Will Brief Vermont Spring Yield Back To Winter?

Somewhere beneath this snowbank and snow drifts in 
St. Albans, Vermont, a perennial garden awaits 
spring weather to bloom again. Given the forecast
for the next week or two, that wait will go
on for awhile yet. 

Most of Vermont had a nice warm spring day Wednesday, although, as explained yesterday, the northern Champlain Valley kind of missed out on that. 

Today, spring rains are falling across Vermont.  Not a nice day, but hey, spring-ish, right?  

So does that mean we're over the winter weather? Uh, no.

There's always flashbacks to winter well into April, sometimes in May in Vermont, so it's no surprise that more snow or a mix is in the forecast.  Winter is being a little more persistent than it has in recent years, I guess. 

THE WEEKEND

We're still looking at a storm that looks as if it will produce a mix of slush, snow, ice and yuck Saturday and Sunday. This, by no means will be anything as big as the snowstorm we had mid-month. But it will still cause a few problems. And like most storms this time of year, it's kind of unpredictable.

The current thinking is we'll be cruising along late Saturday morning or early afternoon with temperatures above freezing - at least in the valleys  - when the initial burst of precipitation arrives. Oh, goody, rain, right?

Probably wrong. The arriving storm will bring a surge of deep moisture that will collide with relatively dry air over us. As the snow arrives aloft at first, it will evaporate into the dry air, cooling it.  Then as moisture continues to flow in, the now cooler air will be chilly enough for snow, not rain. 

Sometime on Saturday, we could see a pretty heavy burst of snow which could at least temporarily slicken the roads. Though most of the snow accumulation will happen on either grassy surfaces or on existing snowpack. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington says they're thinking that more warm, wet air will continue to flow in Saturday night. That would change the snow back to rain, or rain and a little sleet in the valleys. Mountains would continue to get a an ugly mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain and perhaps a bit of rain. 

Vermont Agency of Transportation traffic cam along
Interstate 89 in Williston this morning shows us 
what we have to put up with in the odd season between
winter and spring: Fading snow, brown grass, 
mud and roadside litter that accumulated all winter. 

Projected accumulations are so, so subject to change I almost don't want to mention it.  But people like early estimates, so here we go.  I imagine a lot of valleys could get one to three inches of glop, mostly from that initial burst of snow Saturday afternoon or evening.  

The early guess is some of the mountains would get two to six inches of schmutzy snow. 

Those of you (like me!) with travel plans on Sunday should be OK.  I imagine there will be some lingering issues in mid and high elevations in the morning, which should get cleared up. At this point, with fingers crossed, main roads in the valleys should be just wet Sunday morning and through the day, as scattered, light rain showers continue through the day. 

MIDWEEK STORM?

Some of you might have seen some breathless posts on social media of a possible bigger snowstorm next Wednesday or so. 

Let's seriously underline the word "possible."  Yes, some of the computer models suggest a decent snowstorm for Vermont that day. But a lot of other models either take the storm out to sea so that it entirely misses us. Or they give us a bit of light rain and snow.  We won't know for a few days how this will play out. 

Unfortunately for people chomping at the bit for spring, it looks like it will be reluctant in these parts. Long range forecasts call for generally below normal temperatures and odds slightly tilted toward above normal precipitation. That would mean more chances of snow to delay the daffodils even more.