Wednesday Evening Storm Update: Round 2 Now Beginning

If you had to travel in and near Vermont for Thanksgiving, I hope you had a chance to do it this afternoon.

Precipitation turned to drizzle and dense fog
for a time today in St. Albans, making for a gloomy day, but
with better roads. Ice and snow returned as darkness fell.  

There was a break of sorts in the storm, which was expected. Things tapered down to scattered drizzle and fog, and the roads were OK.

If you missed that opportunity, it's too late now, as of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. The next round of precipitation has moved into Vermont, eastern New York and New Hampshire.

Precipitation has changed to snow as far east as Vermont's Champlain Valley, and the rain will go over to snow by 5 p.m. in central Vermont, 6 p.m. in the east, and probably 7 p.m. in northern New Hampshire

As temperatures drop below freezing, the water on the roads will ice up, as they are just starting to do outside my house in St. Albans, Vermont as of 4:30 p.m. Those icy roads will quickly spread eastward.

If you don't have to drive tonight, don't.  Have some hot chocolate, or make a pie for Thanksgiving dessert tomorrow. It'll be better that way. Trust me.

Those looking for a huge dump of snow are out of luck unless they are along the spine of the Green Mountains and their western slopes in northern Vermont, the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, the Adirondacks and New Hampshire's White Mountains

In most valley locations, expect one to three inches of snow, with only a dusting in valleys in southern Vermont and New Hampshire, and New York's Hudson Valley.

The National Weather Service is calling for 3 to 7 inches in those places I noted will get the heavier snow, but I still think there might be isolated amounts up to a foot around Jay Peak, Smuggler's Notch and Mount Mansfield.

This storm produced one to two inches of rain today across much of northern New England. Flood watches are still in effect for southern and eastern Vermont, but I think those watches will be dropped soon. There have been no reports of flooding.

Snowflakes will still be flying across northern and central Vermont mountains Thanksgiving morning but those will taper off. It still looks like it will be a frigid, windy day.  I guess it's a bad year to have a Thanksgiving feast outdoors.

There is the possibility of another coastal storm around Tuesday, but that's not a sure bet at all. Even if a storm does get going, it's too soon to tell if we'll get rain, snow, or some other combination out of that one. So stay tuned.

And Happy Thanksgiving.