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| A towering cloud producing a heavy snow squall as seen looking west from St. Albans, Vermont on February 19, 2022. Similar scenes are definitely possible today, with the risk of locally blinding squalls and possibly even thunder snow. |
Meanwhile, the chances of seeing at least a few inches of wet snow Friday night and Saturday have begun to increase, it seems. More on that in a bit. First, today.
BURSTS OF SNOW
I told you the other day how as we get toward spring, we start seeing more convective showers - those clouds that billow higher into the sky and produce warm season thunderstorms. We had some of those Sunday and to a lesser extent Tuesday afternoon.
Today, a strong disturbance is going to goose the atmosphere's ability to produce those brief heavy storms.
The set up is much like those cold fronts we see in the summer that bump up against warm, humid air. Those are the ones that give us occasional outbreaks of strong to severe, but scattered afternoon and evening thunderstorms.
Much like those summer events, showers are coming through this morning in advance of the afternoon excitement.
Of course, it's much colder than it is in the summer, so it's mostly snow showers we're seeing. They won't amount to all that much, though in some favored places, they could deposit an inch or so of snow. Then - again - much like on those summer storm days - the sun will at least partly break out during the midday to help destabilize the atmosphere.
Then a cold front will approach, probably firing up a broken line of snow showers and squalls toward mid to late afternoon.
It'll be above freezing by then across most of Vermont. Many valleys will be near 40 degrees. Even so, these will be mostly snow, not rain. There's plenty of cold air aloft, and the bursts of snow will draw cold, gusty winds from up high down to where we are, so it will be snow.
These will also be hit and miss, as is usual with these kinds of things. Some places will see blinding snow squalls with fairly strong gusty winds and maybe even a rumble of thunder. Other places will see just the usual snow showers, no biggie.
The heavier squalls and possible thunder could happen anywhere in Vermont. The National Weather Service in South Burlington gives the zone between Route 2 and Route 4 a slight edge at having the vest chances all this happening.
Be prepared this afternoon and evening for those snow squalls. They can cut visibility on the highways from great to zero in seconds flat. That's how you get those highway pileups. The squalls take motorists by surprise.
Also, roads will go from dry to wet to icy and snow covered in a flash, too.
THEN COLD, THEN SNOWSTORM?
Temperatures are still forecast to crash to far below freezing tonight, with snow showers continuing, especially up in the mountains. Total accumulations will be at most two inches in the valleys, with many places seeing an inch or less.
The entire Green Mountain chain, and much of the Northeast Kingdom, should expect two to as much as six inches out of this little spell. Some northern summits, think Jay Peak, could get more than six inches.
Temperatures should stay below freezing for most of us from this evening, then all day tomorrow and on into Friday.
Remember how I told you yesterday the computer models were all squabbling over what would happen with a potential storm Saturday? It looks like they're starting to negotiate a peace agreement, but they're not quite there yet.
There is a growing consensus there will be some type of storm in the Northeast on Saturday. Its potential path seems favorable to snow in Vermont.
We still don't know how much, but a few to several inches is definitely possible. It's a late season thing, so it'll probably be wet and heavy stuff. If there's a lot of it, we could be dealing with power outages again.
If there is a lot of snow, early guesses place the most snow in central and southeastern Vermont, but that's still something of a question mark. Stay tuned!
Our week of winter will then last into Sunday, then it looks like we start returning to spring around next Monday or Tuesday.
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