Friday Evening Update: A Surprise Brief Snow Thursday, A Balmy Friday, And Another Snowy Surprise Tonight?

A surprise burst of wet snow Thursday afternoon kept
St. Albans, Vermont looking a bit more wintry than
expected, but......

 Although overall forecasts for yesterday and last night's storm were pretty accurate, except for a two or three hour period where the predictions definitely went off the rails.  

The forecast called for a cold rain, mixed with a little wet snow or mixed precipitation close to the onset of the storm. That would have hit mostly the mountains and the Northeast Kingdom.

And that's what happened. At first. Then, a definitely unplanned burst of snow in the valley an hour or two after it started raining.  It wasn't that big a deal, of course. The snow quickly went to rain again as more warm air flooded in.

Video of the event is at the bottom of the post. Interesting how it goes from an ugly February day in Vermont, to one that's kind of pretty, then back to the drab again. 

It was a pretty dynamic system. So much so that lightning was detected in parts of Vermont later Thursday night. The fact the storm had such energy created more lift in the atmosphere. 

More lift means rising air, and more precipitation. But this lift also helped cool the atmosphere more than expected. At least for awhile before even more warm air flooded in. So, for an interval, at least, we had a period of snow.  

Otherwise, the storm played out as expected. There was some rain overnight, today was mild, and a winter throwback is coming tonight for parts of Vermont. More on that in a minute. 

WARM FRIDAY

The warm air peaked this morning, with temperatures in the 40s to near 50 in much of Vermont. 

....but it quickly warmed up again, and by Friday afternoon,
the same scene looked much more like March than February.

In Vermont, temperatures did not quite reach records, but it was surely much warmer than normal. 

Burlington just missed reaching a record high by one degree, as the high today was 45 degrees. 

Today's current record of 46, though, isn't impressive and I'm surprised it still exists. It's the lowest of any record daily highs of the year. Most record highs this time of year are in the 50s

In southern and eastern New England, and further south along the East Coast, record high temperatures were reported this morning. Boston tied its record high of 60 degrees, just six days after suffering through its coldest temperature since 1957. (It was 10 below in Boston last Saturday) 

Cold air usually bleeds in behind any cold front or storm.  Last Friday, behind the Arctic cold front, the temperature plummeted from the 20s above to near 20 below in the span of less than 24 hours. 

This time, the decline in temperatures has been much, much more leisurely, and much less dramatic than last Friday. By 5 p.m. today, much of Vermont was still near 40 degrees. But that's about to change. 

SNOWY RETURN

Kind of an interesting set up for this evening. A secondary cold front will more convincingly drop temperatures into the 20s. At the same time, an upper level disturbance will come east from the northeastern Great Lakes.

That sets us up for another good burst of snow in northern Vermont. Most places north of Route 4 should get some snow, but the main show will be along and north of Route 2. At least the snow will come in well after the Friday evening commute, so we don't have to worry about that.

Even in the northern Champlain Valley, up near St. Albans, Highgate, Swanton, places like that, we could see a quick two or three inches of snow later this evening and overnight. By the time you get down to Burlington, it might only be an inch or so. '

The snow will last longer along the spine of the Green Mountains and the western slopes. Especially from Sugarbush north. Those areas could see a decent three to six inches of snow, with locally up to eight inches in the ski areas.

That will freshen things up after last night and today's thaw. 

Saturday looks like a nice day for winter sports, too. Highs will get into the 20s, with a few low 30s in the warmer valleys. Enjoy it, because March in February is set to continue. 

A BIG WARM SPELL

Every day in the upcoming week will feature above freezing temperatures in Vermont. Signs are pointing toward a super warm spell toward Thursday and perhaps Friday. Temperatures could approach record highs in Vermont. Right now, forecasters are calling for readings to get past 50 degrees on Thursday. 

The record high on this upcoming Thursday in Burlington is 55 degrees. We'll see how that shakes out. 

No big storms are in the offing until Thursday night, when current forecasts seem to hint at a pretty decent slug of rain to come through. 

After Thursday, long range forecasts are tricky. But current hints are that temperatures will remain generally above normal through around February 24. There could be some colder days thrown in there, but most of the time, it would be kinda balmy for February.

Don't think for a minute that means winter is over. March can be a wintry beast. And I have a post coming up within the next couple of days that tells us there's a decent chance March could turn out to be this year's most wintry month.

Stay tuned! 

Video: The changeable weather on Thursday. First, the day was ugly in St. Albans, Vermont. Then suddenly, it wasn't. Then it was. 

 Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that: