Monday Evening Vermont Storm Update: Everything To Freeze Up As Arctic Winds Arrive

Route 5 near Hartland today. Photo by
Isabella Belisle, via Facebook.

The freezing rain part of our storm is just about over, but we now get to look forward to all the remaining slush and water turning to hard, slippery ice again. We will also get to not-so-joyfully experience crashing temperatures, gusty winds and sharp, almost painful wind chills. 

Most places got between 0.15 to 0.25 inches of ice that coated everything outdoors. Many of us in the Champlain Valley never saw it because it changed to plain rain a little ahead of sunrise, before most of us got up. In other places, it kept going. 

The highest ice accumulation I saw was 0.5 inches in Warren, 0.4 inches in Chittenden and 0.38 inches in Cabot and Chelsea.

Vermont State Police said that from Sunday evening to 11 a.m. Monday they responded to 92 weather-related crashes across the state, three of which resulted in injuries. Of those crashes 29 of them happened on Interstate highways and the rest were on secondary roads. 

Power outages across Vermont continued to rise through the morning peaking at around 10:45 a.m today. As of 4:15 p.m or so, outages were down to only about 700, mostly in east-central Vermont.  

Overall precipitation amounts were healthy, too. Most of central and northern Vermont received between 0.75 and one inch of rain and melted ice. Far southern parts of the state saw a little over an inch. 

Since not that much snow cover melted, the water content of it really increased. It's going to be that crunchy gross stuff if you walk through it tomorrow. 

LOOKING AHEAD

Traffic cam grab showed ice still on the trees along
Interstate 89 in Brookfield. As winds increase tonight,
some of the weighted down branches might break,
spawning new power outages. 

At 3 p.m, shortly before the cold front began to press into Vermont,   it had gotten above freezing almost everywhere in Vermont, according to reports. 

There were almost definitely cold hollows east of the Green Mountains that were still below freezing. 

It was 32 degrees in Eden. Other places, like Springfield and Lyndonville, were still at 33 degrees. Most of the rest of the state was only in the mid-30s.    

Traffic camera images in a few spots showed ice still weighing down the trees. I notices it when I did spot checks on Route 302 in Topsham, Interstate 89 in Brookfield and Route 11 in Winhall.

I'm sure ice is still on trees in a lot of other places. I bring this up because the wind will get pretty noticeable as we go through the evening. By later tonight and tomorrow, a lot of us will experience gusts over 30 mph. Maybe 40 mph in a few spots. 

Those winds could knock down a few more ice-laden branches, which would trigger a few more power outages. I don't expect anything too widespread, but keep your devices charged anyway, especially if the tree are all icy outside. 

If you still have ice encasing your car, try to get out there right away and scrape it off before it gets below freezing. Waiting until it gets really cold will make the job really hard. Remember to get the ice of all of your vehicle. If not, you'll be liable for damages if a slab of ice flies off your car or  truck and hits the person in back of you on the highway. 

If you're looking for replacement snow, especially powder after this icy episode, you're pretty much out of luck. Most places will see an inch per less of snow tonight and tomorrow. For the most part, it will be just nuisance snow showers for the rest of the week. The mountains might pick ups few inches, but that's about it. 

It'll get down to 10 degrees, give or take by tomorrow morning and stay in the teens all day. 

Obviously, as noted,  any standing water or slush on your driveway, the roads, and sidewalks will harden into ice tonight and make things treacherous in spots for the foreseeable future. 

Here's why: It's going to stay cold through the upcoming weekend and probably beyond.  I'll get into how cold the week will be and why this is happening in tomorrow morning's post.  

 

Powerful Storm Causes Havoc From Minnesota To Quebec.

Tornado damage in Mount Zion, Illinois. A powerful wide
ranging storm not only produced the tornadoes,
but spread heavy snow, freezing rain, high winds
and other weather problems from Minnesota to
Quebec and beyond. Photo via Facebook by
Storm Chaser Jordan Hall. 

While we dealt with ice here in Vermont last night and this morning, the same storm continues to cause havoc across wide areas of the Midwest and southern Canada. 

Arguably the scariest part of the storm was a mini outbreak of tornados in Illinois.

Six tornadoes were reported in Illinois. The worst of them hit the town of Mount Zion, Illinois, where eight homes were reportedly destroyed or seriously damaged.  

Elsewhere, the trouble was much more wintry. 

The storm's powerful cold front brought plunging temperatures across the Midwest and South. In Memphis the temperature dropped from 72 to 53 degrees in just 20 minutes on Sunday. 

 In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, two feet of snow had fallen in some areas by Monday morning. Winds were also gusting as high as 60 mph up there, so you can imagine the whiteouts and snow drifts.

In lower Michigan, freezing rain cut power to 115,000 customers. 

Parts of Wisconsin got nearly a foot of snow, with amounts over six inches in much of the state.

Snow totals in Minnesota amounted to five to nine inches, which isn't extreme, but the winds gusted to 55 mph in some areas, causing whiteouts on some roads. 

A 150-mile section of Interstate 35 was shut down in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa during the height of the storm.  

In Ontario, Canada, several highways shut down due to heavy snow, blowing snow and freezing rain. Power was cut to homes and businesses in southern and eastern Ontario due to freezing rain. 

Strong winds and snow squalls are threatening more power outages in Ontario. Freezing rain also caused havoc across southern Quebec, including the cities of Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City.

High winds also swept western New York this morning and early afternoon, cutting power to tens of thousands of customers there. Winds gusted to 72 mph in Lackawanna, New York and 66 mph in Niagara, New York.

The lake effect snow machine is cranking up.  One to two feet of snow are expected in western New York's snowbelt areas with up to two feet expected. As of 1 p.m. today, Buffalo was reporting heavy snow with wind gusts to 58 mph.  

Video by Live Storms Media showed lakeshore flooding, near zero visibility in snow, near hurricane force winds and a sizable branch falling on the videographer. He didn't appear to be seriously injured. 

The ice spread through New York, Vermont and into New Hampshire.  About 20,000 power outages were reported in New Hampshire. A section of Interstate 89 had to shut down in New Hampshire due to crashes. 

