One Last Round Of Rain With Our Vermont Storm As We Get Ready For Yet Another One

The Killington, Vermont Police Department posted
this photo of a downed utility pole and wires blocking
a road in the resort town after Sunday's ice storm. 

Today's Day 3 of our long Vermont storm that really started Friday night. 

The great news is today will be the easiest of the three days by far.  

We're still suffering the hangover from Sunday's ice. 

All night and into early this morning, the number of homes and businesses still without electricity in Vermont stayed stubbornly above 5,000, after peaking art around 10,000 yesterday. 

Bottom line: Today's not a perfect weather day of course, but those are kind of rare this time of year anyway. 

Temperatures are warming up, and we should make it into the 60s today for a brief break from our wintry mess.  

The remaining snow and ice from the weekend should disappear for most of us pretty quickly today, it it hasn't already. Here in St. Albans, we had about six inches of new snow Saturday morning. Less than 48 hours, when I got up this morning and looked out the window, you'd never we ever had any snow. 

There is a few changes to the forecast. For most of us, the expected line of showers should come through Vermont in the morning and early afternoon, though there might be some showers behind that line.  

Earlier, we thought the bulk of the showers would be later this afternoon, but things have sped up a bit. 

Our showers might be briefly heavy with a slight chance you'll hear a rumble of thunder or two. But any heavy rain won't last long in any one place.  

We should have a half inch or less of rain today. Between the lingering rain and the snow and ice melt, the rivers should rise, as we've been saying all along. But if any flooding happens, it will be minor. 

QUICK WINTER RETURN

What had been six inches of snow was seen rapidly
melting off my St. Albans, Vermont driveway 
Sunday afternoon as temperatures rose above 
freezing and rain continued. 

If you thought we were done with winter weather after this past weekend, think again.  First of all, our current storm's cold front will drop us below freezing by Tuesday morning, and most of us won't even make it to 40 degrees Tuesday afternoon. 

By Wednesday morning, most of us will be in the teens, and there could be some single number temperatures in the cold hollows.

Following that is our next storm. With the cold air lingering at first, another round of snow, sleet and freezing rain (sigh!) seems likely Wednesday night. 

The snow probably won't amount to much.  The freezing rain won't accumulate nearly as much ice as the last storm did, so we won't face power outages and tree damage again. 

But, if you're on the roads Wednesday night, you'll probably encounter crappy driving conditions. Things should go over to rain Thursday as we get another squirt of mild air. 

At least the next storm's effects won't be nearly as bad in Vermont as in other places. This next storm is forecast to produce another large severe storm and tornado outbreak in the Midwest and Southeast. 

This storm, and a weather front associated with this storm that is expected to stall, looks like it might cause another round of serious flooding in parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.

Back here in Vermont, don't count on winter ending even after we get through Wednesday night's schmutz. Signs are pointing toward a week long spell of wintry cold and maybe occasional snow starting in about seven days from now. 

Those long range forecasts aren't always right, but the ones I've been seeing have been pretty consistent, so there's that.