Dodging The Vermont Raindrops In Run Up To The New Year

The triplets, as I call the three big trees in my St. Albans,
Vermont back yard, caught a glimpse of blue sky this
morning before expected rain this afternoon. The lawn
was covered in snow yesterday, today not so much
after thawing began yesterday and continued overnight. 

 We can certainly thank our lucky stars that the storms the originated with tornadoes in the South yesterday are weakening as they head north toward New England.  

Which means we only have to deal with rain, and the temporary disappearance of our snow cover in Vermont, though the upper elevations should be able to hang on to most of it.

We started dodging light rain showers Saturday as the thaw began, and we have occasional bouts of rain to deal with through New Year's Day.  

Yes, this will interfere with your plans to play in the snow, but winter will be back with the New Year. I promise. 

Temperatures were still kind of all over the place early this morning. Burlington, where a steady south wind kept blowing all night, was a balmy 41 degrees this morning. My place in St. Albans was also 41 degrees as south winds stirred. 

Meanwhile, across the pond in Plattsburgh, where winds are calm and the skies partly cleared for a time, it was down to 27 degrees. Most of Vermont was in the 30s, with below freezing temperatures up in the Northeast Kingdom.

There was, once again, patchy dense fog around Vermont and surrounding areas this morning, so be careful on the road for awhile. There might be some spots with limited visibility. 

An approaching warm front will flush out the last of the chilly air that was still lingering in spots this morning.  That means if you see a glimpse of blue sky this morning, enjoy it. It'll be gone before you know it. 

The warm front will bring a quick burst of rain from south to north across Vermont this afternoon. Nothing heavy, and I'm not too worried about freezing rain.  The rain could freeze on impact on a few cold surfaces in the Northeast Kingdom, but it won't be anything widespread. 

TONIGHT/MONDAY

Overnight will have a bit of a balmy but stormy feel.  The burst of rain from this afternoon will be gone by evening, but will be replaced by more rain later on and through Monday morning. It'll get windy in spots, too, with some areas of the northern Champlain Valley and some of the northern and western slopes of the Green Mountains and Adirondacks gusting to 40 mph or a bit more.

Luckily, this isn't all that extreme. Just a noisy, warm late December night. There won't be enough rain or snowmelt to cause flooding, and the wind won't be nearly strong enough to cause any widespread power outages. 

We're good.

The afternoon Monday will feature warm weather, though temperatures will fall slowly out of the balmy low 50s into the 40s before sunset, probably.  There might be a couple light showers around, but no biggy. 

NEW YEAR'S EVE

It seems like in so many years in my lifetime, we have an ill-timed subzero cold blast to freeze us up for our New Years Eve festivities.

This won't be one of those years.  

The day looks quiet and warm, with highs in the upper 30s to mid 40s.  As the clock approaches midnight, rain will be approaching from the next not huge but still noticeable storm. 

I'm unsure whether the rain will get here by the time the ball drops or whatever at midnight, but it will be close.  During the runup to midnight, temperatures for most of us will be in the 30s, which is pretty toasty for this time of year and that time of night. 

If you indulge too much New Year's Eve, New Year's Day will bring us the perfect weather so we can sleep in. It'll be a dark, rather rainy, chilly day.   Snow will start to mix in up in the mountains, and gradually head toward the valleys as we get later and later in the day.  

WINTER'S RETURN

Starting late on January 1, it should be cold enough for snow pretty much everywhere in Vermont. It doesn't look like any kind of big dump of snow is in the offing. But the increasingly cold and blustery weather pattern does favor at least several inches of snow up in the mountains to grace the second half of the week.