Do Snow-Free Early Winters In Vermont Doom The Entire Season To Snow Drought?

Another gloomy, warm, drizzly and snow free morning
in St. Albans, Vermont today.  Early winters with a 
lack of snow often, but not always lead to 
lackluster total winter snowfall.

 So far, December, 2022 in Burlington, Vermont has yielded a whopping trace of snow. This after just three inches in November.  

There's no snow to speak of in the immediate forecast, though for all we know the second half of December could turn out blizzardy. There's just no way to know.

Nonetheless, I looked at past lame starts to the snow season through the Burlington, Vermont National Weather Service office's tremendous climate pages on their web site. 

It seems that more often than not, a slow start to winter means the overall snow season is lackluster. But that's certainly not always the case.

It really isn't a surprise that the November and Decembers in the winters that had the least snowfall in Burlington all had modest accumulations as well.

I also looked at the top 10 list of least snowy Decembers on record in Burlington. This actually involves 12 Decembers and winters since there were a couple of ties in the list.

Of the 12 least snowy Decembers nine of those entire winters ended up with below normal snowfall. Three of those winters were in the top 10 list for least snowy seasons.

One of them, 1992-93 was among the snowiest winters on record, even though that December was the fifth least snowy December in the listings.

That's not to say we know anything about how this winter will turn out.  It's just fun looking at the statistics in an attempt to read the tea leaves. 

December, 2022 is still young, so there's still plenty of time to get socked by a lot of snow.  Or a pattern change that could yield an overall snowy winter. But at this point, I'd judge the chances of a snowy upcoming winter as a little less than 50/50.

And those chances will probably decline if we fail to get snow for the rest of the month.