Sunday Morning Vermont Snow Update: On Track But Some Unsurprising Surprises

One last National Weather Service snow forecast map
issued at 4 a.m. today when the storm was already underway.
Snow totals were lowered through western Vermont and
increased in northern New York. 

 Our cozy little Vermont snowstorm is playing out mostly as expected as of 8 a.m. Sunday.

But as expected, there are some unexpected wrinkles in the snowfall patterns so far.

The first is one I kind of anticipated last evening and has been even more pronounced than I thought. 

East winds are blowing across the state with this storm. The Green Mountains are blocking some of the moisture as the wind blows into the western part of the state.

Those east winds must flow down the western slopes of the Greens. That means sinking air, which suppresses precipitation. 

The result is many places in the central and southern Champlain Valley and broadly along Route 7 in southwestern Vermont have been so far cheated out of a lot of snow.

For instance, Cornwall, in Addison County had only mustered 1.7 inches of new snow as of 7 a.m. Williston had just 2.0 inches as of 8:30 a.m. Meanwhile, many areas outside the western Vermont "snow shadow" zone had picked up three to six inches of snow by then. 

I think the trouble was the east winds were slightly stronger than forecast, making the "shadowing" worse.  I noticed gusts to a little over 30 mph overnight in Rutland, for instance. 

Another mild surprise so far has been the slightly over-performing totals in the Adirondacks and far northern Vermont, especially the Northeast Kingdom.

Here in St. Albans, 4.0 inches of snow had accumulated as of 8 a.m. An additional report from another section of town came up with 6.0 inches. 

Not the biggest snowstorm ever, but at least it now looks
like winter in St. Albans, Vermont.

 The storm total here in St. Albans was forecast to be 3.8 inches, and the snowfall isn't quite over yet. 

Several spots in the Northeast Kingdom, which were expected to get two to three inches total, were closing in on 5 inches as of around 7:30 this morning.

Elsewhere, snowfall seems to be roughly in line with prior forecasts

THE REST OF TODAY

In many parts of Vermont, snow had tapered off to flurries or very light snow before dawn. That was a lull that forecasters had expected.

As of 8 a.m the snow was picking up somewhat and that will continue for a few hours. This is the second burst of snowfall that had been in the forecast.  The lack of snow in western Vermont earlier seems to have filled in with decent but not super heavy precipitation, judging from radar images. So they might make up for some of what they missed out on earlier. 

The roads will remain snow covered and slippery through the morning and probably into the afternoon. The somewhat heavier bursts of snow could interfere with visibility on the roads, too.

Overall, I think most of us should see 1.5 to locally four inches of additional snow before things peter out this afternoon. 

The snow will keep going in the northern Green Mountains into the night, so they might see a little additional accumulation by Monday morning. 

Today's pretty snowfall is the opening salvo in a weather pattern that shaping up to be just WOW for the nation this week. I'll issue another post later today on the volatile weather pattern shaping up, one that will affect us in Vermont with potentially dangerous weather midweek.