Wednesday Evening Update: Well-Behaved Vermont Snowstorm To Wind Down

Road conditions certainly weren't great in front of my
St. Albans, Vermont house during tocday's snowstorm,
but the state highway plow guys and gals did seem
to be pretty much keeping up with it. 

I have to say in many respects, this has so far been a remarkably well-behaved snowstorm in Vermont. Much better behaved than most.

Snowfall is fairly substantial, but manageable. It has come down hard at times in some locations, but again, nothing too extreme.

Temperatures are reasonable, winds are light. The texture of the snow is light and fluffy. Perfect for winter sports and great if you're not trying to break your back or have a heart attack while shoveling snow.

Also in the well-behaved category is that in general, the forecasts for this storm look like they're going to be pretty close to accurate.  There are a couple slight exceptions: Snow totals in northwestern Vermont, in Franklin County in particular, seem like they'll come in a little heavier than forecast.

There was a report of 7.3 inches of new snow in Swanton as of 3:30 p.m. By 5 p.m. at my house in St. Albans, we were up to 7 inches. So we'll end up in the upper end at least of the 6 to 10 inches that were forecast.

In contrast, parts of Chittenden County, around Burlington and it some spots along the western slopes of the Greens, snow accumulation is on the light side so far. They might come in on the low end of the 6-10 inches that had been forecast there.

As expected (good behavior again!) the storm is rocketing by. The snow will taper off by midnight. If you haven't done your evening commute yet, be prepared for slow going. The highway plow crews have been doing a good job, but of course it's impossible to make the roads free of snow and ice while the storm is still going on.

One area in which this storm has not behaved well is in parts of the Mid-Atlantic states and southern New England. A plane bound for all places Jamaica skidded on a taxiway at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport this morning. Nobody got hurt, but the plane was evacuated, and some tropical vacations were cruelly delayed.

Power failures hit southeastern Ohio because of freezing rain. In New York City, the busy Mario Cuomo bridge. (formerly the Tappan Zee) was shut down for a time because it iced over and there were lots of crashes on it.

Back here in Vermont, we're still expecting fairly active, but definitely not scary weather over the next several days.

Given the dire warnings of a bitterly cold February that I saw on social media a week or two back, I'm smiling now at temperatures forecasts for the next week here in the Green Mountain State.

Tomorrow will be the coldest day of the period -- near 20 during the day, which isn't bad at all for this time of year.

After that, Friday through next Tuesday, it's looking like daytime temperatures will be in the upper 20s to upper 30s in the valleys. It'll be a little cooler than that up in the ski resorts, so they'll hang on to their snow just fine.

There's still chances of light snow Friday, Sunday and Tuesday, though those light storms could mix with or even change to rain at times in the lower elevations.

This warm-ish forecast doesn't mean winter is over. There's still plenty of time for subzero cold and big and/or messy winter storms. But it is February. We are starting to get to the point where most of te worst of winter is behind us. You'll notice the sun getting stronger. The afternoon air on some days at least will feel noticeably warmer. Winter will soon start to lose some of its bite.