A Bit Of Challenging Vermont Weather To Ring Out A Very Challenging 2025

We've got  modest snowfall coming overnight, with one
to three inches in most areas of Vermont. A little more
than that in the mountains. Roads could be a little
slick for New Years revelers late tonight. 

We've had a very challenging 2025, both in terms of weather and especially outside the realm of weather.  

For those of you who don't want to think about anything else that happened in 2025, I'll give you the rundown of the weather you'll see as you ring in 2026. 

Seems harmless, right?   

And for the most part, the weather will indeed be relatively safe. No new ice storms, no floods, no blizzards, not enough wind to snap the power lines. 

You should be fine tonight unless you're not careful on the roads. Or don't know how to dress for winter weather. Because it is going to snow overnight. And Vermont ain't Florida. 

So let's unpack the weather situation here:

Overnight, a small but fairly dynamic storm will move out of the Great Lakes and into northern New York and Vermont. The storm will be able to pick some moisture from the lakes and from those lake affect snow squalls going on out there. 

We had some clear skies in much of Vermont this morning, except in far southwestern parts of the state, as snow off of Lake Ontario is getting all the way to New England.

It'll cloud up pretty fast this afternoon, as temperatures rise into the mid and upper 20s.  You might start to see some light flurries after dark. Occasional light snow will continue all evening leading up to midnight. 

Most of the action will hit in northern New York, where the snow will tend to be heavier and hit hardest around midnight.  

Here in Vermont, it'll probably be snowing in many area as we ring in the New Year.  Not heavily, not all the time, but it'll be around. You'll of course encounter roads that are a bit iffy. Most of the snow in the Green Mountain State will sweep in a little after midnight. 

Most of us won't get much snow, but the timing will be bad, coming right when it'll be the peak drunk driving hours around midnight and a couple hours after. 

Since it will be cold, the snow will blow around easily, so you might have trouble seeing things if a truck passes you on the Interstate. 

If you'll be celebrating outside, dress for it. Temperatures around midnight will be in the teens to around 20. 

The little storm's cold front could stir up some snow squalls or at least pretty heavy snow showers, probably a little after midnight. So take that into consideration if you're driving anywhere after midnight. 

Maybe it'll be best to sleep it off wherever you are overnight instead of getting in your car and driving home.  Or take an Uber, though they'll be hard to come by and super expensive tonight. 

Total accumulation from tonight's little system will amount to one to three inches for most of us.  The valleys of southeast Vermont will probably get less than an inch. The northern Champlain Valley will probably come out close to three inches or maybe even a tad more. Our ski areas are in for a modest three to six inches. 

The New Year will get off to a cold start. Today, the last day of 2025, will probably be the warmest day we'll see in at least a week. As noted, it won't exactly be warm today. Starting tomorrow, daytime highs for most of us in the Green Mountain State won't get out of the teens until next Monday at the earliest. 

Low temperatures each night through next Monday will be within a few degrees either side of zero. If we manage to get a nighttime period of calm, clear weather, it could get well below zero. It's all about that persistent Greenland Block/Arctic Oscillation I explained yesterday. 

It will warm up eventually, of course. Weather patterns always change eventually. Unless we get a surprise I'm not seeing yet, the next chance of any kind of thawing or at least relatively mild air won't come until at least January 11 or so.  

A Few Warmish, Rainy Vermont Days To Interrupt Vermont Winter, But Will It Last

The freezing fog seen in the background of this photo
taken Friday frosted these trees near Fairfield, Vermont.
The temperature inversion that created the fog is 
breaking up, allowing for a few days of thawing
around Vermont before colder air returns for the New Year.

 As expected, there've been a few little sprinkles of freezing rain here and there in Vermont early this morning, so there might be slick spot here and there on the roads until temperatures rise above freezing most places this afternoon.  

The temperature inversion that has caused freezing fog, cold valleys and warm mountain summits much of this week is finally breaking down. The inversion's last gasps are helping create freezing sprinkles. 

