Saturday Vermont Snowstorm Pretty Much Definite, Amounts Still Open To Question

The National Weather Service in South Burlington has
increased expected snow amounts from this Saturday's
storm in central and northern Vermont. Looks like
rain will cut down accumulations from about
Route 4 south. 

 You know we're getting a storm when I do morning and evening updates on the event.

It's looking pretty definite now that most of Vermont is in for a pretty big snowstorm Saturday that will screw up travel and maybe power lines.  

Let's get into the updates we saw this afternoon:

FORECAST AMOUNTS

In central and northern Vermont, expected snow amounts have been pushed upward a fair amount compared to this morning's forecast.

The exception to that is south of Route 4, which I'll get into in a bit.

First, forecasters are pretty confident now there will be at least six inches of snow north of Route 4. Though not quite confident enough yet to upgrade the winter storm watch to a warning. little compared to forecasts from this morning. 

For instance, this mornings forecast had 5.1 inches falling in Burlington. The latest forecast issued this afternoon has 10 inches in Burlington. Montpelier went from 6.3 to 9.3 inches. St. Albans went from 6.5 to 10.6 inches. 

We have to wait and see whether that upward trend continues, or something short circuits that idea.

The worst case scenario - with a 10 percent chance of it happening - would be a whopping 15 to 24 inches of snow north of Route 4.  That would happen if the moisture flow off the Atlantic is stronger than expected and it stays cold enough for snow. Don't count on it, but it is still plausible. 

A best case scenario - if you don't like spring snow - is warm air would push to the Canadian border for a time, cutting snow totals to six inches or less. That scenario is also unlikely, but could surprise us. 

 Latest forecasts do have the slightly warmer air making it as far north as around Route 4.  If the forecast holds, an initial burst of snow would change to rain or even freezing rain in spots down that way.  Which means snow accumulations would be five inches or less if this comes true. 

A blizzardy look in St. Albans, Vermont this morning
before the air dried out and partial, but cold
sunshine appeared in the afternoon. 

So far at least, it doesn't look like there will be enough freezing rain to sag the trees and break power lines, except perhaps in the mountains of eastern Rutland County and western Windsor. 

Of course the other problem is wet snow.  

It's late in the snow season, and the bulk of the snow will happen during the day Saturday, when the stronger March sun can sort of bleed through the clouds a bit. 

That would turn what might be a relatively powdery snow that comes down before dawn to slush falling from the sky during the day. 

It's a little too soon to tell if the wet snow would be another electricity killer, so we'll have to watch out.

GETTING THERE

It was damn cold today compared to what we got used to this month. You noticed, that, huh?  Some Northeast Kingdom towns were still in the upper teens at mid-afternoon. Those cold hollows should make it close to zero tonight, while the rest of us bottom out by dawn Friday somewhere between 5 and 15 above, warmest in the Champlain Valley. 

Those aren't record lows, but pretty chilly for this time of year nonetheless. 

Sunshine will fade behind increasing high clouds tomorrow, and it'll stay cold. Not as bad as today, but a high of 30 or so isn't great for late March. 

The snow should arrive shortly after midnight early Saturday west and during the pre-dawn hours east. It'll continue all day Saturday, except for that maybe rain or freezing rain crap in the south. 

MOVING ON

The snow should end Saturday night. After the storm, it will remain chilly Sunday, with highs barely making it into the 30s.  The high angle sun should start to melt the snow off pavement, and out of protected corners and such.  

As temperatures rise into the low 40s Monday, the pace of melting will start to ramp up. And it will really get going if daily highs from Tuesday onward next week reach the 40s, maybe near 50 in warmer valleys, if forecasts issued today hold true. 

This cold/snowy episode should prevent an early end to the maple sugaring season. I was worried about that as we had a warm month until now.  We're setting up for an excellent sap run next week. We're also setting up for an extension of our long, long and very rough mud season.  

We'll have to watch out for some spring flooding if we get any big rain storms in the coming weeks. Especially after this new storm there will be plenty of snow in the mountains that will eventually have to melt. 

The water equivalent of the upcoming storm is one to two inches, which is quite a bit. That's on top of the surprising amounts of snow the mountains have gotten since Sunday.

The good news is next week isn't looking super warm, so the melt won't be overly fast. Even better, unless we see some sort of surprise, rainfall next week looks pretty unimpressive. 

Also, the deep snow is pretty much confined to the mountains, at least for now. We'll have to wait and see what happens Saturday.   

Considering all that, I'm not too worried about another big flood at the moment. We don't exactly need another one.