Thursday Evening Vermont Snow/Road Update: Mostly Focused on Central, Northern Greens

While the Champlain Valley was still partly sunny 
and mild this afternoon, the snow was already rolling
into the Green Mountains. This is a screen grab
from Route 108 in Stowe at around 4:30 p.m.
Falling temperatures, gusty winds and snow showers
will make travel tricky tonight, as long forecast.

 Many of us in Vermont ended up surprisingly having a rather pleasant early December weather day - at least part of it - as the storminess engulfing the Great Lakes and much of the Northeast just kind of played with us a little.  

In the central and southern Champlain Valley, the sun was out for a fair amount of the day. The temperature in Burlington made it to 41 degrees, the warmest since November 27. 

I even spotted lawn care crews doing autumn cleaning in yards, since there was no snow on the ground there. 

As expected, things are reverting back to winter this evening. Temperatures were falling through the 30s into the 20s, so any leftover water was freezing up. Snow showers had returned, and were coming down at a pretty good clip in parts of the central and northern Green Mountains.

The winds were picking up, too.

While you might hit slick spots anywhere in Vermont this evening, the main trouble will be in those places I just mentioned. Any snow in the Champlain Valley overnight should amount to an inch or less. As of 5:30 p.m., the roads were pretty good in the valley until you started getting north toward Milton and Georgia, where snow showers were coming down. 

Some snow showers in Vermont are quite heavy this evening, with briefly very low visibility. There's even been reports of thundersnow east of Burlington.

Those snow showers were headed south to an extent, so things might deteriorate a bit as you head toward Burlington and further south this evening. 

Traveling eastward through Vermont to the other side of the Greens will be hazardous overnight, as previously predicted. A couple to several inches of snow should fall before it begins to peter out a bit after midnight. 

Winds were already gusting to around 30 mph in many areas as of 5:30 p.m and that will only get gustier as the night goes on. As I mentioned  this morning, expect a noisy night as many of us see gusts in the 40 to 45 mph range. 

That wind will create plenty of blowing and drifting snow in the mid and high elevations in Vermont,  making overnight travel even worse. 

Tomorrow will be a windy, cold day, just like mid-winter. It won't last long, as next week still looks much warmer.