Vermont Thursday Evening Storm Update: Still Icky Tonight, Still Few Question Marks

The National Weather Service in South Burlington has 
increased snow totals with this storm in northwestern
New York. Will they also need to upgrade expected
snowfall a little in northwestern Vermont for Friday?
Good question, and as of Thursday night, nobody
really has a good answer. 

 After an initial burst of snow earlier today, the weather settled into the mild-ish, gloomy and dark conditions we've become so accustomed to so far this month in Vermont. 

The snow didn't amount to much, but the real slug of precipitation is now on our doorstep. It's going to be an unpleasant night and Friday in the Green Mountain State.

Although the overall forecast hasn't changed much since this morning, I'm on the alert for some potential surprises Friday, especially in northwestern Vermont. 

Before we get to tomorrow morning, we need to deal with tonight.

 The main bulk of precipitation was just starting to enter southwestern Vermont as of 5 p.m. and will spread northeastward across the state pretty quickly this evening. This will be mostly rain and freezing rain in Vermont overnight. 

For the majority of us, this will be mainly a drenching, really cold but not quite freezing rain. Temperatures will stay in the mid 30s for most of us during most of the rain.  It won't be a nice night to be outdoors, that's for sure. 

Some areas are also due for a fair amount of freezing rain as well. It will be spotty, and mostly along and east of the Green Mountains. Like I said this morning, it will be a tricky night for driving. There will be random patches of freezing rain just about anywhere in the eastern half of Vermont, and you won't know exactly where they are when you're driving until you encounter them. 

The southeastern half of Vermont still looks like you might see a quick spike in temperatures well up into the 40s before dawn, and continuing into the first part of daylight. Enjoy the warmth, it won't last. 

The rain will come down fairly hard, and we're still expecting an inch or so of rain and/or melted ice. I don't see any real flooding to worry about, but hydroplaning on the highways, deep puddles on streets and other drainage issues might crop up. Main rivers will turn higher and faster, but won't actually flood.

FRIDAY

Here's where things get tricky, with a huge forecast bust potential

The one big change the National Weather Service office in South Burlington made was to upgrade the winter weather advisory to a winter storm warning in New York's St. Lawrence Valley. It looks like things will go over to snow pretty quickly there, and they'll probably end up with six to eight inches of snow out of this.

For those of you in Vermont are saying who cares about the St. Lawrence Valley, this upgrade raises questions for northwestern parts of the state. Will the cold air flood in earlier on Friday than expected? Will that mean more snow than the paltry one to three inches in the forecast.

I'm really not sure. The NWS South Burlington suggested in their forecast discussion that they might have to extend their winter storm warning further east in northern New York, but how far east, if they do? 

It's already looking like the changeover from a cold rain to snow will come earlier Friday than originally thought. The thinking earlier was we'd start getting into sleet and snow in the Champlain Valley during Friday afternoon.  It's beginning to look like it might come earlier, perhaps mid morning. If trends continue, it might even be earlier than that. If that happens, we'd have an unpleasant surprise for the morning commute.

We're not sure on that yet, but the further south and east you go in Vermont, the less chance of big snow and ice problems on Friday. My best guess is anything north and west of roughly a Middlebury to St. Johnsbury line could have a challenging Friday, especially from mid-morning to evening.

It's not like there's going to be tons of snow, but with wet roads freezing, and snow falling, it won't be great. It's still safe to say the northwest will see one to four inches, with less and less the further southeast you go in Vermont. 

Everything will basically be over Friday night. 

The weekend forecast continues to be on the quiet side, but there are hints of minor surprises toward Sunday as well. Mostly in eastern Vermont. I'll get into that more in Friday morning's update.