Glorious Rain (And Snow!) Now Drenching Parched Northeast, Parts Of Vermont Might Wait A Bit For Drenching

Red sky in the morning sailors take warning, goes the
saying. Pink sky in the morning, like we saw in 
St. Albans, Vermont this morning, I guess heralds
some upcoming beneficial rain. 

 It's been raining much of the night and early this morning in places like Pennsylvania, New Jersey and southern New York. 

That would normally be not news at all, except that it's been so dry for so long there, that it is very noteworthy. 

As of 7 a.m. Philadelphia has reported 0.84 inches of rain. An unremarkable amount of a late November storm. 

But amazingly that's more rain than what's fallen this year in Philly between September 8 and November 19. (Normal rainfall during that period should have been roughly eight inches).

So the anticipated and hoped for  rains have arrived, the wildfires in the Northeast are being squelched as expected, but the drought is far from over. 

The weekly national drought update comes out later today, so I'll put together a new post about that later today. 

The Mid-Atlantic States will only get modest amounts of additional rain from this, but anything will help. 

Meanwhile, we in northern New England are in for a long period of rainy weather, with still some snow in the mountains.

VERMONT UPDATES 

 This is turning out to be kind of a weird storm system, which is causing some odd twists in the forecast.

An upper level low with a cold pool of air was over the Ohio Valley this morning. Meanwhile, a storm formed along the Mid-Atlantic coast, which made all that rain blossom yesterday and last night. 

The upper low is tugging this storm northwestward, which is a somewhat odd direction for an albeit fairly weak coastal low to head.

The combination of this path and the cold pool aloft will cause quite a snowstorm in the high elevations of the Pennsylvania Poconos, where a winter storm warning is up for later today and tonight.

Up here in Vermont, we're a ways from that upper level low so the atmosphere is warmer. That means when precipitation comes in, it will be mostly rain, with snow limited to the highest elevations.

Oddly, the best chance of high elevation snow is in southern Vermont, which is closer to that cold pool of air. 

The storm will come in two parts. The precipitation in Vermont will never come down super hard, but it will tend to add up over time. 

Part 1

The path of this initial storm means northeastern Vermont will probably initially get cheated out of much rain. 

Most of it today and tonight will be closer to that storm, focused generally south and west of Interstate 89. 

Thursday morning forecasts from the National Weather Service in South Burlington called for as much as 1.3 inches of rain in Manchester, Vermont by dawn Friday. Meanwhile, Newport and St. Johnsbury can only expect 0.1 to 0.2 inches during that period. 

As the first storm gets absorbed into the upper low in or near Ohio, we'll get a break from the rain Friday here in the Green Mountain State. A few showers might stick around, but there could even be a couple shafts of sun breaking through the clouds too. 

But it ain't over

Part 2

Remember that cold upper low I mentioned over Ohio? By the weekend, it will have moved to near the Mid-Atlantic coast.

A new storm will form offshore, and much like the first storm, it will get tugged northwestward by that upper level cold pool of air. This second storm will get nudged sort of toward Maine, which will allow rain to re-blossom over northern New England. 

This time, the best chances of decent rains would be over northern Vermont. That would help soak the Northeast Kingdom. So by Sunday morning, the National Weather Service estimates storm totals in southern Vermont will be up slightly to 1.5 inches. But in the Northeast Kingdom, total rainfall through Sunday would go to 0.75 to 1 inches, so pretty decent.

This second storm will be a bit colder than the first, so there's a better chance of some high elevation snow, But not much. We still don't have much cold air to work with. So you'd probably have to go way up to summit level by Sunday to see a decent dump. Down where all most of the ski slopes are, there might be a dusting to a few inches, but nothing earth-shattering. 

Beyond that, the weather pattern goes somewhat quieter again, with no big new storms on the immediate horizon next week. But a shifting pattern means pretty much the whole Lower 48 of the United States will probably be trending colder through the end of the month and into December.

That includes here in Vermont. So far, it looks like the coldest air might focus on the Rockies and Plains. But we would get chilly enough to see winter finally take hold around here, too.