Evening Update: Huge Mess Of A Storm Coming To Vermont, Elsewhere In Northeast

The National Weather Service Office in South Burlington
Vermont is expecting generally two to six inches of wet
snow, ice, slush and crud by tomorrow night.

If you live in Vermont, northern New York or the rest of northern and central New England, expect a real doozy of a mess for Tuesday morning's commute.

The atmosphere temperatures will be right near the freezing point through a deep layer of the atmosphere in Vermont late tonight and Tuesday.

The result will be that ugly mix of sleet, snow, freezing rain and rain that we've been advertising.

It's really impossible to say exactly what will be falling when at any given place in Vermont or surrounding places.

Don't expect any forecast you hear this evening to turn out to be completely accurate. There could be more or less snow, more or less ice, more or less rain than current specific forecasts are calling for.

Just expect, snow, sleet, freezing rain, rain or all of the above any time late tonight and Tuesday.  It'll start first later tonight in southern Vermont and spread through the rest of the state by Tuesday morning.

Unfortunately, at this point, (I'm writing this late afternoon Monday) it looks as if the heaviest precipitation, whatever it is, will come down during the Tuesday morning commute. Not surprisingly, we're under a winter weather advisory.

Give yourself LOTS of extra time to get to your destination. Or don't bother going out at all, if possible. I bet there will be plenty of school closings, too.

I'm also worried about power failures. The combination of ice, wet, heavy snow and wind could easily bring down a number of trees and power lines. Total accumulation still looks to be generally two to six inches of slush, ice, crud and yuck in most of Vermont.

There might be a lull in the precipitation during the middle of the day (we'll see) but it could pick up somewhat again in time for the evening commute.  A brief foray to above freezing temperatures Tuesday afternoon in some valley locations (but not all of them!) could create a temporary reprieve. Don't count on it, though.

Things will taper off Tuesday night, but there will still be some snow or mixed precipitation around.

If this makes you feel any better, this large storm is causing a lot of problems for a lot of other people. Western New York and southern Quebec are in for a nasty snow and sleet storm with six inches or more of accumulation.

Worse, the storm is causing high winds and coastal flooding from Virginia to Maryland. Coastal areas from New Jersey north can expect flooding tonight and possibly Tuesday, along with damaging winds gusting to as high as 70 mph.

By the way, no time to discuss this in detail, but California had a nasty storm yesterday and today, too.