Into The Deep Freeze, For A Very Long Time

Increasing winds begin to blow powdery snow off of
pine trees Christmas afternoon after a morning storm left
six inches of new snow in West Rutland, Vermont 

We had a very nice Christmas morning snowfall here in Vermont, and a brief, but violent stormy burst around Boston with an hour long bout of gale force winds, super heavy snow, thunder and lightning.

All that Christmas fun is gone now, but we're in to the very, very deep freeze and it's going to last awhile from the Plains to the Northeast. And the Great Lakes effect snows are epic. More on that in a minute.

Here in Vermont, the temperature is going down, down, down. The cold wave will begin in earnest tonight, and last until, I'd say around January 5 or so. That's a long time.

The cold through January 5 will wax and wane over time, but it will be much colder than normal throughout. The first especially rough patch begins tomorrow and goes into Saturday. We're talking highs in the single numbers at best and lows in the teens below zero through the period.

The cold might relax just a tad over the weekend, then get super, super nasty again after that.

At this point, it doesn't look like we will be getting much snow through the period. Just a snow shower or interval of snow from time to time as reinforcing shots of Arctic air arrive from time to time.

An aptly-named business near Erie, Pennsylvania after lake
effect snows dumped an incredible 53 inches of snow on the
city over two days. 

The European weather computer models are still suggesting a nor'easter this weekend, but at this point, it looks like that storm will probably be too far south and east to give Vermont much of anything. It still bears watching, though, as it's possible it could still come close enough.

The most likely people to be affected by this potential storm are in far eastern New England.

After a warm early autumn, the Great Lakes are relatively warm and the contrast between that water and the frigid Arctic air is creating some epic lake effect snows.

Erie, Pennsylvania is really in the news today because of their epic lake effect storm. They had a least 53 inches of snow since yesterday. That sets a new record for the most intense snowstorm in Pennsylvania history. The previous record for that big a storm in Erie was in the 1890s, but it took 13 days, not two, to get up to 53 inches.

Erie has had 92 inches of snow so far in December (!!!!) Their annual average snowfall is 99 inches, so definitely, yikes!  They had as much snow in 36 hours as they normally do during the entire months of December and January.

Further north, in the famous snow belts in the Tug Hill Plateau near Watertown, New York, a lake effect storm total of up to six feet of new powder or more is expected by Wednesday night.

See? It could be worse here in Vermont. How would you like to shovel six feet of snow while it's 20 below?

We'll survive this.