This afternoon's thawing temperatures mark the start of an interruption in our relatively cold winter so far, at least compared to recent ones. 

Expect a few days of thawing before winter roars back in the New Year. 

The main event come Sunday afternoon into Monday as a warm storm blows in from the south.  This storm looks destined to cause what might end up being a nasty tornado outbreak in the South today. (I'll have a separate post on that issue later this morning). 

Up here in New England, we won't have anything nearly as dramatic as tornadoes, but if you have a thin snow cover, you're about to lose it temporarily. And if the snow is kinda of deep where you are, it won't be all that thick by the time the New Year starts. 

Once it gets above freezing this afternoon, it'll stay there in many parts of Vermont until sometime on New Year's Day or night. (A few place, especially in eastern Vermont, might dip briefly below freezing at night between now and then).

That storm should send a wave of rain through Vermont and surrounding areas Sunday afternoon and night, with more to come for at least part of Monday. Despite the rain and the melting snow, it doesn't look like flooding will be a real threat with this. 

Monday will probably be the warmest day we've had in awhile, and the warmest day we'll have for some time to come.   Many of us should make it to 50 degrees that day. 

However forces are gathering, weather pattern changes are coming that could make January colder than we've gotten used to in recent years.  I'm not talking coldest ever by a long shot. It probably won't even be as cold as January, 2022, which was a chilly exception to our recent run of warm winter months. 

The upcoming pattern looks like it might stay persistently chilly well into January, perhaps all the way through the month, if the iffy NOAA three to four week outlook comes true. 

This doesn't look like it will be another mild winter, given how this December wasn't particularly mild and January's long range forecasts don't exactly look tropical. Unless February gets ridiculously warm.

In the shorter term, another fairly modest storm scheduled for New Years Day will mark the transition back to winter cold.  That storm will probably start as rain and end as snow.  Even valleys could get a bit of replacement snow from that one after the thaw we're about to see. 

Whether our colder pattern in January leads to a lot or a little more snow during the month is a coin toss, frankly. It depends on the paths of the various storms that typically buzz around in the winter.  They have to be just right to give us deep snows. 

 At least we know there will be some snow around in January, even if we lose what we have in the next could of days 

Long Warm Spell To Close 2022 And Begin The New Year

It might not exactly look like this in Vermont as we head
into the New Year, but the the weather will be mostly
springlike from now through at least the first week
of the New Year. 

UPDATE 4 p.m.

The warmth is already over-performing in at least parts of Vermont this afternoon

As of 3 p.m. it was 48 degrees in Burlington.  That's not close to the record high of 58, but it is a good 17 degrees above normal.

Updated forecasts have not changed much, as it will stay warm well into next week.

Winter will eventually return.  There's a lot of time left for snow and cold, that's for sure. But for now, enjoy springtime in winter. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

 The temperature rose above freezing at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington before 4 a.m. this morning. 

It will stay above freezing until Sunday night.  And remain toasty for the season for at least a few days after that.

Welcome to spring time in the dead of winter. 

The long anticipated weather pattern change to warm weather after the Christmas cold blast is here. And it's not going away anytime soon.

It's kind of rare - but not unheard of - for temperatures to stay above freezing for so long this time of year, but it looks like it's in the cards.

The new weather pattern has storm after storm bashing into the West Coast. Another big wave of rain is hitting California tomorrow, prompting widespread flood watches in the state.  They need the rain, but they are getting too much, too fast.

This parade of storms into the Pacific Coast need to go somewhere, so they head east across the United States.  That strong push of storms heading east ensures that mild Pacific air makes cross country trips, making it all the way to the East Coast, including Vermont. 

It'll be an active pattern through much of the U.S., probably for a couple weeks.  That means frequent precipitation chances in Vermont to go along with the warmth.  Which, in turn, means mostly rain storms for now. 

At this point, it looks wet in the Green Mountain State on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.   It won't be a blockbuster storm, but bring your umbrellas to any New Year celebrations. At least you won't freeze, right?

