The Snow Keeps Coming In Vermont, Squalls Early Today; Southern Half Of State Takes The Brunt This Weekend

A snow squall blasts through St. Albans, Vermont around
7 a.m. today.  The day started with a series of snow
squall warnings across northern Vermont. 

 Early this morning, snow squall warnings were once again flying across northern Vermont before and  around dawn today as yet another disturbance came through. 

The alerts were accurate, as just seconds after my phone blared with a snow squall warning, visibility outside my St. Albans, Vermont house dropped to zero.

The intense squalls in Franklin County really made a mess when they came through around 7 a.m 

We saw lots of slide offs and accidents, Even worse, there was a report of a school bus that went off the road and was on its side in Enosburgh.  Early reports indicate there were 10 students plus the driver on the bus and there was a least one injury. 

The snow squalls were brief enough to add only about an inch to our slowly growing snow cover,   

The snow keeps adding up in relatively small doses, but with a lack of major thaws, it's now looking like a true Vermont winter in many parts of the state. Some places in northern Vermont have around two feet of snow on the ground.  

Not all places look super wintry yet. A  few southern Vermont valleys still don't have much snow on the ground, but that looks like it will change soon. More on that in a bit.

Thursday's snow amounted to only two to five inches, but as noted yesterday, the timing of it made it disruptive.

One little interesting tidbit out of Burlington.  The snow there melted down to the equivalent of 0.27 inches of "rain" there.  That really isn't much, but it still made Thursday Burlington's "wettest" day since December 11, when downpours deposited 1.74 inches. 

Just goes to show how this winter has featured frequent, but tiny snowfalls.  

Anyway, let's move on to what's happening next around Vermont.

TODAY

You're going to want to build in a little extra time to get to work or school this morning. The snow showers and snow squalls are part of a cold front that's coming through. 

Overnight and early this morning, temperatures actually managed to get slightly above freezing in the warmer valleys, like in Burlington, Rutland and Springfield.  The cold front is dropping temperatures so water on the road is freezing, and the snow squalls will add a coating of snow to everything.

It comes on fast. Burlington was fine at 5 a.m. with flurries, but at 6 a.m. they reported heavy snow with almost zero visibility as a snow squall passed through there. These squalls won't last long in any particular place, but they'll leave their mark 

So yeah, the roads won't be so great in many place. Especially north. 

For the rest of the day, it actually won't be all that cold behind the front, as temperatures settle into the 20s for the rest of the day. But it's going to be windy, with a few lingering snow showers.  A wind advisory is up for much of southern Vermont and virtually all of northern New York where winds could gust to 50 mph.

Elsewhere winds will gust to 40 mph or more in many spots, especially this morning and early afternoon. You'll want to watch out on the roads, still especially north/south oriented ones.  The strong west winds will blow the snow onto those roads, and create some potential big drifts. 

SATURDAY 

The quiet before the storm. Some clouds, tending to thicken up in the later afternoon. Some sun, maybe, too. Also, we can't rule out an inconsequential snow shower or two especially early in the day. Seasonable temperatures. No biggie.

SATURDAY NIGHT/SUNDAY

This will be when the next quick hitting storm blows through. Trends keep sending that storm well to our south. That means northern Vermont shouldn't expect too much out of this. 

A first best guess on snowfall amounts expected in the 
next storm Saturday night and Sunday morning. This'
map is really, really subject to change between
now and Saturday afternoon.

This storm will be absolutely racing eastward, big time. Current projection have it around Kentucky Saturday afternoon, south of Long Island, New York before dawn Sunday, and way out south of Nova Scotia by late Sunday afternoon. 

So, the storm won't have time to deposit all that much snow, since its visit will be so short. 

Still, southern Vermont looks destined to see a short, sharp burst of heavy snow overnight Saturday and early Sunday. 

If current projections hold areas south of Route 4 could see six or seven inches of snow, while central Vermont gets into the three to five inch range. If you're way up by the Canadian border, you might see two inches and even that could be generous. 

That said, if the trends keep pushing the storm south, almost everybody in Vermont gets less snow than I outlined here.  If it takes an unexpected jog to the north, we get more. 

The storm will be outta here by Sunday afternoon. 

NEXT WEEK

The spray of fast moving, modest sized storm will continue to blast roughly west to east across the nation.  Some of them will affect us, some might not. 

Anything beyond Sunday is guesswork, but here's an early read on what will happen. But don't hold me to it. 

One storm scoots by far to our south Tuesday night, and we get nothing but light snow showers from an unrelated disturbance passing over us. Another storm looks like it could hit us with some snow next Thursday, but that storm looks pretty small, at least from this vantage point. 

Beyond that, additional storms might blow through, or near us every other day through the third week of the month.  It's impossible to say how any of these might affect us, but the overall trend so far is to keep northern New England on the chilly side. 

Unless there's a surprise, I don't expect a big snow melt down anytime soon.  And, chances are, the snow cover could keep building up.  After a slow, dry start, it's turning out to be a decent winter sports season after all.