Winter Not Over, But Brutal Stuff Gone For Quite Awhile In Vermont

A hazy, gloomy start to a winter workweek in St. Albans,
Vermont. After that Arctic blast Friday and Saturday,
we've settled back into that warm-ish, dreary 
weather pattern we've had most of this winter. 

As I often do on a Monday morning, I'm assessing the upcoming week's weather in Vermont.

On the bright side, there won't be nearly as much drama as we had Friday and Saturday with that intense cold snap.  

On the negative side for snow lovers, we've got some thawing coming up, mostly in the valleys. And the prospects for more snow are uncertain at best. It's that kind of winter. After the Arctic  blast, the winter of 2022-23 is up to its old warm and snow droughty tricks. 

The climb back out of the deep freeze in Burlington was impressive. The temperature steadily rose without a break from 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 p.m. Sunday night. It went from 15 below to 38 above during that time, a whopping 53 degree warmup within 36 hours.   (The temperature did go up another degree to 39 degrees later that night).

Several spots, including Burlington, managed to stay above freezing all night, too. 

That won't last, as we will see a brief return to winter today and tonight. But this will only be average cold for February. Nothing extreme in the least. 

We've had a lot of backward temperature trends lately, in which it gets colder at a time of day it should be getting warmer, and other moments where it's getting warmer when the time of day suggests it should be getting colder. 

We'll have another episode of that today. As the morning and early afternoon wears on, it will get colder and colder in most of Vermont when temperatures would normally be rising. This won't be a spectacular  temperature crash like we had on Friday. Instead, readings will slowly glide downward into the 20s by mid and late afternoon.

That sets us up for a chilly night tonight, but again, nothing breathtaking.  Most of us will probably wind up in the single numbers above zero.

THE REST OF THE WEEK

A small storm passing by will warm us right back up Tuesday and Tuesday night. It won't be that warm - in the 30s  - so it will be light rain, light snow or an unpleasant mix of glob and sludge.  Luckily we won't have much of it.

After a quiet and warm-ish Wednesday, 30s to near 40 again, we start seeing some huge question marks in the forecast. 

One not-so-strong storm Thursday night and early Friday will will pass nearby or just to our west. That will mean another unwelcome bout of rain, maybe some freezing rain, and even a little sleet or snow thrown in. Again, that's the winter we're having, isn't it!

The only decent shot of snow we have is if a follow-up storm rides up the coast or not on Saturday. The forecasting computer models vehemently disagree on what, if anything will come our way. (I'd almost like to see a physical fight between those computer models, but that probably won't happen. Sorry).

Some models do have a decent storm, some have a nothingburger. The models that do have a storm coming up the coast disagree on whether it will be snow or rain, or a mix. They also disagree on how much of anything we'll get.

At this point, if you want to know Saturday's weather, you're just as good doing a coin toss. Or just wait for updated forecasts later in the week.