The strong storm was over southwestern Quebec early this afternoon. It will meander toward the Gaspe Peninsula of eastern Quebec by tomorrow, then curl westward to Hudson Bay on Wednesday. That'll ensure a flood of frigid air flowing into the Great Lakes states and Northeast for the next several days. 

Unrelated to this storm, strong Santa Ana winds are blowing through southern California. Since they just had that big storm, there's little risk of them starting huge, deadly wildfires, like we saw last January

But since the ground is so wet, it'll be easier for trees to topple in today's strong winds. Rain is coming back to southern California later this week, but the storm won't be as big as the one that hit around Christmas. Still, flooding is a risk on New Year's Eve once again in the L.A. area.

And a program note, I'll have a Vermont-oriented update on this storm late this afternoon.  

Vermont Monday Morning Storm Update: Could Have Been Worse, But Still Icy/Messy. More Drama Ahead

An example of the challenge the freezing rain brought
this morning This traffic cam grab shows the pavement
on Route 125 in Ripton looking absolutely scary icy,
with trees weighed down by the ice, too. 

By 7:30 this morning, I heard the welcome thump of snow sliding off my roof here in St. Albans, Vermont. 

The told me the temperature was above freezing here, and the threat of more icing had passed. 

We're lucky the worst of this hit overnight. All roads were virtually impassable across the state at the peak of the icing late last night and in the predawn hours. 

Because the roads were so bad, all state offices were closed today. People who could work remotely were still on the job, but state officials warned that electricity and internet connectivity might be iffy. 

Overall, temperatures around dawn today were a little warmer than forecast, which is great news. Freezing rain overnight and this morning is still extensive, but not as disastrous as some forecasts last evening indicated. 

It turns out not many of us will have an half inch of ice or more breaking trees and power lines. A few places will have that, but not many. And there's plenty of trouble spots this morning. 

Let's got west to east across Vermont for a morning assessment:

Champlain Valley/Souithwest Vermont

As of 7:30 p.m. temperatures in the far southwest near Bennington were in the upper 30s, with mid 30s in the Champlain Valley. Main roads in those spots were just wet for your morning commute. But untreated surfaces like dirt roads, driveways and sidewalks were still awful. 

Try to avoid those dirt roads for awhile yet. And for gawd's sake watch your step. Here at my place in St Albans, the tree have no ice on them, but my driveway is scary as hell. 

Some places in western Vermont that are protected from the winds were still seeing freezing rain. Rutland and Middlebury were still at 32 degrees as of 7 a.m. 

Traffic cameras along Route 4 in West Rutland and Fair Haven still showed slick pavement and iced up trees as of a little bit before 8 a.m. I notice a smattering of power outages in central Rutland County. 

Central/Eastern Vermont

Traffic cam grab on Route 4 in Quechee a little
before 8 a.m. this morning looked pretty slick
Note that pine tree in the background was
sagging under the ice pretty badly. 

As expected, it's worse out there once you get to the Green Mountains and points east. A few places, like Montpelier and St. Johnsbury, were a bit above freezing before 8 a.m., many other places in this one were still at or a little below 32 degrees. 

Roads conditions on traffic cameras in these areas looked varied. Most of Interstate 91 seemed wet, with some icy areas. Some secondary roads had a mix of bare pavement and ice, and other roads looked like skating rinks

The bulk of the power outages as of 8 a.m. were close to Montpelier and in the Connecticut River Valley between Rockingham and St. Johnsbury. Nearly 3,700 homes and businesses were without power as of around 7 a.m., but that declined slightly to 3,200 or so by 7:45 a.m.  That might be a hint that the worst is behind us, fingers crossed!

REST OF TODAY

It was still raining pretty hard and steadily around Vermont as of 8 a.m. That will continue more or less for a few more hours. It looks like this morning's rain will be steadier and heavier in the southern half of the state, compared to the north. 

The rain statewide will tend to get a little more showery as we head toward late morning, and the bulk of the rain should be done by 4 p.m or so, if not earlier.   

The storm's cold front will blow through early this afternoon, changing any remaining rain to snow towards dusk.

But by then, we will have lost the deeper moisture, so we won't have much accumulation.  But by the evening commute, any water left over on the roads your driveway, your walkway will freeze, so it will continue to be dangerous underfoot.

Dustings of snow atop the ice will make it even more slick. The northern and central Green Mountains might pick up two or three inches of snow by tomorrow morning, so nothing spectacular.

Since it will be cold for the foreseeable future, you will need to be careful for the next several days, or even weeks, as the ice on untreated surfaces will remain. 

This will be a sharp return to frigid weather. Temperatures will be within a few degrees either side of 10 degrees by dawn Tuesday. Gusty winds will make it feel much colder. 

It looks like for at least the next week starting tomorrow, it will stay colder and drier than normal with only light snows. I'll get more into that in future posts, once we get past today's storm.  

Sunday Evening Storm: Midwest Has Blizzards And Tornadoes, Vermont/New England Still Bracing For Ice

A view of the increasing clouds during the middle of
this afternoon over St. Albans, Vermont ahead of 
tonight's ice. If you look carefully at the horizon, it's
hazy. Pollutants were being trapped under the
inversion that will make the overnight
freezing rain possible. 

We still are on track for a spell of icy, dangerous driving weather here in Vermont, part of an intense storm that continues to raise havoc around the Great Lakes and Midwest.  

I  don't think I've seen a winter storm in the United States this powerful and wide ranging, with such a wide variety of weather and strong winds since December, 2022. 

I also think in New England, this might be arguably be the most extensive ice storm since 2008.

Here in Vermont, both the 2022 storm, which caused extensive wind damage in Vermont, was definitely worse than this will be, The 2008 ice storm mainly caused some problems in southern Vermont and really trashed central New England. 

The 2008 storm cut power to 30,000 homes and businesses in southern Vermont. We'll see how close we get to that tomorrow, but I'm so far convinced it won't be as bad as in 2008.

The general outlook for this storm here in Vermont hasn't changed much since this morning. Everybody is still in line to get a dose of freezing rain. 

The winter weather advisory is still in effect statewide. Except for most of eastern Vermont. There, the advisory has been upgraded to an ice storm warning. Some areas under that ice storm warning could get a half inch of ice accumulation. That's definitely enough for some trees, branches and power lines to fail.

