Record Warmth To Vermont Winter Storm As We Head Into The New Year

Big contrasts in snowfall expected with upcoming storm
Less than an inch in lowest valleys far west and far east
in Vermont, while Jay Peak could get two feet. 

It's toasty out there again this morning, as we get one last day of our end of 2024 heat wave. 

We won't have any record highs again today, but we never did get below freezing last night and many of us will be well into the 40s this afternoon. 

Burlington was the big heat winner with this warm spell. We already told you about the record high of 61 on Sunday, set at around 11 that night.

The city also managed to reach 60 degrees Monday, breaking the record high of 58 for the date set in 2022. 

Other high temperatures around the region Monday included 58 in Bennington and Highgate, 57 across the pond in Plattsburgh, 53 in Springfield, and 51 in Montpelier 

The thaw gave Montpelier a bit of a scare yesterday.  An ice jam formed in town, making the Winooski River rise rapidly in Montpelier. The city is still spooked by devastating floods in recent decades, including a 1992 ice jam flood.

In this case, city officials went to work, breaking up the jam with a backhoe and spraying warm, treated effluent onto the ice jam to make it melt. It worked, the jam quickly broke up, and water receded without every quite making it to flood stage. 

NEW STORM

That oft-mentioned New Years Day storm coming in is going to cause some pretty wildly different conditions in Vermont. We're going to have some big time snow winners and losers here. 

By the end of the week, some of the lower valleys of far western and far eastern Vermont will see barely an inch of new snow, if that.  Meanwhile, the northern and central Green Mountains are in for at least a foot of snow.  I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the Jay Peak cloud over-performs and dumps two feet of snow on that ski area near the Canadian border.

The storm causing all this is pretty dynamic, judging from the very low, but not zero chance of tornadoes today oddly north in parts of Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

As I mentioned yesterday, the storm is taking the perfect path to dump at least several inches of snow all over Vermont. Too bad there's not enough cold air for snow. The valleys should see mostly rain overnight and New Year's Day, at least for the first half of the storm. 

There is the slightest chance of a New Year's miracle which would chill the air enough to produce snow even in the valleys, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. 

Once the storm gets to eastern New England, it will really start to crank up, then move northward into eastern Quebec and pretty much stall for a couple days. 

That will set up a strong, cold, wet northwest air flow that will last from Wednesday night to at least Friday. It's a classic setup to dump tons and TONS of snow on the central and northern Green Mountains while people in the Champlain and Connecticut River valleys wonder what all the fuss is about. 

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington has posted a winter storm watch for Franklin, Orleans, Lamoille and Washington counties in Vermont, and also the spine of the Green Mountains all the way to south of Killington. 

Winter storm watches are also up for the Adirondacks and in western New York, where the lake effect blasts are set to start again. 

The snow contrasts here in Vermont will be striking.  In Franklin County alone, I'll be surprised if St. Albans Bay gets as much as 1.5 inches. At my place on a high spot on the eastern part of St. Albans, I'm probably in for four or five inches. 

Head up to eastern Franklin County toward Bakersfield, Richford and Montgomery, we're probably talking more than a foot. Maybe even a foot and a half in a couple high spots.

We're also going to see some screaming northwest winds with this, with gusts over 40 mph, so we'll find plenty of blowing and drifting snow, especially where there's a lot of it. 

Plan on travel trouble in high elevations Wednesday, in most of the state Wednesday night, and in the northern and central Green Mountains Thursday and probably Friday.  

Once temperatures fall below freezing later Wednesday, they'll stay there for a long, long time.  Quite possibly until at least mid-month, so any snow that does fall will stick around for awhile.