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| Sort of a dreamy view of my snowy back yard in St. Albans, Vermont following today's less than extreme snowstorm. |
That one remaining band of snow could drop another inch of snow on some places north of Route 2 this evening with maybe a couple inches in favored mountain spot.
THE STORM STATS
The storm mercifully was not nearly as bad as forecasts on Sunday suggested. The storm didn't strengthen as much as expected.
There was plenty of moisture in the atmosphere for heavy snow, but the relative weakness of the storm meant it couldn't take advantage of all that wetness in the air.
Nobody got the 18 inches that was hyped for the mountains. Sorry, winter sports fans!
So, we ended up with wet, sticky moderate snowfall. I see a couple reports of 8 or 9 inches of new snow in a couple spots. But northern Vermont mostly reported four to six inches, at least in areas away from Lake Champlain.
One aspect of the storm forecasters got right is the fact that much less snow fell along the shore of Lake Champlain than just a little bit inland.
I live at a relatively high elevation - 650 or so feet above sea level on the eastern end of St. Albans well away from the lake, and I got a little over five inches. Right along the edge of St. Albans Bay, at a bit over 100 feet above sea level, there was maybe a little over an inch of new snow.
At the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, only 1.9 inches of snow accumulated as of 5 p.m. That's a lot less than the four to eight inches that some forecasts said.
This rain and snowfall was a very wet storm, though, by December standards. Most of Vermont had at least an inch of rain and melted snow, with many places definitely exceeding 1.5 inches. There was a bullseye of heavy precipitation in northwestern Vermont. Fletcher reported 2.75 inches of rain and melted snow. St. Albans was close behind with 2.5 inches.
Burlington received 1.44 inches of precipitation with this storm, bringing the month's to 2.56 inches. Even if not one more snowflake or raindrop lands on Burlington for the rest of December, the month will still end up just a tiny bit wetter than average. And we're not even halfway through the month yet!
Since it was an awfully wet snow, power outages were still a problem, despite the relatively modest accumulations. Outages peaked at nearly 8,000 Vermont home and businesses at mid-afternoon Monday. They have been declining since, and we were down to about 4,100 outages as of 5:30 p.m.
The next hazard with this so-so storm is the return of icy roads in spots tonight. They will mostly wet at sunset, but temperatures will inevitably fall below freezing this evening. That guarantees icy patches, especially on bridges, overpasses, untreated surfaces and back roads. Things won't be nearly as nasty on the roads as this morning, but you'll still need to take care.
GOING FORWARD
The good news is the rest of the week is looking pretty mellow. It'll be sort of warm tomorrow with highs for most of us in the 30s. A gusty southwest wind will add a bit of a chill to the air, however.
A cold front Tuesday night and early Wednesday will bring some of us a dusting to an inch of snow, with maybe a couple inches in the mountains. No biggie. It'll be seasonable cold Wednesday and Thursday. (Highs 25-35, lows in the teens to around 20).
The overall weather pattern for basically the whole nation has turned warm, and we'll share in that tropical heat. OK, maybe not tropical, but 30s to low 40s for the end of the week and next weekend isn't too shabby for a time of year that can get well below zero.
The next chance of any real precipitation would come Sunday night and Monday. Current computer models have a storm coming out of the eastern Gulf of Mexico and heading almost due north towards us Sunday night.
I'm not really buying that scenario and I know for sure the forecast will change quite a bit before we get to that point. So don't worry about it.
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