Thursday, February 28, 2019

Wintry Weather Continues. Cold, With New England Snow Threat Sunday/Monday?

Jackson the Weather Dog in his St. Albans, Vermont yard searches in vain
this morning for any sign of winter's end. He didn't find anything like that.
Something smelled interesting under the snow to his left, though. 
Last night's light snowfall played out exactly as expected. The expected a dusting near the Canadian border, and I got 0.3 inches in St. Albans, Vermont.  They expected around an inch around Burlington, and they got 1.1 inches.

Finally, the expectation was there'd be three to five inches of fluff by the time you got down to Rutland, and they got 4.2 inches. Way to go, National Weather Service in South Burlington.

Those meteorologists shouldn't rest on their laurels. They have a few days of challenging forecasts to get through, including the risk of a pretty good size snowstorm come Monday.

Before you get all panicky, it's still not clear whether it will even snow Sunday night and Monday, nevermind how much. It is looking likely that some snow will fall, but a lot of things have to come together before we get a big dump.

Before that potential storm hits, it'll stay kind of cold. Today will barely make it to around 20 degrees, despite quite a bit of sunshine. Remember, the sun at the end of February feels a lot nicer than it does in late December so if you have outdoor winter sports plans today, go for it!

It'll be a few degrees either side of zero tonight, and then get vaguely milder Friday, with highs flirting with 30 degrees.

It looks like a small storm will come through Saturday night. Best guess is a lot of us will get one to three inches of snow.

Then comes Sunday night and Monday.  One thing working against the idea of a huge snowstorm is whatever comes up along the coast will be a fast mover. There will be nothing in its way, such as a blocking, cold high pressure system to its north. It'll be a Carol Burnett Show closing song type of storm, you know, "Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say so long."

The bigger question marks is how close this storm comes to the coast. Dependin upon where the storm goes, it could range from a decent statewide snowfall in Vermont to a whiff, with just light snow across southern sections. The computer models on this aren't in agreement yet. Such an argumentative bunch!

Early guesses are southern Vermont will get more than the north, but time will tell. Again, even though we don't know exactly what will happen with this potential storm, it will NOT be anything  like a over-hyped Blizzard Of The Century or whatever.

What's more certain is the winter cold will continue. Temperatures most of next week will be far below normal. Afternoon temperatures during the first week in March are usually in the 30s.

Instead, there will be two or three days next week when highs only reach the upper single numbers and teens.   Clearly, maple sugar makers are going to have to wait longer.

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