All In All, A Very Good NWS Winter Storm Forecast

This is the forecast map issued early Tuesday morning
for the storm that started Tuesday afternoon and ended
Wednesday. Orange areas show the most snow, blue
the least. At this point, NWS meteorologists were expecting
as little as five inches of new snow in the blue areas
ad up to a foot in the dark orange ones. 

Today is the pick of the month as far as I've concerned for this February's weather.

We're coming off a winter storm that at least in central and northern sections, gave us Vermonters a nice fresh dump of powder.

It has been gorgeous out there this Thursday afternoon, with plenty of sunshine, light winds, and temperatures near or just below freezing. Toasty enough to keep you warm but cool enough to keep the snow conditions perfect for winter sports.

If you're going to love something this Valentine's Day, love today's weather. And your honey, of course.

Speaking of perfect, it's time to look at how the National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont did with their very challenging forecast for the snow and sleet storm, which ended yesterday.

Forecasts for snow amounts in a region are never, ever completely right. Things always vary from one town to the next. However, in this forecast, at least in the broad brush, the NWS got it right.

Meteorologists said ahead of the storm the most snow would fall in the northern Green Mountains, (especially the eastern slopes,) the northern Champlain Valley and the St. Lawrence Valley of New York. That's pretty much what happened.

You can see for yourself: The top map is what the NWS was forecasting for our area early Tuesday morning, hours before the snow started. The lower map in this post is what really happened.

Here's a map of the actual snow totals from the storm
Tuesday and Wednesday. Darkest orange represents about
a foot of snow, other orange areas got 8-12 inches.
Blue areas got four to six inches of accumulation.

Aside from the areas that got the most snow, also notice the lower amounts along the Connecticut River Valley and the west slopes of the southern and central Green Mountains. That had been forecast well in advance.

The southern two counties of Vermont got less snow than predicted, mostly because of some extra sleet and freezing rain involved. The NWS office in Albany, New York, not the South Burlington NWS issues forecasts for the far southern end of Vermont.

That's not to say the NWS office in Albany is worse than South Burlington. By my estimation, they're equally good. It's just that Albany was slightly off in southern Vermont this time.

The next storm, tomorrow, won't have as much precipitation. There might be  dusting to two inches of snow in the valleys and up to two to four inches of snow in the mountains. Snow will change to rain in the valleys tomorrow as it warms up. There will be gusty winds from the south Friday, especially in the Champlain Valley.

For those of you sick of storms, there might be a decent dry spell Saturday through Wednesday. There is the danger we could get a snowy surprise in that time frame, but right now it looks like there will be little or no precipitation in that time frame.

It will be colder starting Saturday than it was today, so I hope you enjoyed the outdoors this afternoon!