The warning also states that travel will be nearly impossible during tomorrow morning's commute 

It still looks like the freezing rain will advance from the southwest during the first part of the night, arriving everywhere south and west of Interstate 89 by 11 p.m. or so. It'll spread into the rest of the state over the next couple of hours after that. 

East of the Green Mountains, the freezing rain will probably last well into Monday morning in most places. We're still looking at enough ice in some spots to weigh down tree and power lines enough to break them. 

I'd charge all your devices this evening and pop down to the store real quick if you need any more food or supplies to get you through tomorrow. Also, if possible, move your car from beneath any branches that might give way.

Above freezing temperatures might arrive in the Champlain Valley a wee bit earlier than predicted this morning. That might improve the morning commute there a bit. Again, we'll see.

But even if it's above freezing, pavement that hasn't been salted or sanded will still super icy.  The thin scrim of snow now on gravel roads will have been turned to ice by dawn and stay that way much of the morning. 

So it's no picnic in the Champlain Valley, either. 

It also still looks like almost everyone east of the Greens will have a brief interlude during the afternoon where it gets above freezing. That should melt at least some of the ice.   

The more ice that comes off the trees and power lines the better during that thawing, because winds will really pick up tomorrow night as temperatures plunge. Those winds could gust as high as 40 mph. This is a windy, big storm system after all. 

It'll be in the low teens, give or take, by Tuesday morning. Backside snowfall Monday night and Tuesday won't amount to much. Most valleys will have an inch or less, while the central and northern Green Mountains could pick up a few inches.

THE STORM ELSEWHERE 

As expected, blizzard conditions are raging in parts of Minnesota and are moving into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

A no travel advisory was in effect in much of western and southern Minnesota due to heavy snow and strong winds this afternoon. A blizzard warning is still in effect for parts of the state this evening. 

 Not far to the south and east, in Illinois and Indiana, the storm pulled oddly warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico. Temperatures there reached the mid-60s to low 70s. Dewpoints were in the sticky low 60s, which is incredibly high for this time of year. 

The system's approaching strong cold front was slamming into the muggy air, setting off some pretty strong thunderstorms in Illinois and Indiana. A tornado watch was in effect in the two states late this afternoon. A few tornado warnings have also been issued for the area.

The same places in which tornadoes might have touched down will see temperatures in the teens by morning. Talk about a flip-flop!

Trump Administration's Obnoxiousness With Greenland Is Tacit Acknowledgment Of Climate Change

The United States is again making dumb noises about
annexing Greenland, diplomacy and legality be
damned. While the Trump administration denies
climate change exists, this whole mess
is largely about climate change. 

Greenland is back in the news again, as the Trump Administration is ramping up its efforts to take control of the big Arctic ice heap.  It's a move that practically nobody else wants other that Donald Trump and his not-so-merry band of MAGA cultists. 

One irony is that Donald Trump denies the existence of climate change, yet that very real warming of the planet is a big part of what's behind all this. 

To back up here, Trump last week appointed Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry as his envoy to Greenland. Landry said he would travel to Greenland to convince people living there to become part of the United States. 

Good luck with that. 

Greenland is a self-governing Danish territory. Officials in Greenland, Denmark and the European Union unanimously condemned Trump effort to annex Greenland.  A big majority of Greenlanders want increased independence from Denmark, but they really, really don't want to become part of the U.S.

Somebody from MAGA always says the quiet part out loud, and the ever-reliable Fox host Brian Kilmeade gave us this:

"Greenland has been ignored by Denmark for decades. Now they're not, because we have shown interest. They have about 60,000 people there and we have a huge military base. Look, we are going to need their natural resources to mine them - you'll (Denmark) be able to get some of that. But in the meantime, we have to expand our base there and access to the waterways, because the Arctic is melting and we need access there. 

Russia and China is (sic) trying to dominate. Plus, what are we in, the era of the Viking? What is Denmark doing in our backyard?"

Phew! There's a lot to unpack there. Our "need" for natural resources, as if we could just go in and take them.  Sure, Donald Trump said we need Greenland for security, not minerals. But it's about the minerals as much as it is about security. Especially in the sense of  how much money the grifters associated with Trump can make from exploiting Greenland.  

Kilmeade seems to think it's horrible that puny little Greenland wants to control its own future and puny little Denmark should have the gaul to be in control of Denmark.

Greenland is in our backyard, since it's hooked on to North America. Trump is like the homeowner who sees a ball accidentally thrown into his yard by neighborhood kids. He's the type that would keep the ball instead of throwing it back over to the kids. 

CLIMATE CONNECTION

But since this is a climate and weather blog, there's one piece in Kilmeade's screed that I want to focus on. It's where he said "the Arctic is melting."

I thought all the MAGA types deny human-caused climate change. They say it's a hoax. So why is the Arctic melting? It's true that Greenland is pretty steadily losing some of its massive ice cap to a warming world. 

Maybe Kilmeade will sputter that the climate changes "naturally," but how do you explain such a massive melt that developed over decades, not centuries like most of Earth's past episodes of natural warming and cooling?

Ultimately Trump's one-sided crush on Greenland is about the climate change that he publicly denies exists. 

As Al Jazeera tells us:

"Climate change and a rapidly melting ice sheet are the main reasons the Arctic has become a geopolitical hotspot

The Arctic is heating at a rate four times faster than the global average, increasing its accessibility for maritime trade routes and resource exploration - including by non-arctic countries as well as those with an Arctic presence. 

China has deployed vessels capable of serving both military surveillance and research functions in the region. The purposes are to collect data and secure access to resources and shipping lanes, which are emerging as a result of melting ice."

In addition, Russia is deploying missile systems and weapons testing in the Arctic, and has grown its naval presence near the top of the world. Canada is planning to shore up its military and diplomatic presence in the Arctic because of those Chinese and Russian moves in and near Greenland. 

So the security risk is real, but as usual, Trump's bluster, lies and utter untrustworthiness is botching it. 

Russia and Chinese military and espionage geeks are undoubtedly loving all of this.

What probably would have made a lot more sense was to light a fire under the European Union over the Arctic security threats, then negotiate some sort of alliance involving Denmark, the U.S. and other European nations as a counterweight to Russian and Chinese threats in Greenland and elsewhere in the Arctic.  

