Very Odd Southern Snow To Become Normal Eastern New England Snow

Students at Texas A&M in College Station, northwest
of Houston, were able to make this large snowman
amid a very rare snowstorm last night in that
part of the country

Overnight and this morning it snowed in southern Texas and northeastern Texas, and this there are winter storm warnings from southern Mississippi to northern Georgia.

This wildly early snowfall so far south comes when northern areas are still waiting for snow. There was more snow on the ground in southern Texas cities like San Antonio and Corpus Christi than there is at my house not far from the Canadian border in Vermont.

The season's first snow accumulations hit Laredo, Texas and the Houston metro area earlier in the month than cities like Boston and Des Moines.

In fact, Corpus Christi has more snow than Denver, Boston, Caribou, Minneapolis, Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit combined!

Thunder snow was reported in Corpus Christi, Texas, perhaps for the first time on record. Baton Rouge also got thunder snow this morning. And last evening, it was colder in Corpus Christi (35 degrees) than it was in Fairbanks, Alaska (36 degrees). Fairbanks normally hovers well below zero this time of year.

Jackson, Mississippi has had 2.5 inches of snow so far, the most since 2010. It snowed in Brownsville, on the southern tip of Texas, for the first time since 2004. It also snowed across the border in Mexico. So far, Lake Charles, Louisiana has had 2.1 inches of snow, the most in a single storm since 1973.

The culprit was a storm that took a far southern route through near the Rio Grande and into the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. That path allowed the storm to draw cold air far south into Texas and the Gulf Coast states, prompting the early season snow.

The storm will zip northeastward, off, but parallel to the East Coast later today and Saturday.  It will lay down a stripe of snow from the Southeast, through the southern Appalachians, and basically all the way up Interstate 95 to Maine. Boston, still waiting for its first snow of the season, will probably, finally get a few inches.

Most places along the path of the storm will get two to six inches of snow, with locally higher amounts in the central Appalachians and the eastern half of New England, where upwards of eight inches might fall in some spots. At least once you get to the Northeast, it's normal to have snow in December. The Texas snow thing is definitely weird, though.

Here in Vermont, the snow will clip the state, but it won't be a huge deal. Maybe a couple inches in the Connecticut River valley and less elsewhere. However, this will have to be watched. So far, this storm is overperforming, causing more snow and havoc than expected. It's possible we could get a little more than what's forecast now.

Even if we don't get much of anything from this one, fear not, winter lovers: It's been snowing off and on in the mountains since Wednesday night, and Vermont will get frequent bouts of light snow and snow showers through next week as a series of weak storms and fronts repeatedly hit us amid chilly, subfreezing temperatures.

What snow we get here in New England will stay on the ground for days or longer. Not so in Texas. San Antonio is expecting highs in the 50s today, and in the 60s to around 70 through the weekend.