Next Round Of Vermont Winter Weather To Be Icy, Then Windy And Snowy

Freezing rain prediction map. Most places in Vermont
should get some tonight It'll be enough to make driving
dangerous but likely not enough to cause damage
to trees and power lines. Freezing rain will be
spottier in the Champlain Valley. 

 Winter in November continues with the next storm on Vermont's doorstep. It will spread ice, rain, then gusty winds and in some places, a lot of snow by tomorrow and tomorrow night.  

Some areas were getting glimpses of sun this morning. Which is great, since I haven't seen any sun since last Saturday. 

But the slightly brighter skies won't last long. Clouds will thicken up during the day and temperatures for most of us will stay in the 30s.

The main show begins this evening. A winter weather advisory is up for all of Vermont except for the Champlain Valley and western Rutland County.  It goes from 7 p.m. this evening to 7 a.m. Sunday.  . 

The problem this time will be freezing rain. 

This is following the pattern of most storms that try to bring relatively warm air up ahead of them. The mild air has a clear shot south to north up the Champlain Valley,  so it's harder to get freezing rain there. 

The trouble starts at the Green Mountains. 

The warm air near the surface often can't get over the mountains to eastern Vermont, but has no trouble blasting in above the Green Mountains, a few thousand feet over our heads. So, rain comes down through the warm air aloft, but freezes on impact in the valleys near and east of the Greens. That's tonight's scenario. 

Get used to it. This sort of thing  usually happens several times each winter.  

All that said, the Champlain Valley doesn't escape it entirely. There might be patches of ice even in that banana belt valley this evening. Temperatures will hover not far from the freezing mark, so you never know. 

Elsewhere in Vermont, it'll be annoyingly tricky. If you're brave enough to drive anywhere in or east of the Green Mountains tonight, you might find just a wet road one moment, and glare ice just 100 feet further down the highway. 

The good new is there won't be nearly enough freezing rain to cause problems with trees and power lines. 

The bulk of the freezing rain will come between early evening and before dawn.   

The storm itself will move eastward across northern New York and into northern Vermont overnight, then start to redevelop over Maine. From there, it will intensify as it heads toward southeast Canada. Which spells trouble for us Sunday through Monday.

SUNDAY AND BEYOND

Snow prediction map from Sunday to early Tuesday. 
Once again, the northern Green Mountains are in
for a nice dump of snow. Many northern Vermont 
low and mid elevations should get a few inches,
except for the Champlain Valley. The Lower
Connecticut River Valley misses out again. 

High temperatures for most of us will come on Sunday morning. Readings will fall all day as northwest winds really pick up. They'll gust to as high as 40 mph in many areas as temperatures slowly fall. 

Any lingering rain will turn to snow. That's set the stage for a big snowstorm for a few of us, light accumulations for most of us, and nothing at all for a few people  in the Green Mountain State.

The front end of the storm - as I mentioned above - is a classic freezing rain scenario. The back end Sunday and Sunday night is a classic upslope snowstorm. 

Moisture in those northwest winds will slam into the west slopes of the Green Mountains, meaning the air will have to go up and over those hills. Rising air squeezes the moisture out of the air, and that moisture will come down as snow. Lots of it in some spots.

The central and northern Green Mountains, already buried in snow from this past week, are in for another six to 12 inches. Maybe even more than that on a few mountain peaks.

The summit of Mount Mansfield already had 25 inches on the ground as of yesterday afternoon. That's the second most for the date. Only November 14, 1990 had more. 

Meanwhile, a lot of valleys in northern Vermont might see two to four inches of snow out of this by Monday afternoon. The Champlain Valley should see maybe an inch or less. Amounts maybe closer to two inches or a little over that could hit the northern end of the valley up toward St. Albans and Swanton. 

As is usual with this kind of scenario, the southeastern corner of Vermont down in the lower Connecticut Valley will be lucky to get flurries out of this. 

But everybody in Vermont will get to enjoy the strong, cold northwest winds through at least Monday. 

The cold will continue too. There are signs it might start to warm up toward the end of the upcoming week. We shall see!