Very Gusty Day In Vermont As Snow Keeps Piling Up In Green Mountains/Western Slopes

Looks like I have some winter shoveling and cleanup to
do in St. Albans, Vermont. I had 3.2 inches of new snow
since late Sunday afternoon. Another 1.3 inches 
fell late Saturday and Sunday morning. 

 Today in Vermont is quite the departure from the weather we've had most of this winter .

We've had a few of these brief one-day winter interludes over the past few months and here's one more. 

Expect lots of wind, cold temperatures for this time of year and in a number of places, more snow. In a few places, a lot more snow.

All night, the expected moist, northwest winds has been smacking into the Adirondacks and Green Mountains. As that happened, the air rose, the moisture condensed and the snow kept falling in those areas. 

Snow reports were still spotty as of early Monday morning. Jay Peak was reporting a storm total of 18 inches as of 7 a.m. today, and it was still snowing heavily there. Stowe reports six inches of new snow overnight for a storm total of 15 inches so far. 

I'm noticing quite a few school closings and delays across Vermont today, so I guess some kids have the day off because of all this. 

Let's get into what's next: 

High Winds

This state of affairs will continue all day, though it will tend to start weakening later this afternoon. What won't weaken is the winds, which will increase, gusting to near 50 mph in some parts of Vermont this afternoon.

That doesn't bode well for power outages.

After peaking at 28,000 in the immediate aftermath of that wet cement snow Sunday morning, VTOutages.org reports we recovered fairly nicely to under 3,000 by 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

Screen grab from traffic cam along Route 242 in 
Westfield, near Jay Peak, showed pretty blizzardy
conditions this morning. 

Through most of the night, those outages in Vermont have stayed pretty steady at a little under 2,500. 

 As the winds ramp up today and rock trees and power lines that in some areas are still snow-loaded, I expect electricity to go out in a few more areas today. I doubt the outages will  peak as high as they did Sunday, but it will be an issue. 

The strongest winds will be in downslope areas along and east of the Green Mountains, where a wind advisory calls for gusts as high as 55 mph this afternoon. 

In areas like the Champlain Valley where the criteria doesn't quite meet a wind advisory, gusts to 40 or 45 mph will still make it blustery to say the least, and could cause additional isolated power problems there. 

Snow

As for Vermont road conditions this morning,  it depends on where you are. Down in lower Connecticut Valley, everything is fine. 

In most of northern and central Vermont, roads were snow covered and slippery as of 7 a.m. today. The road crews were out, but expect at best, iffy conditions through the morning pretty much everywhere in the northern half of the state. And through the entire Green Mountain range, right down to the Massachusetts border and beyond. 

The snow will increasingly get variable, too, especially away from the mountains. For instance, at 7 a.m., Route 4 in West Rutland looked fine, with no snow falling or on the roads. Not far away along Route 7 in Brandon, it was snowing heavily.  If you check in later this morning you might find the opposite. 

Roads along the western slopes and the Greens were pretty exciting with heavy snow and blowing snow.  Visibility looked terrible on traffic cams as dawn broke. That will continue all day. Interstate 89 was looking rough through Bolton and beyond. Once you get over the mountains toward Bethel, the Interstate looked totally fine and clear, as seen on traffic cameras. 

Traffic cam shows traffic trudging up snowy Route 108
in Stowe this morning. 

As we go through the day, I have a feeling the snow will get sort of showery. It will snow constantly in the heavier areas. 

However, in some moments it will be lighter, and other moments it will come down really hard. With the strong winds blowing the snow around, the western slopes and the Greens will be in near-blizzard conditions at times. 

After 8 a.m. today, I can still imagine another one to three inches of snow piling up east of Route 7 in central and northern Vermont, with three to eight inches along the western slopes and Greens. A few favores spots might get more than that. 

I'll be interested to see how much ski areas like Stowe, Smuggler's Notch, Sugarbush and Jay end up reporting when this finally winds down. 

Lighter snows will probably continue in the Green Mountains all night. 

TUESDAY

It'll clear up and the warm weather - or at least warmish - will continue. It might take awhile for the last of the clouds and flurries to depart from the northern Green Mountains and Northeast Kingdom.

Awe also could see a fairly big contrast in temperatures during the day. In the warmer low elevations, any very thin snow cover will quickly melt off. The sun heating the darker exposed ground will help air temperatures rise well into the 40s to maybe even near 50.

Where snow is deep and fresh, temperatures would hold closer to the upper 30s to maybe low 40s at best. 

Fairly warm weather for this time of  year will continue for the rest of the week. Low elevations will see their new snow melt. But up in the mountains, I can't imagine all of the new snow will disappear in just one week.