Will Lake Champlain Freeze Over This Winter

There was still a lot of open water on Lake Champlain
 as of Sunday as this photo shows. But an expected
long, intense cold spell could eventually make
the lake freeze over for the first time since 2019.

 We've got a LOT of cold air headed toward the eastern United States, including here in Vermont. 

That frigid air looks like it might last quite awhile, too. Does this mean Lake Champlain will freeze over? Possibly, if the chill lasts long enough. 

If Lake Champlain does completely freeze over, it'll be the first time it's happened since 2019. In 2022, it came this close to freezing entirely, but there was always at least aa small hole of open water in the lake that winter. 

As of Sunday the huge expanse of the broad lake was ice-free. Bays, estuaries and coves were frozen, as they almost always are this time of year. But even inside Burlington's breakwater, there was no ice. After a warmish early January, we'll need a brutally long cold wave to ice over this lake. 

Such a cold wave seems to be a distinct possibility. 

It's not at all odd to have open water in Lake Champlain during mid-January.   Typically, if the lake turns into wall to wall ice, it doesn't happen until the very end of January or in February. There's been a few years in which the lake didn't freeze until March.

There's Lake Champlain freeze over data dating all the way back to 1816. But back in the 1800s and early 1900s, there were no planes flying over the lake to confirm it was entirely frozen. I imagine some historic "freeze overs" were actually only close, but no cigar.

After 1930, I could only find two years - 1977 and 1981 - in which the freeze over hit before today's date. 

If the lake doesn't freeze over this year, it would tie the record for most consecutive years of winter open water on the lake. The only other time six years went by without a complete freeze over was 2008-13.

Climate change is making it harder to freeze Lake Champlain. Since 2000, the lake has only frozen over eight times. It used to be more frequent than that before the world started substantially warming up

COLD FORECAST

The eastern third of the United States will be taking a break from that climate change warmth over the coming days and weeks. 

This will be a widespread, intense cold wave stretching from the northern Plains to New England and down into the northern Gulf Coast states. 

Locally here in Vermont, it still looks like most of this week won't be that bad. It'll certainly be cooler than the weekend was, but still pretty reasonable for a Vermont January. 

We'll get an initial taste of the cold tonight through tomorrow night. Highs Tuesday will only be in the teens, and it'll get close to zero in some towns Tuesday night .

Lake effect snows will go gangbusters this week
with an area south of Watertown, New York
expecting three to four feet of snow by Wednesday.

We'll briefly warm into the 20s for highs Wednesday and Thursday before the bottom drops out of everyone's thermometers.

In Vermont, and throughout the Northeast, it'll be an old fashioned cold wave. 

By that I mean it will be reminiscent of the long Arctic spells we used to see in the 1970s.  In recent decades, intense cold snaps were hit and run affairs. They'd blast in with their intense chill, then with a day or two, it was over.

This one looks to arrive this coming Friday and last perhaps for nearly a week. That means a long stretch of "high" temperatures near 0 or, if we're lucky the single numbers above zero. Each night will go below zero with some of those nights far below zero. Like teens and 20s below

At least that's the way it looks as of this morning. There are always changes to the forecast as we get closer to an event, and this is no exception. 

Frigid weather regimes like the one we're entering are usually quite dry, and that will be the case here. Remember, warm air can hold a lot of moisture. Bitter cold air holds very little. So, at most, we expect a few snow flurries from time to time in the valleys, and slightly heavier snow showers in the mountains. 

The next chance for any accumulating snow is when the cold front introducing the super cold air approaches us toward the end of the week. There's a chance of a few heavier snow showers or snow squalls around Thursday, but we're not too sure about that yet. Even that would only give us an inch or two of snow. 

The exception to the very little snow rule will be downwind from the Great Lakes. 

In New York, Lake Ontario will help produce the biggest monster snows. The infamous Tug Hill region south of Watertown could have four feet of new snow by Wednesday morning. 

Lake Erie freezes over more quickly than Lake Ontario, because it's much shallower. Since ice is forming on Lake Erie, the snow belts south of Buffalo, New York won't be quite as bad as the Tug Hill region. Still, up to two feet of snow could come down in areas near Lake Erie.

I don't have any information yet on how the lake effect snows will work when the real cold air arrives next weekend. 

I don't see any signs of any balmy weather coming to the Northeast anytime soon. The best I can give you is that the chill might ease off somewhat by the time we get into February.