Big Vermont/New England Storm Next Week? Hold Your Horses. It's Really Iffy

UPDATE 6 PM FRIDAY

Quick update to this morning's post.

Forecast map has a pretty good storm near New England'
on Tuesday. This is just one of many variations of what
could play out for storminess next week. 

That storm I told you about this morning that would go by to our south still will do so, but the fringe effects in Vermont will

out to be a little more extensive than we thought this morning. 

The storm is more dynamic than it seemed it would be this morning. There's been some heavy snow today in western and central New York, for instance. 

Buffalo, New York has gotten to six inches and it's still coming down.

Here in Vermont, high elevations in far southern parts of the state look like they're in for around four or even five inches of new snow tonight. 

Lower elevations can expect maybe two or three inches. 

That's a contrast to the one to three inches  along and south of Route 9 that we expected this morning. 

The snow will extend further north than anticipated, too. Snowflakes could touch down as far north as Route 2. Low elevations in Rutland and Windsor counties should see an inch or less, but up to two inches or so should come down in ski resorts like Okemo, Killington and Pico.

The storm next week looks more certain for Vermont, too. I still stand by everything I wrote this morning, which you can read below. Except: It's now almost certain that all of Vermont will get some snow. Maybe a little, maybe a lot in some areas. 

If anybody in Vermont gets tons of snow, my initial guess is high elevations of southern Vermont. But that's not a promise.  

There's a risk of heavy, wet snow, too, and power outages if things turn out for the worse. I'll have a bigger update on this upcoming storm in Saturday morning's post, so stay tuned! 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION 

Rumors abound today of a big winter storm to blast Vermont/New England next week. 

Before you get your panties in a bunch over this, you might want to take a deep breath and realize this: It's complicated. As usual. 

Something interesting seems like it wants to happen around New England starting Monday and lasting at least into midweek, but right now it could be anything from a nothing burger, to a mid-sized storm to a blockbuster. 

Right now, I'm not really in the blockbuster camp. At least for most of Vermont. A lot of other meteorologist are skeptical, too. 

So: Here's what's going on. 

I told you about the so-called Greenland Block in a post I published Thursday. That's the big high pressure system that gave Greenland an early taste of summer in recent days but has recently made Vermont's weather pretty humdrum lately. 

That state of affairs will continue through the weekend around here. The Greenland Block is suppressing storms to our south. One storm, which some forecasts several days ago predicted would harass us Vermonters tomorrow is going to pretty much miss. 

This is an eastbound storm from the Midwest should arrive at the Jersey Shore sometime tonight. (Hello, Snooki!). Instead of making a left turn and becoming a nor'easter like many of these storms do, it'll trundle off to the east, thanks to our friend the Greenland Block. 

The storm will stay too far south to give us Vermonters any kind of interesting weather. Oh, sure, there might be an inch or two of snow along and south of Route 9 and some snowflakes as far north as Route 4, but no biggie. 

Expect a blah weekend, though Sunday might give us some sunshine. 

THEN WHAT?

The big high pressure up in Greenland is moving a bit westward, into far northern Canada. That would allow the next Jersey shore-bound storm early next week to turn north and attack us. Maybe. 

One possibility is that the storm will go off the coast like this weekend's will, but then be forces northward or even northwestward into New England Monday night and Tuesday. Since that blocking high pressure is still way up there in northern Canada, the storm's northward progress could be stopped by that roadblock to the north. 

If that happens, the storm could linger near or east of New England at least into Wednesday. If that happens, snow or rain will linger quite a bit longer than it otherwise would, so you could potentially see big snow accumulations. If it's cold enough. 

THE POSSIBILITIES

Temperature is just one question with this potential storm. 

Here are some others:

1. Maybe the Greenland Block will not move fast enough and the storm will just go out to sea and miss New England like the one on Saturday.  

Many forecasts have the storm slowing down near
New England. This is a forecast map for Wednesday,
and you can compare the map above and see
the storm doesn't skedaddle out like most 
storms this winter. Of course, this is
just one depiction of what could happen and
is definitely NOT an official forecast. 

2. The storm could curl northward toward New England, but give eastern New England a big storm and leave us Vermonters just some fringe effects. If it turns out to be a "bomb cyclone," like some models indicate, somebody in New Hampshire, Maine or eastern Massachusetts could get really buried. 

3. The storm could really make a tight northward jog and come inland or close to it in eastern Massachusetts. If that happens, it would rain down there, but Vermont could be in the cross-hairs of a LOT of snow. 

Anything is possible. As of last evening, varying computer models had the storm somewhere between New York City and Bermuda Monday night. So as of this morning, all anybody can do is forecast a dusting to two feet of snow in Vermont during the first half of the week. 

My bias at the moment is against a huge blockbuster, except possibly in southeastern Vermont, but I've been wrong before.  We stand a decent chance of seeing some accumulating snow in at least part of Vermont, but that's as far as I want to go for now.

I don't think meteorologists will have a great handle on forecasting this wannabe storm until Sunday. And even after that, I expect the unexpected. 

Even if we do see a lot of snow, or at least precipitation, remember it's March, and it can easily mix with or change to rain in the valleys. It's warmer this time of year. 

The sun angle is high, too. Even if it stays snow, accumulations would be limited. That's what we saw last Saturday. It snowed all afternoon, but there was no new accumulation with the sun's heat working its way through the clouds. 

MARCH 12-15 SNOW BOMB MAGNET?

Here's one thing that could give cause for concern with this potential storm, but it is completely unscientific. 

There's something about March 12-15 that seems to attract mega-snowstorms to Vermont and other parts of New England. 

The famous blizzard of 1888, which dumped up to 50 inches of snow on southwestern Vermont and two to three feet across most of the state, struck on March 12-14.

On March 13-14, 1984, three feet of snow  fell on most of the southern four counties of Vermont within 24 hours, while eastern Vermont received two feet. Just the Champlain Valley was spared. "Only" 10 inches fell on Burlington.

The famous "Storm of the Century" hit the eastern United States, including Vermont on March 12-14, 1993. Here in Vermont, most of us had around two feet of snow, which included snow thunderstorms. Although the storm was huge even by Vermont standards, the impacts here weren't as bad as in many other states, so in Vermont, I dubbed the blizzard, "Storm of the Weekend."

More recently, the "Pi-Day Blizzard" struck Vermont on March 14, 2017. Northwestern Vermont was plastered with up to 32 inches of snow. At times, snow fell at a whopping rate of five inches per hour. Burlington received 30.4 inches of snow, its second biggest snowstorm on record,.

Other large snowstorms have hit Vermont in this time period in recent years. Burlington's 13th biggest snowstorm on record hit on March 12-13, 2014 with 18.7 inches. 

Another snowstorm on March 13-14, 2018, deposited as much as 30 inches of snow on Eden, Stowe, and Westfield, Vermont. At my place in St. Albans, I struggled with 18.5 inches of heavy, wet snow. 

I think big snowstorms hit in mid-March because it's often still just cold enough to snow around here. But the South is warming into spring. The clash between the warmth of spring and lingering winter cold is often greatest in mid-March. Which can result in some big storms. 

I don't know whether next week's storm will join the list of mid-March blockbusters. If it does, it will add to a long list.