Yep, It Will Probably Snow in Vermont, Rest of Northern New England This Weekned.

It'll probably snow in New England this weekend, but
in most places, I doubt it will be as bad as
in this photo 

It's been a really nice autumn in northern New England. It's been on the warm side. This past weeks's gloomy weather notwithstanding, it's been kind of sunny. Very pleasant.  

Now it's payback time.

It seems like it's getting more and more likely places like northern New York, much of Vermont, northern New Hampshire and much of Maine could get an accumulating snow this weekend.

That's true even in the valleys.

It's still questionable how much snow will fall in New England.

It seems like the European computer forecasting models are the most bullish on snow in the region, especially in eastern Vermont, northern New Hampshire and a good chunk of Maine.

That's because the European models bring a coastal storm northward, just off the coast, which would give a good slug of moisture along, especially in the eastern half of New England.

It's too early to talk about accumulation, but the National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont says if this were to play out, there wouldn't be much snow from the Champlain Valley westward, but amounts would increase rapidly as you head east from there.

The National Weather Service in Gray, Maine is still understandably hedging its bets on how much snow might fall, considering the huge uncertainty on how strong the coastal storm will get, or even it it forms at all.

But the thinking is going that enough cold air will be around that snow could fall and accumulate all the way east to coastal Maine.

American forecasting models have a weaker system off the coast. But there would be weather disturbances around, plus more than enough cold air to drop an accumulating snow, especially on top of, and along the western slopes of the mountains.

Here's an excerpt from the NWS Burlington forecast discussion this morning: "Too early for accumulations but I would have the rock skies on standby this weekend...if you are looking for the first turns of the season along the spine of the Green Mtns from Jay Pay to Mansfield To Killington."

Look, I'm not inducing snow panic (or joy in some cases) here, mostly because there's no reason to panic. Yeah, it seems early to have snow on the ground before you've had a chance to rake the leaves, but this kind of weather isn't unheard of on or just after Halloween.

It's happened before. And earlier than in this potential snowfall.

For instance: On October 4, 1987, up to 18 inches of snow clobbered Vermont, not to mention the Capital District of New York and parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut. It was peak foliage season, and all that snow stuck to the leaves that were still on the trees.

The result was major forest devastation, lots of power failures, blocked roads and a zillion stranded fall foliage tourists.

On Nov. 1, 1993, Burlington, Vermont had 7.7 inches of snow.

The average date of the first one inch snowfall in Burlington is November 17. It's unclear if even that much will fall this weekend there, but if it does, it's only two and a half weeks early. Not that extreme.

In any event, if it does snow it won't last. It's early. Plus long range weather outlooks give us a pretty decent warmup next week.

It might be time to put the snow tires on right now, but don't expect continuous perfect sledding until spring. You'll still have your chance to rake leaves.