Storm To Cause Problems Across U.S. Through The Weekend; Vermont In For A Lot Of....Something

Vermont Agency of Transportation posted
this photo to Facebook Thursday 
showing a backhoe shoving large
snowbanks away from Route 105 in
Jay around Richford Mountain to
make room for more plowed snow
in upcoming storms. 

 Our weird storm from earlier today is mostly done, as the snow we did get settled and got soggy in many places as temperatures went above freezing. 

Nice snowball and snowman making snow for a change, briefly. I saw a couple reports of five inches of snow near the Canadian border in the Northeast Kingdom, which is the most I've seen so far today. 

A few light rain showers in the valleys will change to scattered snow showers this evening without amounting to much. Water on roads and driveways should freeze up this evening, though so take care. 

IT's going to get windy tonight, too, so expect some many areas to see gusts over 40 mph.  The Vermont counties near the Canadian border and in far southern Vermont are under wind advisories, with possible gusts to 55 tonight. 

There might be a power outage or two with that kind of wind, though I'm guessing nothing too widespread. 

After a blustery, cold Friday, we gear up for the long awaiting larger weekend storm. 

First, the big picture

NATIONWIDE DANGER

Our storm is starting to cause its trouble today in California. 

California Flood/Debris

Flooding is possible today anywhere near the entire California coast and in the lower foothills of the Sierra Nevada, below the level where heavy snow is falling.

Southern California is the real trouble zone, thanks to the recent giant wildfires there. Rainfall rates are forecast to be between a half inch to an inch an hour at times, with rainfall totals in the three to six inch range. 

This would be enough to set off some mudslides and flash flooding without the prior wildfires. Now, with the huge burn areas devoid of vegetation and the soil cooked in such a way by the fires that water can't soak in well, the runoff is sure to create large debris flows.  The worry is it will destroy or damage homes that somehow escaped the fire. 

Fire officials have evacuated homes and businesses near the sites of the fires as a precaution. 

Eastern Flood

Once this storm is done with California, its destructive flooding won't end. Forecasters are worried about potentially serious flooding from Louisiana and other areas of the Southeast on up through the Tennessee Valley, West Virginia and southern Ohio,

This area has had a lot of precipitation from the parade of storms that have blown through this region all month.  Rivers are running high, soils and saturated. Now, three to six inches of rain is forecast Saturday in this region, 

There's already a level three "moderate" alert on a four point scale for flooding in this region. It's rare to issue that high a risk a couple days in advance.  NOAA's Weather Prediction Center is considering raising this to a rare "high risk" alert level for flooding. 

High risk is reserved for only the most dangerous flash flood scenarios. (They put Vermont under a high risk alert for the catastrophic flooding on July 10, 2023, for instance).

This could be a deadly and highly destructive flood, and it could hit some of the areas trashed by the extreme floods of Hurricane Helene back in September. 

Severe weather/tornadoes

Forecasters are also worried about a pretty widespread outbreak of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes near the Gulf Coast and Southeast Saturday with this new storm. There were already a handful of tornadoes with the most recent storm yesterday, and this one could prove more widespread. We'll need to watch for updates because of things come together correctly, they could end up with strong, long lasting tornadoes

And of course, along and to the north of this strong storm, freezing rain, sleet and snow will fall in torrents in a wide area stretching from Great Lakes to southeast Canada. Current forecasts call for wide areas of ice in the Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. 

Which leads us, finally, to what the hell is going to happen here in Vermont with this storm. 

VERMONT EFFECTS

Disappointingly, we don't know exactly how this will play out. Once again, it's going to be one of those marginal situations between snow, ice and rain

This will be different from all the quick hitters we've had this month. The weekend storm should stick around for awhile. As of this afternoon, it looks like something will be coming out of the sky in Vermont from Saturday evening at least until early Monday morning. 

One depiction of where this weekend's expected
strong storm might be Sunday morning. Exactly
where it goes, and how much warm air
intrusion aloft comes with it will determine
if Vermont gets a lot of snow, or a nasty
mix of frozen stuff. 

The storm itself will also be much stronger than the ones that have blown through here lately. 

At some points in this storm, we're going to have to deal with strong winds in some places. Best guess is early on in the storm, maybe Saturday nigh and early Sunday, strong downslope winds might hit the western slopes of the Green Mountains. 

Behind the storm, we could be dealing with strong, cold northwest winds. 

Like the storm we had Thursday, the temperature profile in different layers of the atmosphere over Vermont will be complicated. 

 We're going to see revisions right up through the storm as to how much snow, how much sleet and freezing rain, and even how much regular rain different parts of Vermont might see.

The early read on this is the main storm will head in from Ohio, across northwest Pennsylvania and into New York and maybe Vermont. A second storm will also start to develop along the New England coast.

How these two systems interact, and how far west the original storm goes, will dictate how much snow we get, versus how much sleet, freezing rain and rain.

There's a still a chance this could remain all or mostly snow, especially in the far north, but we just don't know yet. The best chances of an ugly mix are in southern Vermont.  For the record, the National Weather Service for now is going with mostly or exclusively snow north, and a mix south. 

It does look like it will start as snow for all of us Saturday, with the snow getting heavier later at night. Then we might get the mix, depending on temperatures. The tail end of the storm later Sunday or Sunday night looks like it could provide a decent burst of heavy snow. Maybe. 

I'm not even going to guess on how much snow and/or ice we're going to see out of this.  For now, I'd consider putting travel plans on hold this weekend. Especially on Sunday, when the worst of it looks like it wants to come through. 

This could be the strongest winter storm we've had all season, but what form it will take is ridiculously tricky.