Scaling Back The Storm Totals In Vermont, Still Tons Of Snow East

Latest snowfall map from the National Weather
Service in South Burlington, Vermont. Latest
trends put the heaviest snow a little
more to the east than previous forecasts. 

As of late afternoon, the heaviest of the snow was moving into and through Vermont, but the show was just beginning in New Hampshire and Maine, and along the New England coast.  

I maybe was too quick to cheer the American computer model this morning, as it looks as if the storm will track a wee bit further to the east tonight.

The European model was closer to reality after all, it looks like.

That means the snow will taper off sooner in western Vermont than earlier thought, with the bulk of it over before midnight.  Still, the winter storm warnings for most of Vermont and the winter weather advisory in the Champlain Valley remain in effect.

It'll continue on through most of the night in eastern Vermont as they'll be close enough to the compact, intense storm to get a good deal of snow out of it.

This evening's commute across all of Vermont is shaping up as the worst of the storm's existence. The snow is widespread across Vermont, roads are slickening up and the snow will continue to come down moderately to heavy at times.  Locally gusty winds will cause blowing and drifting.

You'll need to take care and go slow on the way home this evening. There were already numerous reports of slide offs and (mostly) minor crashes as of 4 p.m. Thursday.

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington has scaled back the amount of snow Vermont will get, but don't worry. The ski areas will get less than anticipated, but still a pretty good dump.

I'll let the NWS Burlington forecast discussion from this afternoon outline it for you:

"Expecting storm totals of 6 to 12 inches central/eastern VT, including Northeast Kingdom and Northern Green Mountains....with 6 to 8 inches western slopes and 2 to 6 inches Champlain Valely and northern Adirondacks. 

Snow tapers off across the St. Lawrence Valely and parts of the (Adirondacks) by evening commute and Champlain Valley by 9 or 10 p.m., but continues into early Friday for eastern Vermont/NEK (Northeast Kingdom) with redevelopment along the western slopes and dacks expected o Friday."

The reason for all this is the storm center now looks like it will pass over Cape Cod, not Boston as the American computer models hinted earlier. This eastward shift takes most of Vermont out of the running for the heaviest snow.

New Hampshire and western Maine are still in the sweet spot for very heavy snow overnight so careful if you're heading east toward that region. Or just don't bother.

We're still expecting a wet northwest air flow in back of the storm Friday, which is why snow will redevelop in the western slopes of the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks. The wet air will be forced to rise up the slopes, and that will cause the moisture in the air to condense into snowflakes.

That could be good for an additional three to six inches for some of the ski areas on Friday. Just flurries are likely in the Champlain Valley Friday.