Enjoy The Powder Vermonters! Back To Schmutz By Midweek

A forecast map for this coming Wednesday shows a strong
storm that will create a variety of messy weather during
the middle of the week in the Northeast. 

The weather pattern we've been in here in Vermont has been great for the ski areas.

There hasn't been much snow in the valleys to interfere with travel, but the mountains have been getting daily installments of powder for days now.  

Jay Peak in far northern Vermont is usually the big winner in these kinds of weather situations and this has been no exception.

The resort reports 54 inches of new snow in the past week. (It's been very light and powdery, so it has packed down some over time.)

Out in the western New York lake effect snow belts, they've got Vermont beat. The town of Redfield, New York has picked up 100 inches of snow this week.

Enjoy the powder this weekend, my friends, because soon we're heading back into the rainy, icy, icky pattern we've seen so much of this winter.

A weak little system will zip by Sunday afternoon and evening, which will deposit a little more snow on the region.

Then, as we begin the work week, a new storm will form in the middle of the country and strengthen rapidly as it heads northeastward into the Great Lakes.

Since the storm will go by to the west of New England, we'll have the same, schmutzy story we've had all winter. It'll start to snow Tuesday, quickly go over to freezing rain and sleet Tuesday night, and then to rain late Tuesday night and Wednesday.

This won't melt all the snow, except in a few lower elevations where the snow cover is quite thin, but it will certainly ruin the powder.

The storm will also bring another familiar feature back: Wind. It'll be a strong storm, so expect gusty winds with this one.

After the storm goes by, it'll turn sharply colder by Thursday and everything will turn to ice again.

The storm is a few days off, so I'm sure there will be tweaks and more details to this forecast. What I've given you now is just a broad brush. That's the best anybody can do at this point.

You never know what surprises await.