Bitter Cold. Next Up: Freezing Rain In Vermont. Oh, Joy!

Bad road conditions in Burlington, Vermont last winter. Expect more
of the same as winter's early arrival keeps punishing us.

I'm more than a little jealous of people in north central and parts of the Northeast Kingdom.

Last evening, as those well-predicted snow squalls lumbered through, there were lightning strikes up in that area.

Thundersnow! I haven't seen that in a few years, so I missed out. Where I'm at in St. Albans, there were some snow showers, but nothing spectacular.  So congratulations to those who got thundersnow.  You get the Jim Cantore thundersnow excitement award.

Now, as expected, its ridiculously cold out there. Most of us were in the single numbers to low teens at dawn broke this morning. A couple subzero readings showed up.  As of 6 a.m., it was minus 2 at Gallup Mills, Vermont in the Northeast Kingdom and early this morning it was a remarkable 8 below at the tradtional cold spot of Saranac Lake, New York. 

We will have record cold high temperatures today, as temperatures only peak between 15 and 22 degrees. It should be in the low to mid 40s this time of year. More record low temperatures are due tonight, with lows regional wide from about minus 5 to plus 10.

Think this winter misery for so early in the season is over after that? Think again. I hope you like freezing rain and ice, because that seems like it's coming our way Monday into Tuesday.

Now, this won't be the type of 1998 ice storm that brings down all the trees and powerlines. Not by a long shot. There will only be a light accumulation of ice. Enough to make the roads, sidewalks and such a slick nightmare.

There's still a lot of question marks as to how much ice will come, exactly when it will come and how much sleet or snow might mix in.  On Monday afternoon, temperatures in many areas will probably sneak a couple degrees above freezing.

But it's been so cold that the ground is frigid, so rain will freeze when it hits. This is normally a problem later in the winter, not in November. But this is a bizarre month. Has been from Day 1.

The Monday evening commute and Tuesday morning trip to work will both be tricky.  Again, there won't be a lot of precipitation, but it will be the wrong kind.  At this point, it looks like the mix will change to snow Tuesday morning, but there won't be a huge accumulation.

This icy start to the week will come from an offshore nor'easter.  It will be pretty far out to sea, which explains why the precipitation won't be especially heavy in Vermont. But the weather pattern will pull moisture inland from the storm, which means we will get some icy ick coming from the sky.

This same nor'easter will cause gusty winds, coastal flooding and a lot of beach erosion in the Southeast and the Mid-Atlantic states.

The next storm comes Friday. It's too soon to give you details. Early hints are it will be a rain to snow situation, but there's plenty of time yet to figure that one out.