"Battleground Storm" To Give Vermont, Surrounding Areas An Ugly, Possibly Wintry Weather Weekend

Believe it or not, depending on how things set up.
icy scenes like this could be what the landscape looks
like in at least parts of Vermont this coming weekend. 

Whenever the weather gets "interesting" here in Vermont, that's seldom a good sign.  

Unfortunately, we are in for an interesting weekend, it appears. 

The exact nature of what will happen is still tricky. It really depends on where weather fronts set up and the interaction between very cold air to the north and quite balmy air to the south. 

Here in Vermont, the rest of northern New England, northern New York and southern Quebec. we could well be looking at an ugly mix of snow, rain and freezing rain. 

 A few areas could get a full-blown ice storm, but that's uncertain. And if that happens we don't know where yet. 

THE BIG PICTURE

A storm is plowing into the Pacific Northwest today.  Record high temperatures preceded it. Today, there's a very rare risk of severe thunderstorms, large hail and maybe even a tornado or two in western Oregon and western Washington, including the cities of Portland and Seattle. 

That's an incredibly weird place to have severe weather, especially this time of year. But there you go. 

The storminess will inevitably come out into the middle of the nation and ultimately create an outbreak of severe storms and possible tornadoes across parts of the Midwest, South and Southeast over Sunday and Monday.

That's not good of course, but not really our problem up here in northern New England. 

What is our problem is the classic battle between spring and winter. A Bermuda high out ahead of our storm system will pump warm and kind of humid air into most of the eastern Untied States.

By Saturday highs should be in the mid-70s as far north as New York City. 

Meanwhile a blob of really cold air will sink southward into Quebec.  While New York is in the 70s Saturday, Montreal, Quebec expects a high in the mid-20s  (about -4 Celsius).

That leaves us in Vermont in the middle, right in the middle of the battleground. Which means weather front will be mostly stuck, over or near us.   The Midwest storms will send along little storms - its children, really - riding roughly west to east  along the front through our regionFriday through at least Monday.

WHAT THIS MEANS

For now, all the forecasts for Saturday through Monday are pretty broad brush for us, mentioning snow, rain and freezing rain.

That's because it depends on where the front sets up and when. It also depends on how much cold air comes down from Quebec, and how much warm air comes up from the south.  Nobody wants to get into specifics of what will happen because of those questions, and I don't blame 'em.

Freezing rain could be a real problem with this. The cold air will probably try to bleed southward from Quebec in the lowest levels of the atmosphere, while the warm air streams high overhead.

This late in the season, that usually creates just a cold rain maybe mixed with a little sleet. But the Quebec cold air is so chilly that it could keep temperatures near the surface, especially in northern Vermont below freezing.  That could result in a lot of freezing rain. Maybe. We don't know for sure yet. 

This system does seem destined to bring quite a bit of precipitation to us, too.  It's possible we could see 1.5 to two inches of rain and melted ice and snow between Saturday and Tuesday.  Again, that's a preliminary guess. But it demonstrates that a lot of rain or schmutz would cause more problems than just a little.

FIRST GUESS

The following is BIG TIME subject to change but here's an early guesstimate of what we might see this weekend. 

For now, snow and a mix seem most likely late Friday night, Saturday and Saturday night, with a greater trend toward plain rain south and perhaps in the warmer valleys in central Vermont. 

Sunday's a wild card, with maybe a little snow, but also some fair amounts of cold plain rain or freezing rain. 

It looks like the trend might be toward plain rain on Monday. 

If this storm turns out to be mostly rain, then we could have some flooding issues to talk about. If there's snow and ice, of course road travel becomes a problem. And in the off chance a particular spot receives a LOT of ice, then there could be some power outages.

It's only Wednesday, so we still have to wait for more details on how this one plays out. Don't be surprised if you see huge changes in the forecast between what you just read and what we actually see on the weekend. 

I'm pretty sure, though, this won't be the weekend you'll want to start the spring cleaning in your outdoor gardens.