Wednesday Evening Vermont Storm Update: Gorgeous Late This Afternoon, Dangerous, Wintry Within A Few Hours

The cold front and line of snow squalls looked 
really impressive on satellite imagery late 
this afternoon. Hard to pick out Vermont in this photo
but the line was less than an hour from entering
northwestern New York at around 5:15 when
this shot was taken. 

 As expected, today was an absolutely lovely day by late March standards in Vermont, but also, as expected, trouble lurks pretty soon as showers quickly turn to dangerous snow squalls amid gusty winds and rapidly falling temperatures within a few hours from now.  

(For the record, I'm writing this at around 5 p.m. Wednesday).

In Burlington, the temperature hit 50 degrees for the first time this month. In most years, it gets into the 50s and even 60s in March.  Burlington missed out on a warm shot on March 22 that sent most other places in Vermont into the 50s. 

Today was Burlington's first day that reached 50 degrees since a record high of 56 degrees on February 16.

Now, winter is on our doorstep. 

As mentioned this morning an Arctic cold front is barreling in our direction. The National Weather Service is still predicting intense snow squalls, but there have been a few minor changes to the weather forecast.

This morning, I mentioned the possibility of a line of showers and perhaps a rumble of thunder before the main show begins. That seems to be only sort of happening. I do see a few convective showers late this afternoon in northern New York heading into northwestern Vermont, but they don't look particularly impressive.

Convective showers are the type that come from tall, billowing clouds. You see them all the time in the summer. 

The actual squall line, though, does look impressive. As of 5 p.m., it was around Buffalo, New York and just about to head into Ottawa, Canada. Numerous videos on social media show near zero visibility in the snow squalls in southern Ontario. 

It's moving steadily eastward , and will cross into Vermont between about 8:30 p.m., give or take in the northwest corner of Vermont and leave the state sometime around midnight 

When this thing arrives, expect rain initially, but it will change to snow super fast. And it will come down super hard for awhile. And it will have gusty winds. 

One change in the forecast from this morning: They were saying  the squall would be most dramatic in western Vermont. Now, that's changed a bit. The latest forecast indicates it'll be wild enough in western Vermont, but the squall line will consolidate and intensify further in central and eastern parts of the state, says the National Weather Service in South Burlington. 

Bottom line, you will not want to be on the roads tonight starting at around 8:30.  The snow will be briefly blinding. Road conditions will go from fine to awful in minutes.  

This won't last long in any one place, but the roads will probably stay pretty bad overnight amid those rapidly falling temperatures 

Thursday will be better, I suppose. The sun will come back out, but it will not feel at all like spring. Many northern areas will be really lucky to hit the freezing mark in the afternoon. This at a time of year when normal highs are well into the 40s. 

At least the cold snap will be brief. It'll start to turn warmer Friday, at least for a brief stay. But new storminess is due Friday into Sunday. 

I won't get into that now. I'll post about it tomorrow.