Bulk Of Vermont Rain Over, But Gloom To Hang Tough, Relative Warmth Too

An unwelcome effect of the exceptionally warm 
weather in Vermont since after Christmas: Daffodil 
shoots poking up in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens.

UPDATE 2 PM

It looks like some sort of weak cold front has come into far northern Vermont from Quebec.

South of Route 2, it's still pretty mild and cloudy.

North of the front, temperatures have dropped and patchy fog has developed.

It also looks like a weak southerly flow is causing air to rise up and over that dense cold air in far northern Vermont. 

Rising air can mean precipitation, and patches of light rain and drizzle have broken out.  

It could get cold enough in a few spots for that patchy rain/drizzle to freeze.  I notice the temperature has fallen to 33 in Highgate, so it's close.  The temperature in Montreal has fallen all day and is now down to 23 degrees with freezing drizzle.

So, turns out I'm not doing hard work in my snow-free St. Albans yard this afternoon. I'm also glad I finished driving out doing errands before the temperature started dropping.  Watch out for patchy ice on untreated roads along and north of Route 2 for the rest of the day. Also, drive slowly and make sure your low beam headlights are on in the fog across the north if you are driving.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION 

It's as if the sun had disappeared from the cosmos.

Vermont remains solidly stuck under clouds.  It's been cloudy since New Year's Eve, with only a few breaks. The gloom thickened up later on Tuesday and has held firm since. And if the forecasts are right, we're going to deal with it for awhile yet.  

But the sun will come out. If not tomorrow, then over the weekend. 

There's even a glimmer of hope for this afternoon. We could see a glimpse or two of sun in that short window between noon and sunset.

The main storm with slogged through last night with its rain, sometimes on the heavy side. As updated forecasts indicated last night, we thankfully have very little if any ice to report. It was just a cold, drenching rain. 

Bad for the ski slopes, good for today's morning commute.

An exception to the no ice regime is the Northeast Kingdom, where enough cold air filtered in to drop temperatures down to freezing. I bet there's some slick spots on the roads near towns like Island Pond. 

It looks like the western Champlain Valley in New York had some freezing rain, too. Plattsburgh was down to 32 degrees during a good part of last night's rainfall.

One last slug of rain before dawn today marked the passage of a weak warm front of sorts.  That means, especially west of the Green Mountains, it's going to be a bit warmer than forecast this afternoon.

It was already 40 degrees in Burlington as of 8 a.m. so I wouldn't be surprised if it gets up to 45 or so this afternoon. Especially if there's any thin spots in the overcast.  Chiller air is trapped in eastern Vermont, so it might not get out of the 30s there.

I also have to say something about the weird temperatures in Burlington yesterday. Since the cloud cover was so thick and the air mass didn't change at all, there was only a two degree difference between the high and low temperature  - 37 and 35 degrees.

It's very, very rare to have such a slight range in temperature in one day. Normally, there's a 15 degree range between low and high temperatures this time of year.

Going forward, it looks like we'll be pestered by bits and pieces of light rain, light snow, perhaps a patch or two of freezing drizzle, and lots of clouds and murky weather into Saturday.  

The precipitation won't amount to all that much. There could be a slick spot or two on the roads. And the mountains could see a couple inches of snow.  That's not much, but anything will help up there at this point. 

Temperatures will trend cooler on Sunday, allowing ski areas to make some snow. Overall, though, it should stay warmer than normal at least through Wednesday. Not as warm as it's been, but still, most of us will have daytime temperatures above freezing - except on Sunday.

There are signs it could turn colder during the second half of next week. Not extremely cold, but perhaps something close to normal for January. 

Snow lovers are out of luck for now. The latest atmospheric river to slam California won't do anything for us. It will yield a weak storm that will pass by well to our south probably on Monday.  It won't affect us.