Pesky Questions Remain About Weekend Snow In Vermont

The National Weather Service in South Burlington took
a first crack at forecasting Friday night and Saturday's
snowfall. There's a high chance these predictions will
change one way or another, especially in
northern Vermont. 

We know a snowfall is coming to Vermont Friday night and Saturday. Some of us could get quite a bit of it. 

The National Weather Service offices in South Burlington and Albany are confident enough on this that they've issued winter storm watches for all of Vermont Friday night and Saturday. 

The question now is?  Does anybody get a huge dump?  Does anybody sort of miss out and end up with something that's not that big a deal?

I'm kind of surprised that as of Thursday morning, the computer models, at least, don't have a good handle on this.   

At this point, forecasts are slightly leaning toward more snow in central and southern Vermont and a little less far north.  Note I said slightly leaning. There's still a decent chance northern areas could share in a big snowstorm. But if that happens, does southern Vermont lose out, at least somewhat?

The incoming storm is a little like the last one that came through on Tuesday. Except stronger. 

The basic scenario is the same as what happened on Tuesday, though. The main first storm moves up toward Buffalo, New York by later Friday night. Meanwhile, a new storm gets going just south of southern New England, and scoots eastward out to sea on Saturday.  

If the original storm that ends up near Buffalo fades quickly like some computer models suggest, then northern areas will miss out on a lot of the snow. That's because dry air from Quebec would squelch snowfall near the Canadian border. The coastal storm would then dump snow on southern Vermont. 

If that original storm near Buffalo powers through into Quebec, then northern areas get more snow that expected. That's what happened on Tuesday, but just because it happened once, doesn't mean it will happen again.  Underhill this scenario, southern Vermont would be more at risk for mixed precipitation instead of just snow. 

So now that I have explanations/excuses out of the way, here's what we know: 

1. Be prepared for snow, possibly heavy Friday night, going into at least Saturday morning.  The snow should start after Friday afternoon's commute, so you should be fine there. 

2. Although the snow won't be super soggy, it will be fairly heavy and wet. Strong winds aloft could shred the snow into small dense flakes. Also,  temperatures on Saturday near 32 degrees will make the snow kind of dense. A wild card is still the chance of sleet of freezing rain in far southern Vermont. It's possible we'll see power outages in spots, but we don't know yet how extensive they might be. 

3. The best chances of seeing close to a foot of snow would probably be in central Vermont, with the least chances up near the Canadian border. Expect the forecast to change somewhat one way or another as we get closer to the storm. 

4. The storm will be out of our hair on Sunday, and we'll have rather quiet weather, with temperatures near or just a little below normal heading in much of next week. 

By the way, normal highs this time of year are in the 30s, with upper 30s in the Champlain Valley and valleys of southern Vermont.  Normal lows are in the mid teens to low 20s.