Strange Light In The Sky, Still Big Vermont Questions Regarding Two (Or More) Upcoming Storms

End of the day Tuesday in St. Albans, Vermont, which
featured a strange light in the sky, known as the sun,
and blue skies for a change. Back to the clouds today,
and still questions about Sunday storm

 I'll start this morning by explaining a couple strange things people saw in the skies over Vermont on Tuesday. 

That bright light in the sky was the sun. It's been so long since people have seen it that most of us forgot what it was.  It's harmless, and sustains life on the planet, so it was nothing to worry about.

People also noticed the sky was an odd color - a lovely shade of blue. That happens when the grey clouds finally disappear.

 The sun scatters light in the atmosphere and we see blue. Again, another harmless thing we just all forgot about since it's been so long.

It's back a gray overcast for most of us this morning, but it's fairly mild. We're about to get into a more active, stormier pattern, but how that plays out is still questionable. 

The first pieces of weather action over the next few days will be pretty minor.  A rather sharp cold front should come through tomorrow. It will pack some snow showers with it, and a few of those might be briefly on the heavy side. 

They'll be fast movers and won't last long, but could be enough to make the roads a little tricky tomorrow morning. Especially north and mountains. '

Temperatures behind the front should fall in the afternoon after peaking in the morning or around noon north, and early afternoon south. 

After that, it'll stay seasonably chilly into the weekend. Which brings us to Sunday's maybe storm

SUNDAY SNOW?

The National Weather Service in South Burlington posted
this excellent illustration to their Facebook page
showing why we should take forecasts for 
storms more than three days away 
with a big grain of salt. 

I'm not surprised by this, but we still don't know whether a storm in the eastern United States this weekend will bring a Sunday snowfall to Vermont. 

We're still four days away from the event, or non-event, whatever the case may be. 

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington posted on their Facebook page an excellent illustration of how far off forecasts can be more than three days out.     

The illustration, which I'm also showing in this post, notes that the forecast error for the position of a storm three days in advance averages out to 150 miles. 

More than three days and the error gets ridiculous, which is why I keep using words and phrases like "might", "maybe" and "we don't know. "

For snow lovers, at least we haven't written off this storm yet, so there's hope. 

For what it's worth, the National Weather Service in South Burlington  notes this morning's Canadian computer models put Vermont in the sweet spot for snow on Sunday. But the American and European models largely keep us out of the snow zone, except for maybe southern Vermont. 

Again, it's a tossup. More on this toward the end of the week. 

OTHER STORMS

Whatever happens with Sunday's storm, it will mark the start of an active weather pattern. A lot of the computer models depict some sort of large storm in the middle or eastern part of the nation next Tuesday and/or Wednesday.

It's possible we could see strong winds, rain, snow, mixed precipitation or all of the above during the middle of next week, but of course we have no idea yet what will come out of it. Stay tuned. 

Long range models  - again, grain of salt time here -  have other storms marching across America into the third week of January and beyond.  Those storms might keep us here in Vermont on our toes.

After 2023, we in Vermont could stand some boring weather, quite frankly. I don't know if that's in the cards, though.