Suddenly, Vermont Is Looking Almost Normal For Late January, That Will Continue Into February

Vermont Agency of Transportation web cam caught a 
lovely winter sunset late this afternoon along Interstate
89 in Milton. However, heavier snow showers were
making roads much slicker than they look here near
and in the Green Mountains this evening. 

 Vermont just got through the third in a series of quick hitting winter storms in about a week, and suddenly, this bizarrely warm winter doesn't look so warm and weird anymore. 

Oh, sure, January is still running way balmier than normal and the relatively colder conditions over the last five days of the month won't transform that. 

Snowfall has gotten much better, but is still unimpressive compared to some of the epic snow years Vermont has had in the past.

But the landscape now looks kind of the way it's supposed to in January.

The latest storm is all but over, and I'm sure the National Weather Service in South Burlington will drop winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories in Vermont pretty soon. Final accumulations seem to be in the five to eight inch range north, with a little less south. I did see a report of a foot of snow in Westfield, over in Orleans County.

There's some upslope snow showers on the western slopes of the Green Mountains as well.  As of about 4:30 p.m. there was nothing coming out of the sky near Lake Champlain, and some flurries inland a little bit where I live in St. Albans, about five miles east of the lake. 

Radar images looked like it was really dumping on the western slopes at that time. But that heavier snow shouldn't last that long this evening.  Flurries will probably last much of the night in the mountains, but won't be a big deal after, say 8 p.m. 

Do be careful on the roads, though. A sort of cold front has passed through late this afternoon. That has made temperatures drop and winds pick up. Roads are freezing back up, so you'll need to be careful as you're driving around this evening. 

Depending on where you are, some roads are still bad. Interstate 89 in Bolton looked snow covered and slippery on Vermont Agency of Transportation web cams. But the Interstate in Williston looked pretty good. Elsewhere, the webcams depicted a snow-covered Route 108 in Stowe with traffic seriously backed up. It looked like it was snowing pretty hard, with snow covered pavement along Interstate 89 in Waterbury. 

This photo captures the state of weather affairs in Vermont 
early this evening. In this view from St. Albans, 
clearing skies have appeared over Lake Champlain.
Where this photo was taken on the eastern end of
St. Albans, flurries and falling temperatures were 
making the road kind of slick. Heavier snow was
falling along the western slopes of the Green Mountains
to the east of where this photo was taken. 

Many areas of Vermont now have around a foot of snow on the ground after these three storms. The water equivalent of that snow seems to equate to about 1.5 to 2 inches with more in the mountains. isn't expected to last long. 

That is not at all impressive for late January, but it's definitely a closer to normal than it was about a week and a half ago. 

We're still behind in snowfall for this winter so far, but not ridiculously so, like it was just over a week ago. Back on January 18, Burlington was at 17.2 inches below normal for that point in the season. As of today, Burlington was just 8.8 inches below average. 

We at least stand a chance of seeing more installments of snow, although they will be small little incremental things. The best chance is on Sunday, when many of us could receive two to three inches of additional snow. Though, given the winter it's been, some computer models warm us up enough to get a mis. Let's hope not. 

Temperatures early next week look like they will actually be slightly below normal  for a change. It won't be a big deal for any of us, but highs near 20  to 25 and lows in the single numbers and teens will definitely feel like a change. 

Some computer models actually give us a sharp but brief Arctic outbreak around February 3 and 4 that could drop our temperatures way, way below zero. That's not an official forecast, because it's so far in the future a lot of things could change. 

But, it seems as if, for now anyway, it's winter in Vermont. About a month and a half late, but there you go.