winds is coming through, especially in the Champlain Valley.  This also means the bulk of the precipitation today will be rain. It won't be all that much, but it will be rain. Sorry, snow lovers.

The storm's cold front comes through late today with a surge of chilly air. This surge will create some pretty strong northwest winds overnight and into Friday. Those winds will produce some snow showers, especially over the northern Green Mountains. 

Most of us won't get much snow accumulation, but the mountains could get a few inches. Especially up around Jay Peak.

The next storm is a weak little thing on Saturday that will throw a few snow showers our way - no biggie.

The next one comes fast and furiously on that one's heels on Monday. Monday's system will be stronger,.  This one will go by to our west, with strong south winds Monday bringing us another brief squirt of warm air and rain.  The roller coaster will continue on Monday night with a strong cold front coming with colder temperatures and those gusty northwest winds. 

Some other system comes in next Tuesday or Wednesday, but it's too early to figure out what that one will do. Then possibly another mystery system next Friday - a week from tomorrow.

These likely windy storms won't have powerful enough winds to cause much damage.  At worst, there would be some isolated power outages and a few fallen tree branches here and there.  Precipitation with any of these storms won't be super heavy, either. So at this point, I don't see much of a risk of flooding or excessively deep snowstorms. 

But meteorologists will be faced with the challenges of when rain might turn to snow or back again, when roads might freeze and thaw, and how mixed precipitation might factor in.  These storms will be moving quickly, too, so they're fast moving targets. 

Forecasters will really need to be on their toes for the next week at least.