But nope! Trump just has to be a clownish bully to appease his own fragile ego and the expense of the rest of the world. 

For years we've been told that a warming planet would make political, social and military conflicts more likely. It's too bad Trump is working os hard in aiding and abetting the "hoax' climate change to make all that happen sooner and more dangerously than most of us thought.   

Monday Morning Storm Update: Lots Of Ice For Vermont, Lots Of Havoc Elsewhere In The U.S.

Map from the National Weather Service in South
Burlington shows predicted ice accumulation
tonight and Monday. Areas in read could receive
a quarter inch or more of ice, which might
lead to a few power outages. Roads will be
terrible everywhere late tonight and 
Monday morning. 

Good morning! 

As we get ready for our looming icy weather here in Vermont, I have an editor's note. This update might be somewhat scattered and incomplete as I'm staying at a hotel with a malfunctioning router. Hard to get anything done with that situation.

 That technological whine out of the way, it's time to whine about the icy weather. 

A giant storm is about to cause havoc from Minnesota to Maine, and elsewhere with an incredible variety of dangerous weather. I'll get into how it'll affect other places in a bit, but for my Vermont readers, let's start with the Green Mountain State. 

It was another frigid morning here in Vermont this morning, with most of us clocking in below zero at dawn. A couple places near Lake Champlain were just above zero, but that's about it. 

This all helps set the stage for our icy storm for tonight and Monday. You'll have the calm before the storm today, with light winds and increasing clouds overhead. It'll be seasonably cold with highs in the 20s. 

The steady freezing rain will start between 8 and 10 p.m. in southern Vermont, reach to a point along Interstate 89  between 10 p.m. and midnight and perhaps a little after midnight in the Northeast Kingdom, according to the National Weather Service office in Burlington. 

This is an estimate, as the freezing rain could arrive slightly earlier or later than I've outlined here. Just to be safe, if you're headed home to Vermont, or wherever you might be driving in the state, try to be there by 7 or 8 this evening. We're under a winter weather advisory from 7 p.m. today to 4 p.m. Monday. 

This is a strong storm with lots of moisture. It's essentially drawing an atmospheric river northward from the Gulf of Mexico into the Great Lakes states and Northeast.  For us, that means the freezing rain will come down pretty hard, and accumulate pretty quickly on everything. 

In the Champlain Valley, slightly warmer air should come to the rescue, changing the freezing rain to rain around dawn. The pavement will still be cold, so ice will continue to accumulate there after the temperature  gets to 33 or 34 or so. But the "warmer" air should limit ice accumulation to less than a quarter inch. 

Be prepared for a slow commute amid the freezing rain and rain in the Champlain Valley. Watch your step on untreated sidewalks, driveways, outdoor staircases and such.  You can really hurt or even kill yourself in a fall outdoors in an ice storm, A fall that involves banging your head on the ground can lead to permanent disability. I know I'm not exactly being a bundle of laughs here, but ice is serious.

In most of the rest of the state, it will be even worse. 

The subfreezing temperatures should hang on well into the morning in much of the rest of Vermont, especially east of the Greens. The horrible road conditions will continue. But there's other dangers. 

You begin to get a few isolated problems with broken tree limbs and power lines once ice gets to be a quarter inch thick on everything. 

Most places east of the Greens are forecast to receive that magical quarter inch of ice, and a few places might approach a half inch.

So I expect a few power outages there. Some trees and branches will come down. Parts of northern New York, New Hampshire and Maine are in the same boat with that 

Eventually, pretty much all of us go to plain rain as afternoon temperatures rise to roughly the 35 to 40 degree range. A few colder pockets northeast might hang on to the freezing rain all day. Rain and melted ice will amount to three quarters of an inch to an inch in most spots, so it's a pretty substantial storm.

We're not done yet. 

By later Monday afternoon and Monday evening, the storm's sharp cold front arrives. We'll see a gush of strong west winds and rapidly falling temperatures, and some snow showers. It could briefly snow really hard in some places. That means things will get messy again as everything freezes up and the additional snow makes things worse

We really don't have a perfect bead on when the cold front comes through. Hopefully the worst hits after the Monday afternoon drive time but I'm not sure yet. We'll have more on this with later updates.

STORM HAVOC ELSEWHERE

This is one powerful storm that will be strengthening fast as it moves through the Great Lakes and into southeast Canada over the next day or so. 

Several areas are under blizzard warnings. One such blizzard warning goes from eastern North Dakota through western and southern Minnesota into northern Iowa. Winds today into tomorrow morning could gust to 55 mph in this area as four to 10 inches of snow blasts through. 

An even more impressive blizzard warning is up for the Upper Pennisula of Michigan, where up to two feet of snow will fall today and tomorrow amid gust to 65 mph.  Those intense winds will also push Lake Superior water into shoreline areas of the northern Upper Peninsula. 

The storm's winds will be so strong that they are expected to cause a seiche on Lake Eries. A seiche is caused by strong winds that will  essentially tilt the lake by pushing water into its eastern end. ,Which means the Lake Erie water will be strangely low near Toledo, Ohio, but flood shorelines in places like Buffalo, Hamburg and Dunkirk, New York. 

Western New York is really kind of ground zero for this storm anyway, given all the trouble they'll see from this monster. Heavy rain from tonight into early Monday could cause flooding along streams and rivers in that region. 

Once the cold front arrives, strong west winds could gust to 70 mph in parts of western New York, especially near Buffalo and Niagara. Then, Monday and well into the upcoming week,  lake effect snows are likely to dump one to two feet of snow, locally more,  on the eastern ends of Lakes Erie and Ontario.

Since this storm is so huge and intense, it's generating a lot of wind through an enormous area. Wind advisories and warnings stretch from Texas to the Dakotas, then through the entire Great Lakes region and into much of the Northeast. 

 

Saturday Morning Update: Snow Ending, Freezing Rain Looms Sunday Night/Monday

The latest National Weather Service forecast for
ice accumulation from freezing rain Sunday night
and Monday. Areas in red could get a quarter inch
of ice or more. A quarter inch is where you start to
get some scattered tree and power line damage. 

