A Cold Monday, Then A Pre-Christmas "January Thaw" In December?

Henry the Weather Dog huddled under
some thick blankets yesterday after
venturing outside on yet another cold
December day. He's a native of
South Texas, so it turns out he's
not a huge fan of Vermont winters. 

This month in and around Vermont has been a lot more like January than December. 

We usually ease into winter during December, but it's been like the depths of the season all month. It already feels like it's been winter forever. 

As you've noticed, it's cold again today. It snowed just a tiny bit again overnight, and as dawn broke, temperatures were back down into the single numbers. This afternoon, everybody except the warmest valleys will stay in the teens.  

I know we're in the last month of the year, but one tradition we tend to see the first month of the year is the January thaw.  For some reason, that thaw in many years tends to hit the third week of the month. 

Here we are going into the third week of December, and it looks like we have a "January" thaw coming. An interesting note leading up to the thaw is that some of the colder spots around, like Saranac Lake, New York, have not been above freezing at all this month. That's a real rarity for December.   

That's about to change. South winds will begin a warming trend tomorrow, and by Wednesday afternoon, we should all be at least a little above freezing. 

The core of the thaw will come Thursday and Thursday night. Strong south winds, especially in the Champlain Valley, will transport warmer air into northern New England. Meanwhile, a strong cold front, with a pretty good supply of moisture will be approaching from the west. 

The rain with this probably won't start in earnest until Thursday night. Temperatures will continue to warm up at night as the rain comes down. 

We're definitely going to melt some snow with this one. Valleys that have just a thin snow cover will probably lose it temporarily. 

But there's no way we'll get rid of all the snow in the high elevations. There's just too much of it. Your Vermont winter sports dreams won't die Thursday night. They'll just need to be readjusted a bit. 

Almost every time we get a January thaw, you have to worry about ice jams on the rivers. The rain and melting snow swells those rivers, which breaks up the ice. Those big shards of ice can sometimes get caught on a river bend or on bridge abutments. They dam the river and you get a flood behind that dam.

Usually, ice jams aren't a problem in December as there hasn't been much time to build ice. However, this year it might be a little bit of a problem. The ice isn't all that thick yet on the rivers, but it is something to watch.

At this point, I don't think the rain and thawing will last long enough to cause any real flooding across the state, but that's also something we'll watch as we get close to the event as well. 

Another thing to watch is Friday. We're not sure yet, but we could have problems with rain changing to snow and temperatures crashing to create a flash freeze on the roads sometime during the day. 

There's plenty of time to adjust the forecast, and we'll keep you posted.