Monday Morning Vermont Thanksgiving Week Travel Forecast: Still Some Questions (Sigh!)

Turkeys in the snow a few winters ago in St. Albans,
Vermont. We're still not sure whether Thanksgiving,
2024 in Vermont will be snowy or not. Some 
clarity in the forecast is emerging, though.

 We know the decidedly non-wintry November we've had so far will take a decisively wintry turn this week with expected bouts of ice, snow, wind and cold, but the questions still swirl around how things will go Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. 

The computer models are still split on what's going to happen in Vermont and the rest of northern New England, but the answers are slowly coming into focus. Sort of. 

But before we get to that, we do have one tale of travel trouble regionally before we get to Thanksgiving. 

We'll take it day by day again here 

Today: Nothing to worry about at all. There should be at least some sun, temperatures will reach the pretty seasonable low to mid 40s, and winds won't be a factor. If your Thanksgiving getaway starts today you're in luck.

Tuesday. Definitely the first uh-oh day of the bunch. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington has hoisted a winter weather advisory from 1 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday for the eastern half of Vermont.

That's for some expected freezing rain, unfortunately. 

It's from that long-advertised relatively minor storm system coming in from the west.  The rain is expected to start just in time for the Tuesday morning commute. It should be cold enough along and east of the Green Mountains for some freezing rain. It'll be patchy, so you'll need to be ready for road surprises early Tuesday.

You'll be cruising along on wet pavement, then you turn a corner or go down a hill and suddenly it's a skating rink. It looks like it will be just a bit too warm for freezing rain in the Champlain Valley, but it will be close. So keep an eye on that. 

By late morning Tuesday it will have warmed up, so by then it should just be raining.  If you have to travel anywhere tomorrow, wait until late morning and you should be fine. 

Those ice alerts, by the way, extend into the Adirondacks, most of New Hampshire and western Maine.

Wednesday: Still looking fine. Partly cloudy and seasonable. No travel trouble. 

Thanksgiving: The European and American computer models are still arguing with each other on this one. 

The European model keeps bringing Vermont and most of the rest of northern New England a decent snowfall, while the American is persisting on a whiff to the south. 

The consensus among the models is leaning toward snow in our neck of the woods but as of this Monday morning it's still not a slam dunk. 

As the National Weather Service office in South Burlington explains it, a key to this is what an upper level low way up by James Bay Canada does.

If it backs up to the west a little bit more, it'll draw the storm northward more and Vermont gets snow. This is what the European model thinks will happen.

On the other hand, the American model has that thing up by James Bay elongate in an east-west arrangement. That would force the next storm to more southward and miss us. We'd get little or no snow. 

The ingredients for our possible Thanksgiving storm were just approaching the West Coast early today. Once those ingredients get inland later today, the models will be able to take better samples of it to judge how the wannabe storm will interact with the upper level storm up in James Bay.

I'm hoping by this evening we'll have a better idea. Fingers crossed! 

If it does snow on Thanksgiving, it will probably be a fairly wet snow, and there's still a possibility it could be mixed with rain, especially south. That's another question that's yet to be fully answered. If we do get the storm, it'll probably be a day-long thing and its effects on roads would probably last into Friday morning.

So if you're getting up way before dawn for Black Friday sales, gawd knows why, keep that in mind

Thanksgiving Snow History

If it does snow on Thanksgiving it certainly won't be the first time that's happened. Records from Burlington show that measurable snow has fallen on 32 Thanksgivings since 1893. 

Far and away the biggest Thanksgiving snow was in 1971. Burlington had 8.6 inches of snow that day, but other parts of Vermont had much more. Montpelier and Waitsfield each clocked in with a whopping 20 inches. 

If it does snow on Thanksgiving this year, it will be a pretty late first measurable snow for many of us. 

The average date for the first measurable snow of the season in Burlington is November 7.  (The latest first measurable snow was on December 7, 2009.