As expected, it snowed overnight in most of Vermont.

I'm writing this early, so I don't have much in the way of accumulation reports. Here in St. Albans, we received an inch of fluff. There's probably at least a few inches of new snow on the ground in southwest Vermont. 

As of 6:30 a.m. I could hear the snowplows circulating around Franklin County and I'm sure the same is true all across the state. Except maybe in parts of the Northeast Kingdom where it didn't snow. 

It'll be a quiet, cold weekend, but we're already gearing up for our next storm. Skies might be a little slow to clear today, but the sun is expected to come out at some point. Tonight will be clear, and that means cold. Lows should once again be within a few degrees either side of zero for most of us. 

Light winds Sunday mean that warm air moving in aloft won't be able to mix down into the valleys easily, which sets us up for our icy weather Sunday night and early Monday.  As we've been advertising, we have a bunch of freezing rain to deal with to deal with.

FREEZING RAIN ALERT

 If you have anywhere to drive around Vermont, try to be home by 7 p.m. Sunday. Light bits of freezing rain could start by that hour, and it doesn't take much to make a mess of the roads. The bulk of the ice will start a bit later, maybe 10 or 11 p.m.  Keep an eye on forecast, though. The timing might change with  updated information. 

Freezing rain should hit everywhere in Vermont Sunday night. But some places will warm up faster than others as we get into the early morning hours Monday. 

At this point, I'd count on icy, dangerous driving conditions pretty much everywhere when it's time to go to work or school or wherever you're going Monday morning. If you can work from home, definitely do that. 

Places like the valleys of southwest Vermont and the Champlain Valley will get above freezing first. At this point, those areas could poke above freezing at around dawn. But it's been cold, so even if it's 33 or 34 degrees or something like that, rain will probably still freeze on contact with roads and sidewalks. If it's above freezing where you are Monday morning, don't take that as an all clear. It'll still be a mess out there. 

I have a feeling emergency rooms will be busy Monday treating people for injuries from falls on the ice. Best to be careful, or stay in, especially if - no offense - you're older and have more brittle bones 

Eastern Vermont is an even bigger problem with this storm. The freezing rain will last further into the morning. And rainfall rates might be a little higher on the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains than in the west. 

That means more ice that will last longer. In addition to the atrocious road conditions, there's a chance of some tree damage and power outages east of the Greens. 

This will by no means be anywhere close to the scale of the Great Ice Storm of 1998. But the eastern half for Vermont especially might have a few scattered problems with ice-laden branches sagging into power lines, or branches breaking off trees entirely. 

I'll also throw in a note saying that forecasting freezing rain ice accumulation is a tricky business. There could easily be less or more ice accumulating than the current forecast for your area. It all depends om when the slightly warmer air can mix down to the ground where you live.

Eventually, everybody gets into the "warm" air for a little while Monday afternoon. We should get into the 30s to low 40s. But the storm's cold front is scheduled to come in during the late afternoon or early evening. 

That'll drop temperatures back below 32 degrees really quickly. Remaining ice from the morning will harden up, and any puddles will freeze too. It won't get above freezing again for a long time after Monday. So we'll be stuck with the ice underfoot for a long time. 

We'll get some snow on the back side of the storm, too as we go through Monday night. Not much in the valleys. but the mountains could pick up several inches. A reinforcing shot of Arctic air from Canada on New Year's Day will probably add a bit more light snow to the landscape.  

Friday Evening Storm Update: A Real Mess In the Northeast. Even Vermont Is In Play Now

That weird storm diving down from the Great Lakes
to the Mid-Atlantic states seems to be taking a jog
a little further north and east than earlier expected.
Southwest Vermont is now in play for several inches
of snow and up to two inches might fall
along the Interstate 89 corridor 

 The expected path of that weird storm in the Northeast has taken a jog north compared to previous forecast. 

That means we here in Vermont tonight will get more snow out of it than expected. We won't get hammered the way central New York and the New York City metro area will, but parts of southwest Vermont are now in play for as much as eight inches of snow.   

A winter weather advisory has been hoisted for Bennington and Windham counties as those places could get six inches of snow, give or take. That's a lot more than the one or two inches that was in the forecast for those areas less than 24 hours ago. 

The expected snow totals on a line from Springfield to west of Rutland might get perhaps three inches. Along Interstate 89, total accumulations would be about 1.5 inches, give or take. At least that's what the forecast is calling for as of late this afternoon. The Northeast Kingdom should only see nothing to as much as an inch o snow.  

The problem with forecasting this thing is that under the most intense band of snow in central New York, the flakes could come down at a rate of up to three inches per hours. The gradient between super heavy snow in central New York and virtually no snow at all in we're guessing central New England is steep. 

The computer models even right before the snow begins don't have the track of this thing nailed down. If it goes just a little further north and east than expected, there could be several inches of snow in some parts of Vermont, especially southwestern areas. If it jogs a little south and west, we get next to nothing 

This is a very quick mover. Where it snows, it'll start sometime between 8 and 11 p.m. tonight and finish up by 4 or 5 a.m. Saturday. 

If you're driving anywhere, you still might encounter snowy roads through Saturday morning, especially  in southern Vermont. 

Whatever happens it'll pretty much be over by Saturday morning, so it would just leave behind some iffy roads. Temperatures during the snow and early tomorrow morning will be around 10 degrees, give or take That's too cold for road salt to work well. 

It'll be a fluffy snow, so it will be easy to shovel. And it will settle quite a bit over the next few days. Eight inches of snow would become four inches within a couple days. 

NORTHEAST HEADACHES

It's much worse elsewhere in the Northeast. 

Nearly 1,500 U.S. flights were canceled as of 4:45 p.m. today, according to FlightAware. Another 5,900 domestic flights are delayed. This is all hitting on the busiest travel day of the year. 

Over a quarter of today's flights, or about  350 of 'em were canceled today at John F. Kennedy International Airport, CNBC reported. More than 200 flights were scrubbed at Newark's airport. 

The snow hadn't even started in New York yet when the flights were canceled, but airline often cancel flights before big storms begin so that planes, crews and connecting travelers don't get stuck. 

