Snow Continues To Set Records In Vermont's Green Mountains

A snowy view of Vermont's Mount Mansfield from
January, 2021. This year, it's especially wintry up
there. As of Friday, there was 63 inches of snow on
the ground near the top of the mountain, a record
for so early in the season. 

 The ski and riding season is off to the best start in memory over Vermont's Green Mountains with another boatload of snow up there this past week. 

There is a hiccup looming in the snow parade, but for now (more on that in a minute) But for now, it's pretty wild up there. 

The snow depth near the top of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest peak, reached 63 inches on Friday, breaking the old record depth for the date of 56 inches. 

The 63 inch snow depth is the earliest in the season on record for so much snow.  Until Friday, the snow depth up there had never gotten to 63 inches any earlier than December 26. 

In a typical winter, there's 21 inches of snow on the ground up there this time of year. Mount Mansfield usually doesn't have 63 inches of snow piled up until early February.   

The folks up at Jay Peak near the Canadian border, said they received about two feet of snow in the 36 hours ending early this morning. Snowfall so far this season up there is 185 inches. Their Saturday snow report says that's the most they've ever seen for so early in the season. 

That Jay Peak report also gave us this statement:  "The amount of snow is starting to feel borderline terrifying, but it skis like a dream." 

It's rare for ski areas in Vermont to have all their terrain open this season, but all of Jay Peak's alpine and Nordic trails are open as of this morning. 

Elsewhere, both Smugglers' Notch and Stowe have already had more than 100 inches of snowfall this season so far.

This has really been a mountain snow blitz, with Vermont valleys kind of sitting this one out. Snowfall so far this season has been a little more than average in northern Vermont valleys and definitely nothing special in the low lands of southern Vermont. 

So far this season, Burlington has had 18.9 inches of snow, which is 6.7 inches ahead of normal as of Friday. St. Johnsbury has had 13.4 inches of snow so far this month, which means they're running a little ahead of average 

What makes the snow even more remarkable in the northern Green Mountains is the lack of thaws since Thanksgiving.  That's a rarity for December, especially in recent years when record or near record warmth has often hit during the last month of the year. 

This year's cold December weather has contributed to the deep snow cover in the mountains. In the valleys, snow cover is pretty substantial for this time of year, but not record-breaking. Two towns near Jay Peak, Westfield and Montgomery, had 20 inches on the ground as of Friday, which is a lot. 

Greensboro had 16 inches, but I couldn't find any other towns listed by the National Weather Service as having more than a foot of snow covering the landscape. 

OUTLOOK

There might be a little more snow today, but most places around Vermont should receive an inch or less. The mountains could pick up two or three inches, but this will be a minor little event. 

A few more light snow showers look like they'll come through Monday night.  But for the most part, nature's snow hose is temporarily just a dribble. 

The powder party in the mountains looks like it'll finally get interrupted around Thursday. By then, a well-anticipated weather pattern change will have gotten established. Instead of pushes of cold air from Canada, we'll have a  really fast, west-to-east flow across the United States.

This will allow squirts of warm air to come up ahead of storms zipping along in that flow. The first of these will probably come through here around Thursday, as mentioned. At this point,  it's looking like some rain will come with it, even in the high elevations. 

Details on this forecast are still a bit iffy, and subject to change, as always. But for now, it does look like the fast motion of the storm will mean the rain and the thawing won't last long enough to melt a huge amount of snow, and it probably won't really rain hard.  Plus, I imagine there will be a little snow at the tail end of the storm as a parting gift. 

After a brief cooldown, there might be another system next Sunday sort of similar to Thursday's zipping on through. 

Some of the computer models are hinting at a larger storm probably just after Christmas. But it's way too soon yet to figure out if there will indeed be a storm, and if so, what type. 

It seems there's some sort of good sized storm somewhere around Christmas almost every year. So this is a good reminder to bank extra time if you're traveling over the holiday in case the weather goes south.