Icy Stuff Still In The Cards For Vermont As We Trend Back Toward Winter A Bit

Here's the thinking from the National Weather Service in
South Burlington regarding expected ice accumulations
by tomorrow. Click on the map to make it bigger and
easier to see. There might be enough ice to cause
tree and power line problems in northern New York, but
in Vermont this will be mostly an ice road
and sidewalk kind of problem.

Getting a late start with this post as I'm finally back in Vermont after 10 days away.  We didn't get home until nearly 2 a.m. today.  

So this will be a quick update on the icy situation we have coming in. 

It's quite murky and foggy and drizzly this morning as we're in a saturated atmosphere. It's kind of a disorganized mess of the system, at least in the Northeast. Winds have been light since yesterday, which has allowed the fog to really get going. 

As of late morning, I don't see anybody in Vermont who's below freezing yet. Everybody seems to be in the mid-30s. The problem coming up is a warm front that is stalling in southern New England.  A weak cold front is coming down from Quebec. 

The cold air from the north is shallow, hugging the ground. Meanwhile, the warm front is sending toasty air aloft all the way across the Canadian border. 

Any snow that comes out of the clouds will encounter that warm layer and melt.  

The cold front will leave temperatures near the ground near the freezing mark, trending a bit colder tonight.  So that melted snow, now rain, will freeze on contact in many areas.

Some areas will stay just above freezing, while many other spots will dip a little below freezing later today through Thursday. That means freezing rain for most of us. 

Since temperatures will wobble between above and below freezing, this will be mostly an icy road and sidewalk type of scenario. In Vermont, at least, not enough ice will accumulate to cause any problems with trees and power lines. (It's a different story in the St. Lawrence Valley of New York, where there might be a little trouble in that regard).

A winter weather advisory for this mess is in effect from 1 p.m. this afternoon to 10 a.m. tomorrow. As I noted above, results may vary.  Roads might be totally fine where you are during this, but two miles up the road, it's  skating rink.  

Dead sunflower stalks on a foggy, gloomy, mild
morning today in St. Albans, Vermont.

There won't seem to be much rhyme or reason to who is frozen and who is wet, so just always assume the road is icy no matter where you are through tomorrow. The best chances of ice seem to be in the northern Champlain Valley and parts of the Northeast Kingdom. 

Depending on how assertive, or not, the cold air, some sections of Vermont, especially along and south of Route 2, might see almost no ice.

That thin layer of warm air above us that's creating the conditions for freezing rain will gradually get thicker.  Later tonight, some of that rain will freeze on the way down, so it will be sleet when it lands. Eventually, the warm layer will almost entirely evaporate, so some snow will make it down to the ground without melting. 

Accumulations will be less than an inch for almost everybody. 

But any ice or snow on the ground, no matter how thin, will be a hint of a return to normal. It's odd out there. Not a bit of snow on the ground in most low elevations of Vermont. And the ground isn't even frozen. In January!

I was a little dismayed to come home from my trip to see daffodil shoots popping up in my garden and the forsythia bush budding a little. It's been that warm. 

Winter is coming back, how could it not?  This might mute some blooms in the spring a little.  A few of my daffodils might go AWOL, and the forsythia blossoms might be muted. However, I don't think you'll see any huge effects of this warm winter weather when things blossom in April and May.  It'll still be a delightful, colorful season. 

There might be a little snow Friday, but it won't amount to much.  Temperatures will trend solidly below freezing by the weekend, and even high temperatures will stay at or below 32 degrees.

That's still near normal to a little above for this time of year. I'm still not seeing any real, long lasting blasts of Arctic air through the middle of the month. There might be a cold day or two thrown in here or there, but it's surely not going to get way below zero anytime soon.