Saturday Evening Storm Update: Stay Off Roads This Evening; New Storm To Sock Us Christmas Day

Here's an initial forecast for the amount of snow expected on
Christmas Day - this from the National Weather Service in
South Burlington. At this point, it looks like most of Vermont
is in for six or seven inches of snow on Christmas.

As of 4:30 p.m. Saturday, rain and freezing rain in the northern Champlain Valley of New York and Vermont had changed to snow, and this changeover was working its way steadily south and east and will encompass most of the state through this evening.

By the way, that light predicted Christmas snowfall I was talking about this morning ain't so light anymore. There's a winter storm watch out for the region on Christmas Day for what now appears will be a mid-sized storm. More on that in a bit.

First, let's get through what happened today and what's happening this evening. Gawd, it was an awful day weatherwise through northern New York, the northern two-thirds of New England and southern Ontario and Quebec.

There was lots of freezing rain for most or all of the day, especially in parts of northern New York, eastern and central Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and a good chunks of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

As expected, the Connecticut River Valley in Vermont was included in the zone that really got socked by the freezing rain. As of 5 p.m. Saturday, more than 5,000 homes and businesses were without power from just south of St. Johnsbury all the way down to the Brattleboro area.

Even in places that got a cold, but ostensibly non-freezing rain today, like the central and southern Champlain Valley of Vermont, the ground was chilly enough that even though the air temperature was something like 35 degrees, the rain froze on roads, sidewalks, parking lots and the like. It was nasty.

There were tons of car accidents and crashes, road closures and the like throughout the region,  As expected, enough freezing rain fell on parts of New Hampshire an Maine that there were some issues with tree branches and power lines failing under the weight of the accumulated ice.

If the freezing rain hasn't changed to snow yet where you are, it soon will. It won't amount to much in most locations - I suppose one to three inches will do it. But as temperatures drop below freezing, the falling snow combined with the water freezing, will make it bad for driving and walking this evening.

I noticed during the height of the rain this afternoon that there was a bit of street flooding in Burlington, Vermont due to snow-clogged drains. Those big puddles freezing up will be pretty interesting by Sunday morning.

If you need to travel in Vermont or through most of New England or eastern New York this weekend, you've got a narrow, safe window of opportunity tomorrow - Christmas Eve. The road crews will have been out by morning, and there will be little if any precipitation to speak of.

But now, let's get into the Christmas Day snow.

It looks like the storm on Christmas Day will be a little stronger and a little closer to the coast than many forecasters thought earlier. That means more snow.

This still won't be a blockbuster, but there is enough expected snow to prompt winter storm watches for wide areas of the Northeast, including much of New England away from the coast of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Ice accumulates on tree branches in Lowell, Massachusetts
on Saturday. Photo via television station WCVB

Here in Vermont and surrounding areas, look for a general four to eight inch snowfall - the least to the northwest and the most to the south and east and higher elevations. The snow will begin in earnest in the wee hours of the morning Christmas and continue for most if not all of the day.

This still looks like a well-behaved storm with no sleet or freezing rain in inland areas like Vermont, interior New Hampshire and western Maine. Still, the roads will be slick all day so watch out for that.

Vermont ski areas must be rejoicing. They got some good dumps of snow, then some rain and freezing rain to help establish bases today, then more powder tonight and Christmas.

Here's the only drawback for skiers, and the rest of us. It's going to be frickin' COLD during the middle and end of next week. We're talking highs barely making it above zero and lows in the teens below zero, with some isolated cold spots.

Unlike the cold waves of the past couple of winters that only lasted a day or two, this one starts Tuesday and goes at least into next weekend.

Computer models are also hinting at some sort of nor'easter with maybe, just maybe, the potential of some decent snows somewhere in the Northeast or Middle Atlantic States. It's way too soon to pin down who, if anyone will get the bulk of the snow out of that potential storm.  Don't pay serious attention to forecasts that offer specifics of this potential storm until at least Thursday.

Anyone who tells you they know precisely where and how much heavy snow will fall next weekend is, um, snowing you.