Historic Northeast Blizzard Set To Strike; Some Vermont Forecast Adjustments

Predicted accumulations of snow with this nor'easter.
Since this map was made, projections have 
been bumped westward a bit, so the strip from 
eastern Pennsylvania through eastern Vermont
could easily get a bit more than projected here.
Click on map to make it bigger and
easier to read. 

 Well, this will be an impressive storm. 

Maybe not for everybody here in Vermont, but for large swaths of the Northeast, where a full-blown blizzard is likely in some areas from New Jersey to Maine. 

Up here in Vermont, we're definitely not in the crosshairs of this storm. However, there's been a few forecast adjustments, especially for southeastern Vermont. I'll get into that further down in this post. 

Depending upon where the heaviest snow bands set up, a few cities in eastern New England could see their largest snowstorm on record.  

We're already seeing some comparisons to the famed Blizzard of '78, though coastal storm surge destruction will be much, much less than that extreme New England disaster in 1978

However much snow Boston and other areas receive out of this, the snow will be tough to measure. Rare blizzard warnings are now posted for coastal New Jersey and along the east coasts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and southern Maine. 

I'm pretty sure blizzard warnings will be expanded to some other areas of the Northeast as well. 

In Boston, this is the first blizzard warning since March, 2018. Winds along the New England coast could gust to 75 mph. 

This will be a cold storm for areas under blizzard and winter storm warnings. Frigid air from places like, well, here in Vermont will get sucked into the storm, dropping temperatures into the teens and low 20s during the height of the storm. 

This will create an especially powdery snow which will blow around easily.  Anyone in the blizzard and winter storm warning zone should just hunker down at home Saturday and not venture out.  The zero visibility, snowfall rates in some areas of three to four inches per hour and the howling winds will almost certainly get you trapped in frigid conditions if you're out walking or in your car. 

It'll be interesting to see where the heaviest snow will set up.  There's almost always an especially heavy band of snow to the northwest of a nor'easter's center, and this will be no exception.  Somewhere in eastern New England, there could be a narrow band of up to three feet of snow, with as little as a foot in lull areas either side of that band.

The storm certainly has enough dynamics and moisture to work with. It'll get some added energy from warmer than normal water temperatures off the New England coast. The National Weather Service in Boston is describing this as a "fire hose" of moisture off the Atlantic.  

Fingers crossed, but the storm surge flooding might not be all that extreme. The worst of the storm surge in New England is expected to come Saturday afternoon, near low tide.  That will minimize destruction, but there still will be erosion, some flooding and battering waves.

Luckily, the storm will be moving right along, so it will be over for New England, except perhaps northeastern Maine, by Sunday. 

VERMONT IMPACTS

The forecast track of the storm seems to be drifting a little further west with each forecast cycle, so we'll see a little more oomph than original thought, especially in the southeastern corner of Vermont. It still looks like little or no snow in the northwestern part of the state, unless there's a big surprise. 

Whatever happens,  Saturday is NOT going to be a nice day anywhere in Vermont, even as we avoid the worst of the storm.  

Winter storm severity index. Click on map to make it
 bigger and easier to see.  Areas in red depict
major, damaging impacts. Subtle purple areas in
map are small areas of extreme expecred impacts

The latest in a long series of Arctic cold fronts is moving through Vermont this morning.  A few snow showers are drifting down, but they won't amount to too much. I can see a few places getting an inch or even two this morning, but most areas should see a half inch or less.

 As of 8:15 a.m. it's snowing lightly but at a decent clip, and we have a half inch new here in St. Albans, Vermont. 

Of course the latest brief blip of mild-ish air will quickly flush out today. Temperatures in the 20s today will crash into the single numbers this afternoon and back below zero for most of us tonight. The winds will continue. 

Then the storm will approach.  Forecasters have expanded a winter storm watch - not a warning, at least not yet - in New Hampshire all the way to the Connecticut River, and in Windham County, Vermont. This is  down around Brattleboro, Newfane, that neck of the woods.

If the more westward track holds, these areas along the Connecticut river and in far southeastern Vermont could easily receive a half foot of badly windblown snow.  It's still a bit of a question mark, but the chances of that type of impact there seem to be rising.

Depending upon the track and intensity of the nor'easter, some light snow might battle its way as far west as Rutland County, and along the spine of the Green Mountains all the way to Route 2, or perhaps even the Canadian border. 

Since the storm will be heading due north, the cut off of snow versus no snow in Vermont could largely be north-south instead of on a southwest to northeast orientation as per usual.  If the north-south orientation takes shape, parts of the Northeast Kingdom could squeeze out a few inches of snow fro this. 

In any event, the storm's attempt at light snow in Vermont will be battling very dry air draining south from Quebec so that bit of snow might not win the battle. The bottom line is, unless there's more surprises, like a firmer westward jog in the storm track, snow outside the southeast corner of Vermont does look lame at best.

We'll still be in the wind envelope of the storm, though, so north winds will gust to 40 mph in some areas as temperatures stay in the single numbers under an overcast sky. A nasty day indeed.

Looking further ahead, that promised thaw later in the week now has an iffy character at least in northern Vermont.  Conditions Thursday and Friday in the Green Mountain State could get "interesting" and troublesome late next week, but let's just set that aside for now and get through this nor'easter.