Firehose Of Moisture Off Gulf Of Mexico Creating Widespread Weather Problems, Including Vermont

There isn't all that much snow in the forecast tonight
and tomorrow in Vermont but........

 We've got an interesting, kind of weird weather set up for much of the U.S. today.  

By interesting, I obviously mean unpleasant for many.  We in Vermont are going to participate in that unpleasantness this week. More on that down below, but first the odd weather setup:

FIRE HOSE 

 A disturbance that contributed to a lot of flooding in San Diego yesterday is re-invigorating a flow of wet air off the Gulf of Mexico.

The moisture has already caused problems. Freezing rain coated places like Arkansas and Missouri Monday, causing tons of highway and road crashed. This includes dramatic video of a fire truck spinning out of control down a hill in Missouri.

That disturbance that came in from California is going to turn that flow of wet air off the Gulf of Mexico into a fire hose starting today. This will set off a lot of flooding over the next couple of days in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and possibly surrounding areas.

Like water from a fire hose, the bulk of the flow will not reach much longer distance, but some of the "spray" if you will should make it to the Canadian border and a little beyond.

Low level moisture from this is creating a weird, huge area of locally dense fog from the southern tip of Texas all the way north to Montana. There's very little rain, ice or snow in this immense fog bank, but it's still odd.

The precipitation from the fire hose is mostly heading northeastward from the lower Mississippi Valley. It' is covering or will cover an area through the Mid-Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley, southern Great Lakes and on into New England 

Lingering cold air near the Earth's surface from that departing cold snap is prompting winter weather advisories for freezing rain from Missouri to here in Vermont. 

Such a huge area of freezing rain, combined with what happened in Missouri and Arkansas yesterday, is really going to pile up the wrecked cars and trucks from all the highway crashes its contributing to.   Between the expected flooding in the Deep South and the ice elsewhere. It's quite a mess. 

VERMONT EFFECTS

It barely got above freezing in parts of Vermont this morning for the first time January 14. That marks the longest stretch of winter weather in the Green Mountain State so far this season, but that's not sayin much. (The longest stretch of continuously below freezing temperatures in Burlington is 51 days in the winter of 1976-77).  

.......freezing rain will cover most of Vermont
Wednesday night, with the most in eastern parts
of the state. Ugly travel Wednesday night and
early Thursday on Vermont roads. 

The above freezing air this morning is short lived as a cold front passes through from Canada today, so temperatures will slowly fall.

The cold high pressure will set up residence in southern Quebec and northern Maine, and that is an important ingredient in our upcoming weather woes.

The first bit of "spray" from that Gulf of Mexico fire hose will make it here tonight. 

The first round of precipitation will pretty much be all snow, and it won't be that bad, really.  Most of us should see one to three inches of new snow by tomorrow morning. 

Then the real trouble begins Wednesday night.  Another surge of moisture will come in Wednesday night into Thursday. By then, the flow of southwesterly winds aloft will warm the atmosphere several thousand feet overhead to above freezing.

Meanwhile, that cold high pressure will feed chilly Canadian air southward near the surface. The result: A round of ugly freezing rain. 

This won't be one of the those rare storms that take down a bunch of trees and power lines.  Maybe there will be an isolated power outage or two but nothing widespread. It won't rain hard enough for that much ice to accumulate. Thank goodness, because we've had enough downed trees and power lines this winter, haven't we?  

But it will be enough to make the roads a mess.  The most likely areas to see freezing rain is almost everybody east of the Green Mountains. The far northern Champlain Valley, mostly north of Milton and South Hero seem destined to see ice, too. 

The forecast is of course tricky, so ice could end up being more widespread or less widespread than I'm describing here. 

Also, it's been cold recently. So even places that get or stay a little above 32 degrees will see rain freeze on impact on cold back roads, dirt roads, driveways and sidewalks. So we'll have to look out for that.

By Thursday afternoon, it looks like most of us will transition to a cold, non-freezing rain (with still that risk of ice on cold surfaces).  Occasional rain and thawing will continue well into Friday, as it looks now.

A winter weather advisory is up for Vermont from tonight all the way to Thursday morning. 

This will be light precipitation, so I'm not worried about flooding later this week. But this is another long lasting bout of crappy weather.    Honestly, it's been that kind of winter. We'll have just a slight risk of snow showers today. But starting tonight, it will be doing something off and on through Friday. Another endless stretch of gloom indeed.

Big Nor'Easter Almost Definitely A Miss For Vermont; Eastern New England Still Target

The thin snow cover, about five inches, on my property
in St. Albans on Tuesday. It's looking unlikely that
the expected big nor'easter on Saturday will add any
snow cover for the this part of Vermont. 

I'll get into the updates on the nor'easter in a sec, but I have to acknowledge another impressively cold morning in and around Vermont.  

Island Pond got down to at least 35 below early this morning, which at least ties for the chilliest reading of the winter in the Green Mountain State.  Most everyone else in Vermont was in the teens and 20s below this morning.

The way things are shaping up, this morning and last Saturday will pretty likely - but not definitely - be the coldest spells this entire winter. We have more cold weather coming up, but it doesn't look like it will be that frigid again for awhile.

Now, that nor'easter.  As usual with this type of storm,  the computer models have been "windshield wipering" with its path, sometimes taking the storm a little further offshore, others bringing it a little closer. 

At this point, things are consistently pointing to a nothing burger for Vermont, aside from gusty north winds, a nasty wind chill and maybe some light snow in southeastern Vermont on Saturday. 

There's still a slight chance we could get a surprise hit, as a small number of models blitz Vermont with snow. But as of this Thursday morning it's looking pretty doubtful we'll join in the "snow fun." 

That leaves us with the question as to how extensively this thing will battered eastern New England.  As the National Weather Service in Boston notes, a lot will depend on how a dip in the jet stream aligns itself in the Ohio and Tennessee valleys tomorrow. 

A sharper dip would bring the storm a little closer to the coast, less sharp, it would be a little more offshore.  In any event, this will be a rapidly strengthening and powerful storm as it passes by New England Saturday. 

Either way, it seems like a lock that at least some of eastern and perhaps central New England will get a lot of snow out of this.  High winds and coastal flooding are also going to be a problem. How bad those two issues will get will depend largely on how close to the coast the storm ultimately gets. 

We still have some questions as to how far west the heavy snow reaches on Long Island, and will it reach to near New York City and the Mid-Atlantic States.

For now winter storm watches hug the coast from Virginia, on up through New Jersey and the New York City area, and then roughly into the southeastern third of New England. 

By the way, after this goes by and another shot of frigid air arrives, it's beginning to look like we back here in Vermont could get our first real thaw since New Year's Eve.  Temperatures could reach the 40s Wednesday and Thursday.

A weather system accompanying this warmth appears to want to give us rain toward Thursday, so Vermont's snow drought will continue on.