Tuesday Evening Vermont Snow Update: This Huge Winter Storm Confounded Meteorologists

Cars having a hard time negotiating the hill near my
house on Fairfield Hill Road in St. Albans during heavy 
snow early this afternoon.

 The over-performing winter storm in Vermont continued to pull surprises this afternoon in Vermont, dumping more unexpected snow on the Champlain Valley and racking up accumulations in southern Vermont that outdid even some of the more wild-eyed forecasts. 

This had to be one of the most poorly forecast winter storms I've experience in Vermont. 

This is NOT a diss at the meteorologists who tried to forecast it. The storm had all kinds of weird aspects, did weird things and is following a weird path that makes forecasting the damn thing impossible. 

Given the strength and surprises from this storm, problems continued to accumulate all day, almost as fast as the snow. 

Reports continued to come in all day of roads blocked by fallen trees, power lines and branches. 

Power outages peaked at about 38,000 in Vermont around noon before leveling off at around 31,000 for most of the afternoon. That's a lot! 

There were vehicle crashes too. Vermont State Police reported responding to 106 crashes through 3 p.m. today, but so far only three injuries have been reported.

Among the scariest was in Richmond, where a motorist lost control on a slushy road and sideswiped a school bus, causing quite a bit of damage to both vehicles. Luckily, none of the kids on the bus were hurt. The drivers are OK, too.

Meteorologists did get some things right. Yes, more snow fell on some parts of the south than forecast. However, forecasters had warned us for days that the mountains of southern Vermont would be in trouble with deep, heavy, wet snow that would screw around with power lines, and that certainly happened. 

Snow totals continue to impress. The most I've seen so far is an astounding 32.4 inches in Marlboro, Vermont, 28 inches in Wilmington and 27.3 inches in Readsboro.  

Accumulations were just slightly more than expected in central Vermont, amounting to 8 to 12 inches. A little more than that fell in high elevations and a little less in the lowest, warmest valleys.

Northern Vermont continued to way over-perform. Here in St. Albans, forecast accumulations in forecasts from Saturday through Monday ranged from 1.4 to 2.9 inches. When the snow finally tapered off (at least for now) at around 4 p.m. a full 8.0 inches of snow had accumulated. 

Most of northern Vermont has had 6 to 10 inches so far. 

As everybody understands, the snow is wet and heavy.  There's a TON of water in it. 

Pine trees bend under the weight of heavy, wet snow
today in St. Albans, Vermont. 

Here's one way to illustrate it. Today is the sixth anniversary of the infamous Pi Day Blizzard on March 14, 2017. In that storm, Burlington received 30.4 inches of snow. It was cold that day, so the snow wasn't like wet cement. If you melted that snow down, you got 1.13 inches of "rain."

Today, Burlington received about eight inches of snow. If you melt it down, you get just under an inch of rain. The Burlington area might end up getting just a third the amount of snow in the Pi Day blizzard, but at least as much liquid equivalent.  I'm sure some higher elevations, especially in southern Vermont, have already received the equivalent of more than two inches of rain. 

BOTCHED FORECAST

So what went wrong with the forecasts? Especially in northern Vermont.

According to the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, the thinking before the storm was that dry air coming in from the northeast would hinder the intensity of the snowfall in the northern half of Vermont. 

Since the snow would be light, the strong March sun would send some heat through the clouds, and any snow that fell in the valleys would have a hard time accumulating. It would essentially be a white rain of sorts. Forecasters knew higher elevations would get a decent amount. 

What happened instead was an initial storm near Long Island was supposed to weaken quickly in favor of a much stronger storm that would move northwestward from way offshore and move to near Boston this afternoon. 

That second stronger storm acted pretty much as expected, but that Long Island storm hung on longer than forecast. That storm sent what was essentially a weather front that moved slowly northwestward across the entire state of Vermont. 

Snowfall rates were intense in that band, up to three inches per hour. The March sun became a non-entity under that slowly moving snow band, so the slushy stuff really piled up. 

The expected drier air did eventually make it into north central and northeastern Vermont, so only light snow fell there this afternoon. 

But that weather front of sorts stalled in the Champlain Valley, keeping the heavy show going. 

Finally, at around 4 p.m., the drier air from the northeast finally punched into the Champlain Valley, largely shutting down the snow. For now.  

WHAT'S NEXT

You might be forgiven if you don't believe the forecast going forward tonight into tomorrow, but we'll give it a shot. 

It's mostly just flurries in northern Vermont, with a few patches of somewhat heavier snow as of 4:30 today. That will last a little while longer, but the snow will fill back in.

And it will snow most of the night. It shouldn't come down nearly as hard as it did today, but still, two to locally six inches of added snow with up to eight new inches in the northern and central Vermont mountains seems like a reasonable forecast. 

I will note I'm a little suspicious of a somewhat heavier band of snow that set up late this afternoon across central Vermont, but I don't know if that's a passing fancy or is it something that will bring another surprise. 

Winds have been gusty at times and that will get worse tonight and tomorrow. Later tonight, as temperatures drop, the snow that's falling should become a little less like wet cement and a little more powdery. So there will be issues with blowing and drifting snow, especially in open areas. 

Down in the buried areas of far southern Vermont, another four to eight inches of snow tonight should add to the crushing piles of snow on the ground down there. 

Snow will taper off and in many places end on Wednesday. But it will be by no means a nice day. North winds should gust to 35 mph with possible gusts to 45 mph in the Champlain Valley. That could take down more snow-laden trees, and at the very least making life much more difficult for the crews who will surely be continuing to repair all those downed power lines.

Temperatures should stay near or a little below freezing all day Wednesday. 

The next storm on Friday and Saturday still looks like it will be mostly rain. Which will make a mess of the snow but shouldn't add on too many additional problems. It won't rain hard enough and not enough snow will melt to produce any real flooding.