For the next few days, although high temperatures will be way above normal, I don't expect record highs. But we do have shots at record low high minimum temperatures on some days.  For instance, the highest low temperature on record in Burlington s 35 degrees, and the expected low temperature that day is 39.

Chances are it will temporarily cool off a little later on New Years Day and into the beginning of the week, but still remain warmer than average.  A new storm looks to start Tuesday. At this point, it looks like that system could start off as snow but change to rain as a renewed surge of warm air pushes into the Green Mountain State.

Quite A Stormy National Pattern; Not THAT Bad Here In Vermont

Ice covered trees in St. Albans, Vermont a couple years
 ago after some freezing rain. A wide ranging storm
is expected to bring at least some ice from Missouri 
to New England over the next few days. 

 We've fallen into a weather pattern that features lots of storminess across the Lower 48, which will cause all types of havoc.  

Here in Vermont, we'll have our share of icky weather, but at this point, it doesn't look like anything extreme. More on that in a bit. 

One storm yesterday coated much of the Midwest with snow and some ice, and is now heading into Canada. 

An even stronger storm, the one that the other day dumped a good dousing of rain and crackled the skies over southern California with lightning, is now reorganizing over southern Texas.  

This storm promises a boatload of widespread bad weather, including the risk of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes along the Gulf Coast and Southeast, flooding from eastern Texas and across the Arkansas Ozarks, and a wide, huge area of ice from central Texas, through a huge section of the Midwest and eventually on into the Northeast. 

Western Texas, and an area just to the north and west of that big ice area I talked about, is in for a pretty big snowstorm. 

There will be pockets of the ice that will be severe enough to damage tress and power lines. especially in parts of Missouri, and possibly later in a few spots in Pennsylvania.  However, most of the ice-related problems will involve hazardous roads. 

Since this ice will involve a huge chunk of the nation, expect many car crashes and such over the New Year's weekend.  Especially since drunk driving is still a thing on this holiday.  Due to the pandemic, a lot of people will stay home on New Year's Eve, limiting the number of people on the roads. Of course, it would have been better if we had no pandemic, but we're stuck. 

After this storm, the train of storms crossing the nation will continue, but it's too soon to offer details, paths and types of weather they'll bring as we head into January. 

One thing is a little more clear, and that is, at least as January starts, there won't be any severe or long-lasting Arctic outbreaks like there often is this time of year. Most of the frigid air is being bottled up by the current weather pattern way up in northern Canada. 

Eventually this Arctic air will probably plunge southward into the United States, but not anytime soon. It's been a pretty mild winter for the nation so far. 

VERMONT IMPACTS

The storm that hit the upper Midwest yesterday is up in Canada now, and will drag a cold front through Vermont tonight. 

There's not a lot of moisture with it, so we're not going to get a lot of weather. Ahead of the front, it will get windy today. Especially in the Champlain Valley, where some gusts will top 40 mph.

Tonight will bring some snow with the front,  probably kind of on the slushy side in the valleys as temperatures warm up before the cold front gets here. 

Expect just a dusting to an inch in the valleys, with perhaps a bit more than that in the mountains and Northeast Kingdom. No biggie. 

There's no real cold air behind this "cold" front, so New Year's Eve and New Years Day will be quiet and mild. (Highs in the low to mid 30s, lows in the upper teens and 20s).

The storm I talked about above will not get here until Friday night.  With not much cold air around, it looks like precipitation will be a mixed bag.

It's hard to say at this point what proportion of the storm will feature snow, or freezing rain and sleet, or plain rain. Suffice it to say roads will probably get slick amid some mixed precipitation late Friday into Saturday.

I'm sure the National Weather Service in South Burlington and other local meteorologists will be fine tuning this complicated forecast as we get closer to the actual storm. 

Another storm looks like it will form just off the East Coast Monday. At this point, it looks like it will go far enough east to miss Vermont, but we might as well watch it anyway.

The year 2020 brought us a lot of unexpected things. Why should 2021 be any different?