New York City has been experiencing a snow drought in recent years. The last time the city got a snowstorm the size this one is expected to be was on January 28-29, 2022. On that occasion, the storm total at Central Park was 8.5 inches. 

Much of Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey are either experiencing an ice storm or are about to

This storm will zip out to sea Saturday morning to make way for the next, warmer storm Sunday night and Monday. Back up here in Vermont, that one still looks like it'll give us our dose of freezing rain.

 

California Endures Storms Again Today, But It's Finally Ending

A home buried in mud and rocks after a
debris flow in Wrightwood, California
Widespread storms and atmospheric
rivers have plagued California
for more than a week now 

The giant storm in California is starting to ease today, after causing days of havoc from the Oregon border all the way down to Mexico. 

The storms targeting southern California over the Christmas holiday have so far claimed at least three lives. 

Another person died in San Diego when a large tree branch fell on him, reported television station KGTV.  At least 90 trees fell across the city of San Diego. 

Videos are at the bottom of this post. 

A number of people were plucked from flooded cars on streets and highway throughout southern California. 

One of the hardest hit areas is the community of Wrightwood in the San Gabriel Mountains, where several homes were buried under several feet of mud, notes KTLA.

Video showed some houses with four feet of rocks and mud inside them. Cars were buried halfway up their windows Two people died and six others were injured on a wet freeway..

Downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday received 2.53 inches of rain, which is a bit more than what normally falls in the entire month of December. Other totals from just December 24 include 3.96 in Woodland Hills and 3.39 in Burbank. 

Before the storms hit the L.A area, the atmospheric rivers targeted northern California. Redding, California was probably the hardest hit. The city had 5.3 inches of rain from December 16 to 22, with much more in the higher elevations nearby. 

A 74-year old man died when he drove around barricades and got swept up in the flooding. 

High winds also tore through the Golden State. 

 Santa Cruz Harbor reported a gust to 91 mph. Several boats were not surprisingly damaged. Likely not a tornado, say NWS. Pablo Point, about 20 miles northwest of San Francisco reported a gust to 108 mph. 

About 125,000 people lost power in central and northern California over the Christmas holiday.  

Heavy snow has been falling in the Sierra Nevada range, with some places clocking in with several feet of snow.

Interstate 80 through Donner Summit was impassable at times over the holiday as vehicles got stuck, crashed or spun out. 

 Rain continues in southern California today, though it's not coming down as heavily as it did Wednesday and Thursday. But now that the ground is sodden from the storms, so the somewhat lighter rain could really set off more debris flows and mudslides. Los Angeles itself could get another one to two inches of rain today. The mountains could get another three inches. 

After that, practically no rain is expected in California until later Wednesday or Thursday. 

Videos:

A scary tour of flooded Redding, California on December 21. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Next video shows a motorist stupidly driving into fast flowing water and getting swept away. So what does the next car do when they see this? Drive into the fast flowing water and get swept away. People are dumb. They were both eventually rescued, by the way. This was in Palmdale, California. Click on this link to view, as always, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Aftermath of the huge debris flow in Wrightwood, California. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Vermont Christmas Is Over, Winter Weather Drags On

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. 

We woke up this day after Christmas in Vermont to the coldest morning since December 7. 

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. 

"Norlun Trough" Gives Part Of Maine A SUPER White Christmas

A Norlun trough, the dotted orange line on this map
from the storm off New England to southern Maine and 
beyond, caused heavy snow in parts of coastal Maine
Image from YouTube, Tim Kelley

 Northern New England is enjoying a white Christmas thanks to a mid-sized storm that passed through the region Tuesday and part of Wednesday.  

A section of Maine is really buried in the snow thanks to an unusual and hard to forecast phenomenon known as a Norlun Trough. 

We're geeking out a little, but here's what happened. 

As WMTW in Portland, Maine tells us, this trough is named after Steve Nogueira and Weir Lunstedt, two meteorologists who coined the term in a 1993 paper describing the phenomenon.  

They were researching a storm that dumped one to two feet of snow in parts of Maine in March, 1992. 

A Norlun trough is an elongated trough of low pressure extending outward on the northwest side of a storm sitting offshore.

The air over the ocean is cold, except for a thin layer near the surface which is heated by the relatively warm water. 

The trough is essentially a weakness in that fortress of cold air keeping that warm ocean air near the water surface. The warm ocean air shoots upward into that weakness/trough. It hits cold air above, and the moisture condenses into snow and blasts down on a small area along the Norlun trough.

More warm ocean air gets sucked into the vacuum created by that initial sharp updraft to keep the snow going. Heavy snow will fall in one spot until the Norlun trough moves away or breaks up. 

Norlun troughs are very hard to forecast, since they drop their heavy snow in a very small area. The National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine did manage to anticipate the Norlun trough Monday evening. Their forecast discussion at that time forecasted two to six inches so snow in most places. 

The forecast discussion also noted, "A Norlun trough setup may bring isolated amounts of up to a lot somewhere on the central Maine coast."

They underestimated it a little, but forecasters almost always do. But kudos to NWS/Gray for catching in advance. That doesn't always happen. 

Wednesday's Maine Norland trough meant business. Brunswick, Maine was buried beneath 16.8 inches of snow. Durham and Litchfield, Maine reported 15.5 inches. Freeport has about 16 inches. But just 20 miles away, around Portland, there was just five or six inches of new snow.  

Norlun troughs can extend inland all the way here into Vermont but their effects are often diminished this far inland.  I notices the trough Wednesday morning extended into the Northeast Kingdom, and snowfall was slightly higher there than in other parts of the state. 

Christmas Day In Vermont Is Wintry, Will Get Even More So

Henry the Weather Dog is seen here wishing 
everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
He's staying inside as temperatures plunge'
through the teens today. 

Merry Christmas, Vermont!!

As you're opening your presents this morning, the landscape outside is nicely covered in snow. In some areas of the Green Mountain State, more light snow is drifting down. 

The white Christmas we're experiencing is mostly due to that storm we had Tuesday and Tuesday night, which behaved pretty much as expected, at least here in Vermont. 

Almost everyone in Vermont got three to six inches of snow, so it was a pretty uniform distribution. Everybody had a piece of the snow party. There were a couple exceptions, both on the high and low end of the tally.

