Snowy Vermont Day Has Begun, Decent Snowfall Almost Statewide

This morning's National Weather Service snow prediction
map is little changed from yesterday. Still looking at
roughly 6 to 9 inches in the southeastern half of
Vermont and somewhat lesser amounts northwest. 

 As of 6:30 this morning the snow was beginning, launching us into our snowy start to December.

For such an unpredictable type of weather system, the forecast has remained remarkably consistent for the past few days. This morning, we have only small changes in the forecast compared to last night. 

The most important one is the slightly earlier than forecast onset of snow than we originally thought. The original idea was it coming in around 7 a.m., but at least for western Vermont and New York, it was around 6 a.m. or so.

The first bits of snow were light, but it will increase in intensity, especially in the southern half of Vermont. 

As for this morning, you know the drill.  If you haven't left for school or work yet, you should, or should have built in extra time to get to where you need to go. As of 7 a.m. traffic cameras showed roads getting increasingly snow covered, pretty fast across much of the state.

Before you head out, check your local listings for school closings. There's a ton of them. 

By 7 a.m., I haven't heard much yet about cars sliding off the roads or hitting each other, but that will come soon enough today. The saving grace with this storm is the heaviest snow is coming after most people are at work.

ACCUMULATIONS

Not much has changed in terms of how much snow we'll get. The bottom line: This is a midsized snowfall, by Vermont standards. 

The new forecast map issued this morning from the National Weather Service in South Burlington only has subtle changes, compared to the one they gave us Monday afternoon. Maybe a tiny bit more than yesterday's forecast in northwestern Vermont. That reflects a predicted storm track that has nudged just a bit north from yesterday. 

The winter storm warning is still in effect for basically the southern  half of Vermont and the winter weather advisory is up for everyone except people in Franklin and Grand Isle counties. But even there, the road conditions are already going downhill.

There will be some nuances with the accumulations in the area covered by warning and advisories. Three to 10 inches of new snow is a good bet today, depending on whether you're in the warning or the advisory. 

Traffic cam grab of Exit 16, Interstate 89 in Colchester
at around 7:30 this morning. The heaviest snow
hadn't arrived yet, so road conditions weren't as
bad as they could have been. 

But there will be nuances. This type of storm tends to set up narrow southwest to northeast oriented bands of heavier snow. You can't easily tell in advance where they will set up. 

This means you might get into a situation where you'll have a Vermont town that gets 10 inches of snow, then a community just a dozen or two miles north gets four or five inches, then another town a couple dozen miles north of that second town gets eight, nine, ten inches. 

It's the luck of the draw. 

In so many recent winters, we've had these awful "wet cement" heavy snowstorms, uncharacteristic for us, really. This one is more old-fashioned. Powdery. Not light insignificant feathers, but it won't be heart-attack snow, either. 

It still looks like the wind will be fairly light with this storm, so the snow will be pretty piling up on tree branches. It is surprisingly blustery outside here in St. Albans, but that seems to be some sort of local effects. Most places in Vermont were reporting calm winds, or winds at or under 10 mph. 

ROCKET STORM

Forecasts that this storm would move wicked fast are coming true. The storm was near southeastern North Carolina early this morning and will be near Cape Cod by this evening. 

That leaves us with a short window for heavier snow. That should come roughly between 10 a.m.  and 3 p.m. today. By late this afternoon or very early evening, the storm will basically be over in the northwest half of Vermont, and it will end before midnight in extreme southeastern parts of the state.

Usually, at least light snow lingers for many hours after a storm passes Cape Cod as northeast winds throw moisture back into our neck of the woods. This storm, though, is pretty compact, so once it's over, it's pretty much over.

Still, I expect roads to be in not great shape as we go into this evening, especially in southern and eastern Vermont. 

OUTLOOK

The roughest start to winter since at least 2019 and probably before that will continue to slap us in the face as we go through the week. Tomorrow will be fairly calm, but kinda cold for this time of year, with highs in the low 30s. 

That Arctic cold front is still looming for Thursday morning with its batch of snow showers and snow squalls. We're watching the timing of this one, because the snow squalls might enter the Champlain Valley around the morning commute. We're hoping they hold off until a little later in the morning, but we don't know for sure yet

Temperatures will crash into the teens by Thursday afternoon and to near 0 by Friday morning. It'll sort of warm up over the weekend and into next week, but barely. It'll still be much colder than average for this time of year well into next week. 

I'll have more details on that after we get past this storm, but it looks like we'll have a few shots of Arctic air through mid-month at least.