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| The sky looking west from St Albans, Vermont at dawn today had those pink and baby blue tones that I've always associated with a subzero winter cold snap. |
Skies cleared out above a blanket of fresh snow and a big supply of Canadian air to drop large sections of Vermont and surrounding areas below zero as dawn broke. Those of us who stayed above that frigid zero mark did so just barely.
The chill isn't that unusual for late December - Burlington got down to 2 above this morning, missing the record low for the date by a huge 28 degrees. But it's not comfortable out there, either.
From my perch on St. Albans hill, I can see that St. Albans Bay appears to be frozen, earlier than in recent years. This really has been a colder winter than usual so far. Pretty stormy, too.
That trend is going to continue.
WEIRD STORM
High thin clouds will make an appearance over Vermont today and thicken as the afternoon wears on. It'll stay cold as highs only make it into the teens.
This is due to a weird storm that will just brush by us, but cause havoc from Ontario to New Jersey. An Alberta clipper, as scheduled, is diving southeastward from Michigan to an eventual path that will take it off the Mid-Atlantic coast'.
The path of this storm is odd. So is it's strength, given it's a clipper, which usually aren't all that impressive. It was spreading snow through southern Ontario this morning and mixed precipitation in Michigan.
It will intensify further as it heads southeast. An ice storm warning is up for western Pennsylvania today and tonight. Freezing rain there today and tonight will make travel scary to say the least. It also risks causing tree and power line damage. Today's not the day for a road trip to Pittsburgh, that's for sure.
As the storm heads further south, it'll trigger a snowstorm from central New York down to the New York City metro area. That zone is in for five to nine inches of snow tonight.
We in Vermont will just be mostly bystanders to this spectacle. It'll snow a little in the Green Mountain State overnight, mostly south and west of Interstate 89. A little snow might get north of that, but it'll be inconsequential. There might be a couple inches down by Bennington. If the storm somehow manages to jog north a bit, then, of course we get a bit more snow.
But this won't be a biggie for us.
THE NEXT STORM
The next system in the pipeline will be more of a problem for us. Those of you who are thrilled we're missing out on today's ice storm in Pennsylvania aren't going to like this one. We're in for some ice Sunday night and Monday.
Saturday and Sunday will be quiet and cold. Though, because we're setting up for freezing rain eventually, Sunday's highs on the Green Mountain summits will probably be warmer than the valleys.You need that type of inversion to get your freezing rain.
That'll come in Sunday night. If you get your return trip home or to wherever you're headed by sunset on Sunday, you should be fine.
At this point, fingers crossed, it doesn't look like the freezing rain will be enough to cause much damage to trees and power lines. But it will be more than enough to mess with anyone on the roads overnight Sunday into Monday morning.
If you have to work Monday, it will probably be an excellent day to work from home if at all possible. We haven't had much freezing rain and sleet yet this winter, so this will be our first real experience with it of the season. We don't have our "ice legs" yet.
,Yeah, it sucks.
It will probably turn warm enough for awhile Monday to change things over to plain rain in much of Vermont. It won't be like a week ago though, when temperatures soared into the 50s and low 60s/
This time. it'll only make it into the mid and upper 30s. Maybe a few low 40s in southern valleys. The snow on the ground won't go away. It'll just get crusty and icy.
The storm's cold front will probably sweep through later Monday afternoon or evening, as it looks now, anyway. The system will really crank up as it gets into southeast Canada, so expect plunging temperatures and strong northwest winds, which would continue into Tuesday.
Most of us won't get much snow after the cold front goes through, but the central and northern Green Mountains have the potential to get a decent dump.
It''ll stay really cold into the first few days of 2026, with a reinforcing shot of Arctic air probably arriving as we ring in the New Year.
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