Green Mountains In Vermont To Get Buried In Snow By Monday

National Weather Service snowfall prediction map.
Practically nothing in some valleys, but closing in
on two feet on some mountains by Tuesday.

 The first part of our storm is over, the one that dumped a cold rain, and in some areas freezing rain overnight. 

All the was expected, and was the easy part of the forecast for this storm. And those forecasts were pretty accurate.

Now comes the tricky part. 

We have a big, classic, upslope snow event for the Green Mountains. That's when moisture-laden air, propelled by stiff northwest winds, slams into the west slopes of the mountains. The air is forced to rise up and over the mountains. 

Rising air cools. Cooler air can't hold as much moisture as milder air. So the cooler air sheds the excess moisture it can't handle as precipitation. In this case, it means snow. Lots of snow.

This type of weather scenario happens all the time, every winter in Vermont. This episode will be bigger than most of them. 

The broad brush part of the forecast is easy. We know it's going to snow a lot in the Green Mountains, especially in central and northern Vermont. We know the summits of the Green Mountains will get nailed. Few of us  will be surprised if Jay Peak gets a couple feet. That's the mountain that almost always gets buried the most in this type of situation.

We also know very little snow will come down in places like the southern Champlain Valley and the Connecticut River Valley, roughly south of Wells River. 

It's the details that are tricky.  Especially in towns on the edge of the heavy snow zone. Places that get barely an inch or two will be very close to places that get six inches, even 12 inches. 

Probably the trickiest areas to forecast are in western Vermont, east of Route 7 all the way from Pownal to Highgate. 

Right along Route 7, there probably won't be much snow at all. But heading east from Route 7, snow totals will rapidly rise.  But where will that sharp increase start? In Chittenden County, will you start seeing a fair amount of snow in Williston? Or will you need to get to Bolton or the eastern part of Jericho to find pretty deep snow?

I live on Route 36 in St. Albans. Near the lake, on that road, they'll be lucky to get an inch of snow. I live on the transition zone on Route 36 on Fairfield Hill. I wouldn't be surprised to see at least a couple inches of new snow at my house. 

But two miles up the road, at the top of the hill, there could be double the amount of snow over what will be in my back yard. Bakersfield, about 13 miles east of my place, could get a foot or more of snow.  

As I began writing this at 8 a.m. Sunday, the northwest flow has just barely started. We were getting snow flurries in St. Albans at that hour, and weather radar shows the beginnings of this upslope snow. 

The heavy snow will peak from this afternoon through early Monday. 

A winter storm warning is unsurprisingly in effect for much of northern Vermont near the Green Mountains.    As mentioned, snow amounts will vary widely between valleys and mountaintops.

It also looks like much of the Northeast Kingdom should get a fair amount of snow with this. Winter weather advisories are in effect up there. A winter weather advisory is up for Franklin County, too, where, as mentioned, snowfall will be super variable. 

Further south in Vermont, the mountain snows won't be quite as heavy. But it'll be noticeable. A winter weather advisory is in effect down the spine of the Green Mountains from central Vermont to the Massachusetts border. 

The National Weather Service is going for three to six inches, with locally as much as ten inches in this winter weather advisory zone. 

No matter where you are this afternoon through tomorrow, it's going to be windy. Expect gusts over 30 mph in most places, with a few gusts over 40 mph. 

Where it will be snowing hard, expect a lot of blowing and drifting snow. Almost blizzard conditions, really. 

By the way, the Adirondacks of New York, especially the northern and western Adirondacks, will get buried, too in this situation. Same is true for some of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. 

The bottom line: I'd avoid travel this afternoon through Monday morning along high elevation mountain roads. You know the places: Roadways like Route 17 through Buels Gore, Roxbury Gap, Route 242 and 105 way up by Jay Peak, the back roads near and east of towns like Bakersfield, Enosburgh, Cambridge, Underhill, Huntington, Ripton. 

The snow will finally tend to lighten up and stay closer to the immediate Green Mountain ridgeline starting later tomorrow into Tuesday. 

Most ski areas won't be open yet but I'm sure there will be some people hiking in for some powder skiing.