Vermont Mountains Blasted With Snow, Western Valleys Meh. Power Outages, Valley Snow To Increase

My sister in Shrewsbury, Vermont sent out
this photo early this afternoon, when there
was "only" a foot of snow on the ground.
They've gotten quite a bit more since then.

 This has been by any measure a weird weather day in Vermont.  

Some spots, especially east facing slopes of the southern and central Green Mountains, experienced a day long humdinger of a snowstorm. Valleys of western Vermont, meanwhile, had a mild day with just a little wet snow that didn't really amount to much. 

Things should get more interesting in the western valleys overnight. More on that in a minute. 

The contrast in weather in Vermont is stunning. Here's an example: Rutland, Vermont spend the day hovering just above freezing with a few wet snowflakes flying all day. They had 1.5 inches of new snow in Rutland, at an elevation of about 780 feet.k

 Just eight miles to the southeast of Rutland, in the mountains of Shrewsbury, 16.5 inches of snow had piled up by late afternoon, and it was still snowing to beat the band up there. Shrewsbury is only about 1,000 feet higher than Rutland, with an elevation of about 1,800. 

Also, Shrewsbury is exposed to the very wet air coming  in off the Atlantic Ocean to produce all that snow. The Green Mountains were blocking the moisture from Rutland. 

Here in St. Albans, at my 650 foot elevation, we got about 1.2 inches of snow this morning, then it started melting. Then we had a dusting, which melted, another dusting, which melted, etc. etc.   In total, I'm about up to 1.8 inches. My driveway is almost bare, but grassy surfaces have three inches of new snow. Up the hill from my place at 800 feet, the snow is noticeably deeper.

As a harbinger of what is to come tonight, it does look like the snow in St. Albans is starting to stick a little more as of 5:45 p.m. 

It was like this all up and down the state of Vermont, though northern Vermont hasn't gotten as much snow as Shrewsbury, at least not yet. 

POWER OUTAGES

The big, big issue tonight in Vermont and surrounding areas will be power failures from the wet, heavy snow. As of 5:25 p.m., about 5,400 Vermont homes and businesses were without power, and that number was rising. As snow continues to fall overnight, and spreads north and into western Vermont valleys, those power outages could really get out of hand. 

Power failures are starting with as little as four inches of snow accumulation, which gives you an idea how wet and soggy this stuff is. 

If your power is still on this evening, it would be a terrific idea to charge your devices. Even though there's not much snow at my place in St. Albans yet, I just plugged in my phone to be on the safe side.

EXPANDING SNOW

Meanwhile, this is a Vermont Agency of Transportation
web cam image of Route 7 in Bennington, Vermont at 
mid-afternoon. Quite a contrast in weather across
the Green Mountain State today!

Bands of snow were lifting south to north across Vermont late this afternoon, as they have been all day, especially east

The computer models continue to insist that bands of snow on the northwest flank of the storm will set up shop over Vermont tonight with heavier snow in places that missed out. 

The heaviest snow is forecast to come to northwestern Vermont a little after midnight. Since the temperature won't drop much tonight, the snow will be wet. That's why I brought up those power outages.  

ROAD CONDITIONS

As of 5:30, main roads were fine and dandy in the low elevations of western Vermont. Just wet. But it will keep getting worse overnight in western Vermont, especially north of Rutland. 

Areas in the snow reported lots and lots of crashes, slide offs, skids and accidents. Too many to keep track of, really. 

Other areas, they were almost impassable with wet, heavy snow. In some cases on more rural roads, branches and trees have started falling onto roads, which makes things more challenging, to say the least.

Anyone that's been getting heavy snow ought not venture out. Not only are the roads bad, do you really want to risk a tree falling on you?  Didn't think so.

ACCUMULATIONS

As you might expect with such a warm, wimpy day, expected snow totals have been trimmed back to four to eight inches in the Champlain Valley and on the valley floor along and near Route 7 from Brandon to Bennington. 

Not surprisingly, the big winners of this storm look to be the summits and east slopes of the Green Mountains from roughly Killington south. Many of these places will receive two feet of snow, with a few spot reports of 30 inches not out of the question by Saturday afternoon. 

Northern Vermont has lagged southern areas somewhat, but we do have reports of a decent slap of six to 10 inches of snow at mid and high elevations in central and northern Vermont by late this afternoon.

Official forecasts call for nearly a foot of snow in many high elevations of northern Vermont. But I wouldn't be surprised to see a few spot locations ski country making it to two feet by Saturday afternoon. 

AFTER TONIGHT

The snow is still expected to taper off Saturday, especially in the valleys. It'll keep going in the mountains at least into Sunday night, but at a much lighter rate than it did during the day today. This really is a bonanza for the ski areas. 

I'm not even going to get into what goes on beyond tomorrow, but it does look like a relatively cold, active pattern with more chances of snow between now and Christmas. 

Oh, I have another contrast to highlight. We had a lot of differences between low and high elevations today. We also have a big contrast between Vermont's weather today and exactly one year ago. On this date in 2021, Burlington reached a record high of 61 degrees.  I was doing yard work in a t-shirt in St. Albans just a year ago.