Little Storm Is In Vermont This Evening, Cold Rain Valleys, Snow Up On Hills

About as dank and dark as you can get this time of
year, as a snow-free landscape drinks up a chilly
drizzle Wednesday afternoon in St. Albans, Vermont.
We might end up with a little snow overnight to
brighten things up, but no blockbuster. 

Our little storm is here in Vermont late this afternoon. The valleys were getting a cold, November-like rain, and that rain was mixing with snow in mid elevations, and it was snowing up at the ski areas.  

Which is good.

This won't be an incredible storm by any stretch of the imagination. There's not even any kind of winter weather advisories out there. 

That's mostly because most of Vermont's populated areas are in valleys, where little snow will accumulate tonight. 

Still, during bursts of heavier precipitation this evening, the rain will tend to change to snow, and in southern Vermont, you could get a quick inch within an hour the heavier bands of snow.  I imagine the National Weather Service office in South Burlington will issue a special weather statement this evening to warn us the roads kinda suck. 

Road conditions were already just starting to get worse in higher elevations as of 5 p.m. Traffic cameras were showing it snowing fairly hard in high spots like Route 17 in Buels Gore and Route 4 in Mendon. Those conditions will gradually get lower and lower in elevation as the evening wears on. 

Temperatures were gradually cooling enough for the slow transition to snow to happen. I noticed that between 4 and 5 p.m., both Newport and Montpelier, Vermont flipped from rain to snow, though temperatures in both communities were still above freezing. 

In the end, most of us will see one to three inches of snow, with maybe even less than that near Lake Champlain and the warmer valleys of southwest and southeast Vermont. Some of the ski areas could still clock in with six inches of snow with this. 

Unlike what I pessimistically said this morning, if tonight doesn't give you a white Christmas, there are some other subtle chances coming up of seeing snow covered ground by the time Santa's sleigh lands.

We're still looking at a dusting of snow Friday and Saturday as the weather turns frigid. And it now looks like we might see some sort of weak weather system Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day. We don't know if that will bring us snow or mixed precipitation, and if so,  how much. 

But it's something to keep an eye on, since many of us will be traveling that day.