Northern Vermont Snow Machine To Mostly Shut Off In Upcoming Arctic Blast

My St. Albans, Vermont this morning, neatly cleared
after another inch of snow last night. The northern
Vermont snow machine is about to shut off,
though in the face of expected Arctic air. 

 The weeks long flurried to death daily snow machine in the northern Green Mountains of Vermont is about to temporarily (mostly) shut off for several days. 

Most of us in northern Vermont keep getting installments of light snow to the point where we now have a few to several inches of snow on the ground. Far northern Vermont and the Green Mountains, especially from Killington north are swimming in seasonably deep snow cover. Nothing extreme, but decent.

Yesterday morning, the town of Westfield, which has really turned into Vermont's snowball town this winter, received another 8.5 inches installment of snow and they now had just under two feet of snow on the ground. 

Averill in the Northeast Kingdom had a snow depth of 20 inches, with a foot and a half on the ground in Montgomery. 

Jay Peak has reported 195 inches of snow this season so far,

More snow fell in the northern Green Mountains overnight, but that is tapering off. Again, a big range from a trace in overnight to I'm sure more than half a foot in the  northern Greens. 

Southern Vermont, especially the lower Connecticut River Valley is totaling missing out. So far, the snow in lowlands of southern Vermont just isn't there. 

This isn't great news.  Lingering drought conditions are most pronounced in southeastern Vermont.  You want deep winter snows to eventually melt and replenish ground water.

They've had almost no precipitation this month. The snow in northern Vermont away from the mountains has been lacking moisture too.

Halfway through January, total precipitation in most valley towns in Vermont is only about a half inch of water. It's just the northern mountains that have actually been getting enough snow, the type we need to replenish things in the spring. 

DRY, FRIGID OUTLOOK

 Other than one more period of light snow on Saturday - mixing with or changing to light rain for a time in the valleys - we won't see much more than very light flurries starting Sunday and probably continuing through next week. 

There were hints in some forecasts for a potential nor'easter on Monday that would have provided some decent snow. But that possible storm is totally off the table. Ain't happening. 

That's because some bitter Arctic air is plunging into most of the United States from the Rockies eastward.   The frigid air will arrive here by Sunday and take up residence for several days. 

That means a very likely round of below zero weather. Since Arctic air can't hold much moisture, we won't see much of anything fall from the sky beyond flurries. There might be a few snow showers in a couple lucky spots if lake effect snows from Lake Ontario hold together into the Green Mountains, but that's about it.

There are hints of a slightly milder, somewhat stormier pattern toward the end of the month, but I'll believe that when I see it. For weeks, I've seen some long range forecasts earlier this month promising storms by about now, and they didn't materialize.

So we'll see.