Tornadoes Thankfully Fizzled, Winter Weather Now Reigns Supreme, Including Vermont

Vermont Agency of Transportation web cam showed a 
snowy and slippery Route 78 in Alburgh this morning.
Road conditions are tricky in northern Vermont, and
getting worse in central Vermont as colder air
works in.

 There's quite a change in the atmosphere over most of the United States as several days of record warmth, and springlike severe weather is being routed by the forces of January.  

It's still quite warm in the southeast corner of the nation today, and there's a risk of some severe weather in places like Georgia and the Carolinas, but that will get flushed out by the advancing cold front today.

The changes are dramatic.  Houston reached 85 degrees Saturday, its hottest January temperature on record. Today, its in the 40s,and will be in the 20s tonight.

In Tennessee and northern Alabama and Mississippi, where summer like humidity, record warmth and tornado watches settled in on Saturday, there's now a winter weather advisory for one to three inches of snow tonight and tomorrow.  (On the bright side, there were far fewer tornadoes yesterday in the South than there could have been, given the volatile weather set up). 

That Tennessee snow is part of a secondary storm behind the first one that promises to drop six inches or more of snow in parts of the Mid-Atlantic states.

That southern snow will miss Vermont, but the first storm is still doing its business in Vermont. Ultimately, there won't be that much precipitation of any kind in southern Vermont, but it's a snowy day up north.

As of 8:30 a.m. today, the snow had gotten well into central Vermont, with just spotty mixed precipitation further south in the Green Mountain State. The snow line will keep working south, though amounts will continue to be light all day in southern Vermont.  If you're south of Route 4, you'll get less than inch.

 Vermont Agency of Transportation web cams clearly showed the transition to snow and cold working south.  Route 78 in Alburgh and Interstate 89 from Williston north looked snow covered and slippery.  Interstate 89 in Brookfield, which is usually an icy road trouble spot, looked just wet at 8:30 a.m. this morning.

But road conditions were just starting to deteriorate in that area, and the bad road conditions will continue to slip south toward southern Vermont. Although it probably won't ever get too bad in far southeastern Vermont. 

A band of steadier snow will be crossing especially far northern Vermont for much of the day.  Most areas north of Route 2 can expect three to six inches of snow. With temperatures continuing to drop and north winds picking up, blowing and drifting snow will also become an issue. Snow will end tonight, though. 

Franklin County, including St. Albans, is the big winner here in the snow department. The winter weather advisory there has been upgraded to a winter storm warning for an expected five to eight inches of new snow. 

This is the opposite of what usually happens.  St. Albans tends to get less snow as storms pass.  Bigger winter storms are often in the form of nor'easters.  Since the northwest corner of Vermont is furthest from the coast, those nor'easters more often than not drop a little less snow to the northern Champlain Valley. 

Speaking of nor'easters, the snow in the Mid-Atlantic states will be the beginning of one, but that will go too far to Vermont's east and south to have any effect early this week.

Forecasters are still watching a potential yet another nor'easter for this weekend. Although you never know with these things, early indications are it might also go too far to our east to give us a huge snowstorm.  The weekend system is still in question though, and some forecast models bring it close enough to give Vermont some snow. 

So we'll see.