Bitter Cold Through Tuesday Night. How To Manage The Deep Freeze

I'm sure many of us Vermonters will relate
to this meme over the next few days. 

  The frigid air is arriving here in Vermont, so we might as well hunker down and deal with the deep freeze.  
 

The first wave of cold air came through a little after midnight, and as dawn breaks, temperatures across most of Vermont are in the teens.

That's not bad by our standards, but as we know, it will get worse. Temperatures will stay steady or slowly fall during the day today, then start to get ridiculous tonight. 

By ridiculous, I mean it will be down to levels we're not used to.  But this won't be anywhere close to a record breaker.  Record lows this time of year are well down in the 20s below zero, and it won't get that cold. At least if you don't factor in the expected wind chill. 

This will be a nasty one, though, as winds continue to blow from the northwest through tonight and tomorrow. 

Vermont's "banana belts" - the Champlain Valley and valleys of southern Vermont, are under wind chill advisories with expected "real feel" temperatures in the minus 20s.  For the rest of northern Vermont, you're under a somewhat more dire wind chill warning tonight and tomorrow, as it's expected to feel like its in the minus 30s in those spots. 

Actual temperatures will get into the upper single numbers and teens below zero for most of us by Tuesday morning.  Tuesday afternoon will "warm"  all the way up to about zero.  I'm not impressed.

It'll be cold again Tuesday night, but in areas west of the Green Mountains, it might actually start to warm up in the wee hours before dawn Wednesday as the coldest core of the bitter air passes off to the northeast.

Wednesday morning will be one of those famous Vermont "warming up frigid" periods. By that I mean temperatures will be slowly rising through the single numbers and teens, but at the same time strong south winds will increase, especially in the Champlain Valley. So wind chills will remain a factor even as temperatures rise.

To refresh your memory on what to do when we get these bitter cold periods, here's a couple tips. For starters, go down right now to the gas station and totally fill up your car's gas tank.  The vehicle will start better in the morning that way.

The full gas tank is a great idea because it always seems you get stuck or slide off the road at the worst possible time, when its frigid. You'll need a full tank of gas to keep the engine running and the heat on if you have to wait.

Don't make the mistake of not dressing for the weather if you're thinking, "Ah, I'm just going from the house, to the car, then getting right out at my destination." That thinking means you might not have warm enough clothes if you unexpectedly have to stay outside for any length of time. 

Even having to deal with a dreaded fender bender will take you outside for awhile, and you want to be ready for it. Also, throw a warm blanket into the car to use, just in case. Bring snacks, too, while you're at it. Protein bars are fine for an emergency.

The reason I'm harping on this is because my past experience with cold snaps is there's always crashes and big long traffic tie ups, especially along places like Interstate 89.  

Bridges tend to have thin sheets of ice on the pavement.  Especially if the bridge is over streams or rivers.  Steam rising from the water in the cold air freezes to the pavement and you end up with black ice. Speed demons who don't know how to drive love to cause problems with these icy patches.

It seems that Every Single Time we get a below zero spell, there's a crash on the Interstate 89 bridges over the Winooski River between the Colchester and Burlington exits.  Those bridges freeze, cars collide, and everybody else then has to sit behind the wreck in stalled traffic all the way to Milton. 

Lake effect snow will also deposit light accumulations of snow in the southern half of the Champlain Valley and in the central Green Mountains during this, too. So there will be issues with slick roads there, too. 

Although it will warm up by Wednesday afternoon, relatively speaking, we still will remain on the chilly side at least through Sunday. 

We might actually make it to near normal temperatures on Thursday (Highs 25-32) before it gets cold again after that.  The next cold snap, Friday through Sunday, won't be as nasty as the one we're about to enter tonight.  But still, we'll have some more subzero temperatures to deal with then.

At this point, forecasters think the cold high pressure feeding that chilly air into Vermont next weekend will keep storminess and snow south and east of us.  However, that's really an uncertain forecast, so we'll have to watch and see what happens.