The most snow I could find out of the storm was nine inches in Northfield and eight inches in both Woodbury and Moretown.  Parts of southwestern Vermont got cheated a little. Western Rutland and Bennington counties, along with the extreme southeastern corner of the state only got 1 to 2.5 inches of snow.

TODAY

It's wintry out there, and it's going to get more even more wintry.   

Map showing total snowfall from the storm that 
ended yesterday. Click on the map to make it
bigger and easier to see. Most of the state 
received three to six inches of snow. 

The scattered snow this morning is due to an Arctic cold front pressing down on us from the north. As the frigid air starts to blast in this afternoon, the temperature will plunge and the winds will pick up.

Temperatures in most of the Green Mountain State are in the 20s this morning and will fall through the teens this afternoon. 

Winds will pick up and gust to 35 mph tor so his afternoon. If you're doing anything outside today, like taking a walk, or a quick ski or snowshoe, it's best to do it this morning. 

The snow will stop by this afternoon in most of the state but there will be a few exceptions. The mountains could continue to get flurries, that's not weird. 

The weird part is some lake effect snows. Parts of the Champlain Valley and adjacent hills to the east could get some lake effect snow off of Lake Champlain. This could affect road conditions a little in southern Chittenden, Addison and maybe northwestern Rutland County. 

Tonight, the wind will eventually die off,  and skies will clear out. The combination will help cause temperatures to plunge to zero or below in most of the state.

SATURDAY

Skies will tend to cloud up on Saturday due to a weird storm passing by to our west, and there might be some weird wrinkles to it. Most storms travel from southwest to northeast, or sometimes just west to east. Sometimes, Alberta clippers, those small, quick moving storms with light precipitation, do move southeastward to some extent.

The next storm in the pipeline is heading toward the southeast. Current projection have it in Michigan tomorrow morning, and somewhere around New Jersey early Saturday. The difference is this storm has more oomph to it than most Alberta clippers.

Most of Pennsylvania and New Jersey are under winter storm watches because several inches of snow, -plus dangerous amounts of freezing rain are likely to assault those areas Friday into early Saturday. 

I'm bringing all this up because this might affect at least parts of Vermont. Earlier forecasts indicated we would only see some light flurries south. Now, the computer models have edged the projected path of the storm northward a bit. 

At this point, the forecast has a little snow falling Friday night south and west of Interstate 89. Areas down around Bennington County would get one to three inches of snow. 

But if the trend continues with a more and more northward path for this storm, more of Vermont might get more snow. Stay tuned.

There's still yet another storm for later on Sunday, and this one looks like it will probably consist of a messy mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain. We'll have more details as we get close to that icky, icy storm. 

Our Annual Darlene Love Christmas Greeting To Everyone

Darlene Love performing this year's rendition of
"Christmas Baby (Please Come Home) on the Tonight
Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" I hope everybody
has a great holiday!

It's Christmas Eve. That means we're upholding tradition, and presenting you with our Darlene Love holiday greeting. 

"Christmas Baby (Please Come Home)" is my favorite holiday song so every year, I send out a greeting with that song. 

Love has been on TV every Christmas for decades, doing the song perfectly every time. 

This year, she was on the "Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon."  She's 84 years old now, but still looks fantastic and sounds amazing. She was rocking sort of a 1970s look this year with those bell bottoms. 

Old pros like Paul Shaffer, Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul made the performance complete. 

It's been a rather tough year for many of us, including myself. I've had a few setbacks, some life complications, but with wonderful people surrounding me, everything is still worth it. 

I hope (almost) all of you have a great holiday, with calmness, love, laughter, warmth and a break from life's worries. I say "almost" because there's a few people in Washington who decidedly are not in the Christmas spirit.  I don't wish any of them harm, other than receiving a lump of coal in their stockings. 

Now, let's let Darlene Love do her thing.  Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.  

Trump Finds New Way To Stop Clean Energy: "Security Concerns" Over Offshore Wind

The Trump administration's latest tack to stop offshore
wind generation is to claim "national security"
Not everyone is buying that argument. 

 The Trump administration has found a new excuse to halt his nemesis: offshore wind installations 

He hates "clean energy" and for some reason loves just LOVES oil and coal. 

He's put out all kinds of false narratives about wind turbines causing cancer, killing off all birds and, being unreliable because the wind doesn't always blow. Maybe he's never heard of batteries? 

Trump keeps losing court cases in which entities sue his administration over efforts to shut down the turbines. Now, we have the latest effort.  

Here's Fox New's lead on the report:

"President Donald Trump's Department of Interior announced on Monday that, effective immediately, leases for all large-scale offshore wind projects being constructed in the United States will be paused.

In a press release, DOI wrote that the pause is due to 'national security risks' identified by the Department of War in 'recently completed classified reports.'"

There were not many hints as to what those supposed security risks are. 

As an aside, Trump and Pete Hegseth want to call it the Department of War, but the legal name of the agency is still Department of Defense

Anyway. the Department of Interior gave these details, which aren't very detailed: 

"Today's action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers."

Well, that word salad doesn't help much. 

The pause on offshore wind farms affect projects off the New England, New York and Virginia coasts

The Interior Department referenced unclassified reports that large offshore turbine blades can cause "clutter" which is radar interference that can obscure moving targets or generate false radar returns. 

In some radar images, wind farms do cause clutter. For instance, on some days, you see what appears to be a persistent, stationary shower on Doppler weather radar over northeast New York. That "shower" is a large wind installation.

However, the Trump administration has been so untrustworthy, you have to wonder if this national security story is legit. Wind turbines have been around for a long time. You'd think the Defense Department would have figured out how to deal with them by now. 

This "national security threat" might be just another tactic to stop the offshore wind installations  

As the Associated Press reports:

"The pause.....is the latest step the administration has taken to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald' Trump's executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful."

There are other indications that the "national security" might be just an excuse to scuttle wind projects. "The record of decision all show that the Department of Defense was consulted at every stage of the permitting process," said Kirk Lippold, a national security expert and former Commander of the USS Cole. 

Cole noted that the projects had been awarded permits following years of review by state and federal agencies.  You'd think the Department of Defense would have raised red flags ages ago if these wind projects were interfering with our defense capabilities. 

