Today's Vermont Snow On Schedule; Still Looking At A Decent Powder Dump

Forecast hasn't changed much for today. A general four
to six inch dump of powder by this evening. 

Right on schedule, snow was spreading north to south across Vermont as of 8 a.m. and it will cover the entire state by late morning. 

In places in the north where it wasn't snowing, it was trying to. Snow was falling from the clouds, but encountering dry air on the way down and evaporating.

This is what usually happens at the start of a snowfall. The evaporating snow moistens the air, and the snowflakes gradually make it further and further down as the atmosphere gets more humid, until finally the snow reaches the ground on valley floors.  

That's why you see the tops of the mountains get blurry first when it's about to snow, and that blurriness slowly descends down the slopes until it's snowing where you're standing.

The forecast hasn't changed much since last night, with pretty much all of Vermont getting a pretty uniform coating of four to six inches of powder. The heaviest snow will come between about noon and 6 p.m.

The afternoon commute home will be tricky with snow covered roads. The snowplows and salt shakers will surely be out helping. Just take it slow and try to avoid those few idiots on the highways that mess things up for everybody. 

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington in their forecast discussion offered up the following tidbit: 

The snow consistency will be powdery, of course. Accumulations will be a little deeper than forecast if we don't get a lot of wind in the atmosphere. That will create big flakes that make a very fluffy accumulation of say, six inches, which would pack down to three inches within  couple days.

On the other hand, if there is more wind up above us, some of those big snowflakes would get torn apart into fragments. That will lead to a slightly lower accumulation, but that snow on the ground would be a little more dense. 

But in any event, it will be a nice powder to enjoy if you like winter sports. 

Today's storm will contain no mix or rain. No strong winds. No power outages.  Finally! A storm that will do Vermont more good than harm. 

LOOKING AHEAD

It's still appears this will by far be Vermont's coldest week so far this winter. 

Which isn't saying much. 

Temperatures will continue a decline, so that by Friday and Saturday. highs will be in the upper single numbers to low teens and lows will bottom out within a few degrees either side of zero.

That's pretty tame when you consider record lows this time of year even in the banana belt Champlain Valley are in the minus 20s this time of year. 

There will be patches of light snow and flurries around Vermont Wednesday through Saturday, especially in the northern Green Mountains, but it won't amount to much. 

A warming trend starts Monday, but I don't know whether that will get cut off at the pass.  A surge of warm air will be crossing the nation and could give us well above normal temperatures next week.

But some weather models bring a cold front down from Canada, and a passing Arctic  high pressure system in Quebec could keep us on the cold side. Or delay a warmup by a couple days. 

Flip a coin on that one, it's the best we can do for such an extended forecast.