Quick Update: What To Expect With Vermont Weather Leading To Christmas

It's possible some areas aroud the region could be icy like
this on Saturday. Stay tuned to forecasts and travel alerts. 

This is pretty much an update of yesterday's post, as everybody is keenly interested in what kind of weather we'll have to deal with here in Vermont leading up to and through Christmas. There's a few changes, and I'm sure a few more changes are in the offing.  

And once we get to Christmas Day, the uncertainty of what will happen is way above average.

The details, with notes on how confident I am in the forecast each day:

REST OF TODAY: Partly cloudy, breezy, turning colder. Some snow showers around, mainly in the mountains and mainly before mid afternoon. Some icy patches on the roads as temperatures drop and water freezes. Forecaster confidence: High

THURSDAY: Quiet and cold. Some increase in afternoon clouds. A north breeze will slacken to near calm. Forecaster confidence: High.

FRIDAY: Basically a repeat of Monday. Light snow will overspread the area. We're looking at a general one to three inch snowfall, with locally higher amounts in the mountains. Both the morning and afternoon commutes will be affected by slippery roads. Forecaster confidence: Moderately high.

FRIDAY NIGHT: Snow gradually mixes with sleet and freezing rain, especially late at night. Forecaster confidence: Moderate.

SATURDAY: Forecast models are trending the storm further east and locking in the cold air more aggressively than they did a few days ago. The storm will probably still go by just to the west of Vermont. Look for a messy day with snow, ice, and rain. Freezing rain will last the longest east of the Green Mountains, and might not change to plain rain at all in New York's St. Lawrence Valley and possibly parts of the Northeast Kingdom.

It still looks like there will be a period of plain rain, especially in western Vermont and much of eastern New York. This could change, though, if the storm keeps trending further east. At least it looks like not all the snow on the ground will melt. Earlier forecasts suggested it would. Earlier in the week, I thought it might be 50 degrees or more on Saturday. Now it looks like it'll be in the 30s to near 40.  Forecaster confidence: Low to moderate.

SUNDAY (Christmas Eve) Looks like we'll be between systems, though that's not certain. It will be colder than Saturday, so any precipitation that does come down will very likely be snow. At this point, it just looks like scattered snow showers during the day. Forecaster confidence: Fairly low

MONDAY: (Christmas Day) Huge amounts of uncertainty here. Forecast models are all over the place with storminess in the Northeast. Some forecast models give us a decent day long Christmas snowfall, a few other models give us an ugly mix of precipitation, and still others take the storm too far to the south  and east to affect Vermonte at all.  Some real big question marks here. Stay tuned on this one. Forecaster confidence: Very low. 

AFTER CHRISTMAS: A nasty surge of Arctic air will have gotten into the Northern Plains and Great Lakes by Christmas weekend. Looks like that cold air will come in from Tuesday onward net week. I'm not sure how cold it will get, but it will certainly be colder than normal, with subzero temperatures a good bet. Forecaster confidence: Moderate.