As Expected, Line of Heavy Snow Disrupted Morning Commute; Big Chill Roaring In

Interstate 89 in Colchester as the heavy snow
showers passed through this morning. If you 
look closely in upper left corner, it looks like
a car is off the road and in a ditch. 

It's another blustery, snowy morning in at least parts of Vermont this morning, as expected. Our Arctic front is coming though, and with it, some heavy snow showers. 

As of 7:30 a.m. a narrow band of heavy snow was in a southwest to northeast oriented band over Chittenden County and northern Vermont near the Green Mountains.

 It was heading southeastward, ,continuing to head down Interstate 89 toward Montpelier. The burst of heavy snow was approaching Waterbury as of 8:30 a.m. 

It wasn't quite considered a snow squall as of this writing, but it was close. Underneath this burst of snow, visibility is really bad and the roads got from clear to snowy in a flash.  

Traffic cams showed Interstate 89 going from near-perfect to snow covered and pretty gnarly within minutes when the heavy snow band arrives 

The snow doesn't stop after the almost-snow squall goes through. More snow showers continue after it, so road crews won't immediately be able to get road conditions pristine. It was still snowing at a decent clip here in St. Albans an hour and a half after that initial band of heavier snow came through. 

In fact, it looks like a second heavy band of snow was setting up over Franklin County, and that could cause more trouble across northwest and north-central Vermont between 8:30 am. and mid-morning. 

Bottom line, if it has already snowed where you are in northern Vermont, the road conditions won't get better fast. If it hasn't snowed yet where you are, you'll see a quick shift to those icy roads. 

The line of snow will reach southern and eastern Vermont later this morning, maybe very early in the afternoon down toward the southeast corner.

THE ARCTIC BLAST

Traffic cam image from this morning after the worst
of the sow had passed shows traffic backed up
on northbound Interstate 89 between South Burlington
and Colchester, due to reported crashes. 

After most of the snow clears, today will not be a nice one.  Gusty north winds up to 30 mph will blow the snow around, and the temperatures will crash. High temperatures near 30 this morning will be falling through the teens this afternoon. 

The forecast for tonight is unchanged. The winds will diminish a little, but still be strong enough to get wind chills as low as the teens below zero.  

Actual temperatures are still going to bottom out tomorrow morning within a few degrees either side of zero. 

This is going to be a particularly brutal cold snap up in the mountains. I'd forget the back country skiing this afternoon and tonight. 

If you want extremes, the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire is expecting lows overnight that could threaten the record low of 21 below.  Add in Mount Washington's usual extreme winds and that makes things outdoors unsurvivable up there.   

It stays cold tomorrow, then it'll marginally warm up Saturday, just in time for the next Arctic front. The worst of the next cold snap, with highs in the teens and lows in the single numbers above or below zero, will run from Sunday night through Tuesday morning. 

At this point, unless something changes that I don't yet know about, it should stay generally colder than normal most days around here at least through about December 20.