Vermont Weather Week Ahead: Not As Wild As Last Week, But Still "Interesting"

After a brief snow squall, a cold wintry sun tries to fight
its way through the clouds in St. Albans Sunday morning.
Warmer weather is on the way, though. 

 As is customary, I like to start Sunday with a look ahead, at least as best we can, at the Vermont weather week ahead.  

For those of you adverse to winter, a couple pieces of good news: For one, unlike last week,  nobody in Vermont will get 40 inches of snow this week. In fact, only a little snow will fall, and many of us will see a dusting at most.

The big snow winners will be in the central and northern Green Mountains, where the remnants of lake effect snows from New York could pile of several inches of fluffy snow.  That's a far cry from fell last week, though! 

The second piece of good news for those anxious for spring is that today has a very good shot at being the coldest day until next winter. 

Normal highs in Vermont valleys are now in the low 40s, and rising day by day as we head into spring. It's gradually getting harder and harder to stay below freezing all day. 

Today, though, we'll stay at January-like levels, with temperatures for many of us not getting out of the mid-20s. Gusty northwest winds bring wind chills into the single numbers and teens. You'll see spots of sun, but also snow showers, especially north of Route 4 and in the mountains all the way down to and past the Massachusetts border.

A few snow showers might be briefly heavy, so you'll want to watch for sudden problems with low visibility and slick pavement on the highways here and there today. As drier air moves in this afternoon and evening, the snow showers should lighten up somewhat. 

After a rather cold night tonight, things get better.  

Most valleys, except for some of them north of Route 2 on Tuesday, will to 40 or above each day Monday through the end of the week. (Northern valleys might have to settle for highs in the 35-39 degree range on Tuesday).

The weather should be fairly quiet, and great for sugaring in the first half of the week. 

The second half gets questionable. Storminess seems to want to come in, or at least some precipitation. 

Although Vermont big snowstorms are possible into mid-April, it is getting harder and harder to snow as we get into the second half of March. It's just getting too warm. 

It's looking like whatever comes in the second half of the week will be mostly rain.  The computer models disagree on how much rain and the timing of it. 

If it's just light rain, the snow will just continue to melt in an orderly fashion and there would be nothing to worry about. If it's a heavier rain, we'll need to watch for some flooding from that rain and melting snow.