Wintry, Windy Rest Of Sunday In Vermont, And There's Always Some Sort Of Storm Thanksgiving Week

The National Weather Service's seven day map of expected
precipitation shows something coming through the 
Northeast. We'll see what happens.

This is among the stormiest times of year in the United States. The increasingly strong rushes of cold air from Canada conflict with the lingering warmth of autumn in the south.  

Plus the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes don't cool down in the autumn as fast as the air. So they're relatively warm.  

All this clashing helps encourage storms. There's almost always some sort of disruptive storm somewhere in the nation during Thanksgiving travel time.

True to form it does look like we here in Vermont will have to deal with some sort of precipitation event toward the end of the week. How much and what type of precipitation is still way open to question, but it's something to keep an eye on.

The good news is it looks like whatever comes out of the sky will wait until after Thanksgiving Day itself to do so.

Before we get there, we'll have to deal with a pretty real blast of winter today and tonight.  Some of the last vestiges of that huge band of lake effect snow made it into Vermont early this morning, so many of us saw a dusting of new snow.

Meanwhile, a piece of the famous polar vortex is being tugged down briefly right on top of us today and tonight.

As a reminder, the Polar Vortex is a normal big circulation of very cold air that always sets up shop somewhere in the Arctic during the winter. It drifts around, and sometimes it gets elongated so that it extends further south, or pieces of it break off. Whoever is under the elongation or the broken piece gets to enjoy a sharp cold snap.

Today's our lucky day. 

The super cold air aloft will do three things today that most of us won't welcome. The just sort of cold air near the surface and really, really frigid air high up will increase instability. So you'll see an increase in snow showers, and some of them could be very briefly heavy.

Accumulations won't amount of much, but these could create visibility problems on the roads, along with icy patches

The second thing is the wind coming across the relatively warm water of Lake Champlain might enhance the snow showers on parts of the Vermont side of the lake at least to the summits of the Green Mountains.

This won't be anything like the six feet of snow from the recent Lake Erie snow blitz, but some spots could see an extra inch or two of snow in some areas.

The third thing the cold air aloft is giving us is fairly strong, gusty winds. The same instability that will cause those snow showers will grab high speed air from aloft and bring it to the surface.  I wouldn't be surprised if a couple places have gusts to 40 mph. Many of us will reach at least 30 mph.

This will bring wind chills down to as low as 10 degrees.

Speaking of 10 degrees, some places in Vermont will get that cold tonight and early tomorrow. Not wind chill, actual temperatures. 

The super cold air aloft will quickly depart and go back up where it belongs over Canada, so the weather will turn normal between now and Thanksgiving - highs within a few degrees of 40, lows in the 20s.

Then there's the storm this weekend.  Chances of some sort of precipitation in Vermont Friday and/or Saturday seem to be going up and up. 

We really don't know how much precipitation we'll get and whether it will be snow, rain, ice, slush or all of the above.  A lot of it will depend on whether a coastal storm gets going in this mess, how strong it will get, and whether the coastal storm, if it forms, goes a bit inland or offshore. 

Stay tuned!