Storm Was Close To Forecast In Vermont; Now The Cold

The first half of autumn in Vermont was spectacularly gorgeous, and
at the time I warned that no good weather in Vermont goes unpunished.
Sure enough, late autumn payback: Record cold, a lot of snow
in the way and storm damage tree debris from Nov. 1 still to be removed
from my St. Albans, Vermont yard. 

I'm finally getting around to posting today's storm update, much later than usual. I slept in, then shoveled most of the driveway, and I'm feeling under the weather. That's my excuse anyway.

It's mid-afternoon Tuesday and the winter storm is just about over, except for some valley flurries and mountain snow showers.

The storm, tricky to forecast, played out close to expectations here in Vermont.  The only major differences were that mixed precipitation crept a bit further north than expected,  reaching as far as Burlington and St. Johnsbury.

There was up to a foot of snow in northern New York, and six to 10 inches in northwestern Vermont. That was just a little under what was expected.  I had about eight inches at my place in St. Albans. I was expecting about a foot. It looks like the storm total at the National Weather Service in South Burlington will come in at a respectable 7.1 inches.

Where mixed precipitation fell, amounts dropped sharply, especially in low elevations from just south of Burlington and south of the central Green Mountains.  It looks like three to six inches of snow and ick accumulated in central Vermont, with less than three inches in most of southern Vermont.

In case you haven't noticed, it's damn cold out there for this time of year, and that state of affairs is still expected to last through Thursday.  After a few hours reprieve early Friday, we get another blast of Arctic air Friday night through Saturday night before things begin to recover.

This is part of that Arctic blast that's been all over the news, hitting most of the nation east of the Rockies.  There will be dozens upon dozens of record lows with this cold snap - there already have been quite a few.  Vermont will share in these record lows.

At night - tonight and tomorrow night - how cold it actually gets depends upon cloud cover. If skies clear over areas that have a good bit of snow on the ground, records will be broken by wide margins. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a few cold spots get below zero.  There will probably be a lot of lows in the single digits.

If skies stay cloudy, it'll be a little "warmer" but still in record territory. . The warm water of Lake Champlain will have sort of a tea kettle effect, creating steamy clouds in the Champlain Valley. That just might hold temperatures up in the teens, which could still threaten records.

High temperatures today, tomorrow and Saturday will also challenge marks for record low high temperatures.

It's still looking like temperatures will moderate to more or less normal levels starting next Monday and possibly continuing all week. We'll see.