Holding Our Breath Until Winter REALLY Hits In Vermont

Snow is finally almost melted away in my yard in St.
Albans, Vermont after the storm 12 days ago. For the
next few days, we'll be in a never never land that
is past autumn but not quite winter. 

We're getting a semi-break from winter between now, as we brace for a possible, uncertain first Arctic blast of the season sometimes in the opening week of December.

Maybe. 

It looks increasingly likely that somebody in the Lower 48 in the United States is going to suffer through subzero Arctic cold and brutal wind chills once we get into the final month of the year. 

Whether any of that nonsense will affect us here in Vermont is still very open to debate.

Before we get there, we will be stuck in a sort of no man's land that's not really late autumn, and not really winter, either. During that time, the forces of winter will be adjusting themselves, getting ready for their first frigid act of the season.

For us, that means variable weather.  Since the mountains got all that snow, some Vermont ski resorts opened a week earlier than they anticipated. Lifts are going this weekend at places like Jay Peak Resort, Stowe Mountain Resort,  Sugarbush and Okemo.

And of course Killington opened earlier this month. 

In our holding our breath period as Thanksgiving approaches, the weather outlook is mixed for those ski resorts. And the rest of us for that matter. 

Today will be a typical late November day. That means quite a few clouds, some periods of sun, with daytime temperatures near 40. 

The approaching winter will throw down a few snowflakes tomorrow afternoon and night. Some valleys could see a dusting to an inch of snow. Maybe the ski areas will get a couple inches.

The weather pattern is active, so the next storm in the pipeline should arrive Wednesday. It looks like it'll bring along a squirt of warm weather for a change. Temperatures should get up to 50 degrees or so in many valley spots. The mountains, unfortunately, should get some rain. Not a huge amount, but rain and thawing.

Here's where the change to winter starts. It's going to be a slow, uneven process. The first of the cold fronts should come through at the end of the week. 

That means some light snows starting on Thanksgiving and into the weekend. It'll be cold, too, with highs near the freezing mark. Chilly, but not that unusual for the end of November.

EXTENDED OUTLOOK

Once you get beyond a week or so, it's hard to make an accurate forecast. You can only do a broad brush kind of prediction. 

It looks like the increasingly strong cold outbreaks might want to enter the United States in the northwestern Plains, places like Montana and North Dakota. Then the cold air sweeps east. 

By the time that type of cold air gets here, it will have modified some. Also, storms will form on the leading edge of these cold outbreaks. At this point, it's impossible at this point to know exactly where these storms will go, and how strong they might be.

Their tracks could mean the difference between skier delight snow dumps or disappointing schmutz. But at least we'll keep getting some type of precipitation to keep eating away at the lingering vestiges of drought. 

A lot of factors seem to be coming together to bring a cold December to much of the United States. We in Vermont will need to stay tuned to see how much we share in that likely chilly regime.