I imagine there will be lawsuits out of this. 

We're already hearing grumblings of some sort of court action. Probably from more than one source. 

The Conservation Law Foundation called the offshore wind development pause "a desperate rerun of the Trump administration' failed attempt to kill offshore wind."  The Foundation, in their statement, already noted courts have already rejected Trump's attempts to kill offshore wind.

Then there's this from Ted Kelly of the Environmental Defense Fund: 

"For nearly a year, the Trump administration has recklessly obstructed the build-out of clean, affordable power for millions of Americas, just as the country's need for electricity is surging.....Now the administration is again illegally kneecapping America's largest source of renewable power, especially the we need more cheap, homegrown electricity"

 Kelly said the Trump administration's actions are especially rich since they're propping up aging, expensive coal plants "that rarely work and pollute our air."

Speaking of things that rarely work, the Trump administration seems to lose most of their court cases, except in the Supreme Court, which is solidly MAGA.  The new roadblock is the "classified documents" The Interior Department claims. It sounds like it could be a way to avoid sharing documents in the discovery phase of any lawsuits.  

In any event, some lawyers are going to have a great 2026, thanks to the Trump crowd.  

Christmas Eve Vermont Weather Update: Snowstorm Mostly Over, But Busy Weather Regime Continues

It's a winter wonderland out there in St. Albans,
Vermont this morning. Same for the rest of the 
state as yesterday and last night's storm ensures
a white Christmas. Weather conditions going
past Christmas will be kind of harsh. 

 Our small snowstorm behaved about as forecast, as the few initial reports that have come in so far indicated a lot of people got four or five inches of new snow. 

We have our White Christmas, 2025 in the bag.

The most new snow I've seen so far is eight inches in Woodbury and  6.5 inches, in Moscow, which is right near Stowe. Where I'm at in St. Albans, we collected 4.7 inches of new snow.

Burlington had five inches of snow on the ground this morning. White Christmases had been declining in the Queen City, but with this storm, four of the past five Christmases had snow on the ground.

If there's still five inches on the ground tomorrow, that will be the deepest Christmas snow since 2017.

DEPARTING STORM

The storm is consolidating now along off the Maine Coast. The southwestern part of that state is getting a good dump of snow, with a total of 6 to as much as 14 inches expected in that part of Maine by the time it ends later today.

Back here in Vermont, some of the storm's upper level support was still over us so area of light snow were continuing even after dawn broke. Traffic cameras show most main roads aren't perfect, but pretty good. 

As of 8 a.m the biggest area of lingering snow was slowly moving south through the Champlain Valley, mostly in southern Chittenden and Addison counties so the roads are probably in the worst shape there. 

Secondary roads statewide are still not fully cleaned up, either.  So, as usual, take it easy this morning wherever you're going. 

It got a little above freezing overnight in the Champlain Valley, so the snow you're shoveling this morning might feel a little wet and heavy.  

It could get a little windy at times as the morning goes on. It won't be anything wild like we had last week. But it will blow snow off the trees, so if you're driving through areas that have a lot of pine trees, for instance, you might have brief problems with visibility. 

Today and tonight will be mainly cloud, with a few places getting some clearing. It will be seasonably cool in the upper 20s today, so no big deal there.

WINTRY FORECAST

 This is turning out to so far be the harshest winter in a decade, and there's no rest for the weary. 

But it looks like we're about to get back into the regime we had in early and mid December. That means frequent bouts of frigid air extending into January. In between those Arctic blasts, we'll have mostly small to medium-sized storms. We'll also have those dreaded windy days fairly frequently, too. 

Christmas Day will bring us the start of those series of cold blasts.  The first half of the day will be OK, with temperatures in the 20s to near 30 and some scattered snow showers. But a cold front will come through in the afternoon. That's when temperatures will start to crash and wind will pick up.

By late in the afternoon and the evening, winds will be gusting to 30 or 35 mph again. Overnight, temperatures will tumble and end up close to zero by Friday morning. On Friday itself, highs will only be in the upper single number to mid teens. At least the winds will die down by then.

Friday night and early Saturday, a storm diving down from the Great Lakes to the Mid-Atlantic states might clip southern Vermont with just a little snow. Then, temperatures will hold roughly steady Saturday night and rise into the 20s Saturday. That'll give us a quiet interlude until the next storm.

That one will probably come in later Sunday, as it looks now. Details on this are fuzzy, but it looks like we might be in for that dreaded mixed precipitation later Sunday, into Sunday night. and maybe into Monday morning. 

The computer models are still arguing amongst themselves as to whether will be mostly snow, ice or mostly rain. We'll have this nailed down a little better in a couple days. At least I hope so.

The storm could also bring some gusty winds. Then, on the back side of Sunday night's storm, it looks like we'll have more gusty winds and plunging temperatures. Those cold temperatures looks like they'll last most of next week.

Enjoy or at least endure this year's flashback to what winters used to be like. 

 

Quick Tuesday Evening Vermont Snow Update: Road Conditions Going Downhill

Traffic cam grab shows slushy roads in Burlington
late Tuesday afternoon as the snow continued to fall

Here's our quick Tuesday evening snowfall update for Vermont:

The snow arrived about an hour or so later than forecast in much of Vermont this afternoon, but it did arrive.

As of 5 p.m., it was snowing lightly statewide. This evening, we're in the peak of the storm, though this isn't exactly a scary one. 

Still, the roads for the evening commute, or going shopping, or to holiday events won't be great. Temperatures in some areas were at or just above freezing in some warmer valleys for part of the afternoon. But those temperatures have fallen a degree or two as darkness arrived. 

The snowfall rates also picked up a little at sunset, too. Highways that had been just mostly wet at around 4 p.m. were getting snow and slush covered, and more slippery by the minute. 

The steadiest snow in the valleys should last until around midnight, give or take, depending on where you are. Forecast total accumulations haven' changed, with two to five inches expected across most of Vermont. The mountains are still likely to do better than that, with roughly four to eight inches up there. 

Christmas Eve continues to look as if it will bring us quiet and rather cloudy weather. Forecasts for Christmas Day have changed a little, with a bit more snow than originally forecast. But it won't be much, with maybe an inch or two north and less than an inch south.