 |
| Quick bursts of snow this morning dusted my truck in St. Albans, Vermont. An unsettled weekend will yield to what will become the first real cold wave of the winter later in the week. |
A small storm heading toward us Sunday will move further north than originally expected. It''ll be battling some cold air trying to bleed in from the north. But since its track will be further north than expected, we lose out what had been a forecast for a nice, manageable Sunday snowfall of two to four inches.
Instead, it looks like we're in for a rain/snow mix, a mini-thaw, and some plain rain. Far northern areas might eek out all snow, but that's iffy.
Things are iffy because the computer models aren't really handling how much warm air floods in from the south versus cold air drifting in from the north. The forecast for tomorrow definitely has a high bust potential. We could be surprised either way.
By the way, we've had brief bursts of snow, mostly north of Route 2, Accumulations are less than an inch most places, but the far northern Green Mountains, say Jay Peak, might be getting an unexpected couple or few inches this morning.
Today will be warm again for January, though, with highs in Vermont valleys should get well into the 30s. We could see some more snow showers in the mountains, though. It won't amount to much.
On the bright side, even after this warm-ish weekend, we should still have plenty of snow on the ground. The minor thaw this afternoon, and the sloppy warmth of Sunday should be brief. The quality of the snow might degrade a little, but we'll still have plenty of it to play in.
Many areas of the Green Mountain State have a respectable foot of snow on the ground. The snow cover near the top of Mount Mansfield has gone from a paltry 13 inches on January 8 to 40 inches by Friday.
That's still about seven inches below normal for the date, but at least it's no longer at near record low levels up there near the summit.
THE UPCOMING COLD SNAP
It'll be a gradual fall into the cold. It'll keep stepping down gradually behind a series of cold fronts.
We'll make it into the 20s during the day Monday, and closer to just 20 on Tuesday. Nights will cool off to the single numbers either side of zero by Wednesday morning .
The cold will keep deepening late week, and by Friday and the weekend. If current forecasts hold, we'll be lucky to get to 10 degrees during the afternoon and near 10 below at night, give or take.
That's not yet cast in stone, though. There's various thoughts on just how cold it will get. Some models bring us way, way below zero. I'm talking 20s to near 30 below in the colder hollows and well into the teens below in much of Vermont.
Other models give us just a glancing blow, and it will only turn kind of cold.
As mentioned in a post yesterday, Burlington will have either the third of fourth latest first subzero day of any winter on record with this.
Cold weather patterns like this usually suppress storms well to our south, and that's exactly what's probably going to happen. We'll see snow showers with the cold fronts during the upcoming week, but nothing substantial.
Lake Champlain has very little ice in it for this time of year, so that opens the door for lake effect snows, mostly in southern Chittenden County and Addison County later in the week. A few places could get a couple inches of snow out of that.
COMPARED TO HISTORY
Even the very cold worst case scenario on the forecasts isn't a big deal form Vermont in the grand scheme of things.
Historically, late January to mid-February is when we most often have our worst cold waves. All of the record lows in Burlington from January 31 to February 13 are at least 24 below. A tie for Burlington's coldest on record temperature, minus 30 was on February 12, 1979. It was 29 below on January 27, 1994 and 28 below on February 1, 1920 and February 9, 1934.
The power of Arctic blasts are about as strong as they could be right about now. The Arctic has been in darkness for months, and getting colder and colder. Some time that frigid air has to escape. To places like here in Vermont.
This time of year, there's more likely to be deep snow on the ground, which further refrigerates things on clear, calm, Arctic weather nights.
After mid-February, the strength of winter cold waves tend to diminish with the rising angle of the sun,
Actually, long range forecast suggest the worst of the upcoming cold, modest as it may be, won't last all that long. If those forecasts are correct, it will last a week at most.
We can handle that.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment