Wednesday Evening Vermont Snow Update: Not A Biggie, But Watch The Driving Thursday

Snow-laden spruce trees Wednesday afternoon behind my
house in St. Albans, Vermont stand ready to take on
a little more snow and freezing drizzle that's in the
forecast for Thursday. 

I figure since we keep getting this constant spray of small storms coming through we'll keep you up to date with latest forecasts for the next one, due Thursday.  

Not much has changed with the forecast, as we are still anticipating a midday burst of snow, followed by some annoying freezing drizzle. 

The National Weather Service has added the possibility of some scattered snow squalls late Thursday night or early Friday morning, just for fun. 

I hope you enjoyed the blue skies over Vermont today.   It was a bright, gorgeous chilly day across Vermont. Classic mid-winter. 

 That still air, clear skies and low humidity will make temperatures crash this evening, with most of us outside the Champlain Valley getting below zero again.  The Champlain Valley itself will be close to zero.

As the clouds come in late tonight and stop the temperature free fall. Reading might actually start to rise as dawn approaches, especially in the Champlain Valley

Thursday 

In all except southwest Vermont, if you get to work or school by 9 a.m., you should avoid snowy roads. It should be clear sailing. 

Not much snow is expected here in Vermont tomorrow with
our likely short, sharp burst of snow, but it will add
a little to the increasingly deep snow cover, especially
in the Green Mountains and Northeast Kingdom 

Then, as the storm rockets by, we should only see a four to five hour window in which it will really be snowing. 

Give or take, its start mid-morning beginning first near Bennington then spreading rapidly northeastward to the Northeast Kingdom by early afternoon. 

The snow should pretty much be over by early to mid afternoon west and mid to late afternoon east. 

That doesn't give us much time to accumulate snow, which is why we're only expecting around 1.5 inches in the Champlain Valley to maybe three or four inches in the Green Mountains. 

Of course, forecasters are still saying that after the snow ends, we'll  have a few hours in which we'll deal with patchy freezing drizzle.   So the drive home, between the lingering snow on the roads, and the pesky freezing drizzle, could make things a little slow.

For the record, because of the snow and freezing drizzle, all of Vermont is under a winter weather advisory Thursday. 

It's stay murky and sorta mild amid the freezing drizzle Thursday evening before another cold front blasts through early Friday morning. It won't have as much cold air with it as the last couple of cold fronts had, but it will probably set off some snow showers and a locally heavy snow squall or two.

They'll be brief, and won't amount to much, but will probably leave their calling card on roadways as a little snow and ice for your Friday morning commute. It's winter, after all, what do you expect?

Friday itself looks blustery and seasonably cold, with snow showers mainly in the mountains.  Don't expect much additional accumulation. 

Elsewhere. 

The real action with this storm remains to our southwest. It's vigorous enough so that it might touch off a couple of severe thunderstorms, or even a weak tornado or two tonight in Tennessee or Kentucky.  There's also the risk of a little flooding in and around West Virginia as it should rain pretty hard down in that neck of the woods tonight. 

The big problem still looks like it will be in parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland, where an ice storm warning remains in effect. In addition to horrendous driving conditions, they are worried about power outages and tree damage in the worst affected areas.

Many school districts in the ice storm warning area have already called off classes for Thursday. 

Other Storms

It's still looking like another storm will hit Vermont and surrounding areas Sunday. Some areas could see more than six inches of snow. The early read on this is the heaviest snow is most likely in southern Vermont, but that could change, so stay tuned.

The rapid fire spray of storms continues. Another one looks like it might affect parts of the East Coast next Tuesday, but the early guess is that one might go too far south of Vermont to have any effect on us. We'll keep an eye on it. 

Beyond that, forecasts get even iffier, but it looks possible that yet another quick winter storm could affect us next Friday, and again a week from this Sunday.