Active, But Not Extreme Weather In New England; Saturday Night Snow

That familiar National Weather Service snow prediction map. Click on it
to make it bigger and easier to see. It looks like the big winners in this
next storm will be southern Vermont. Northern mountains should
do OK, too.

The storm that brought our moderate snowfall to Vermont and much of the rest of northern New England got really HUGE after it left our neck of the woods.

As of this morning, the storm was crushing the eastern tip of Newfoundland, where the St. John's area is under a blizzard and storm surge warning from Environment Canada. 

That storm will continue on toward the southern tip of Greenland in the next couple of days. But that's not our concern.

Another system that's also currently producing blizzard warnings is on its way, but before you get too scared, we here in Vermont and the rest of the New England aren't going to get a blizzard. But we are going to get some snow.

The storm being watched today has triggered a blizzard warning for the eastern half of both Dakotas along with bits and pieces of Minnesota and Iowa. Winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories extend through a huge area of the nation's middle. I'm talking all the way from northern New Mexico and Texas all the way through the entire state of Michigan.

The culprit is a storm making its way east northeastward, across the central Plains. It'll make it to about Michigan Saturday evening, then move into the St. Lawrence River Valley and near northern Vermont early Sunday while fading. Meanwhile, a new, replacement storm will start to get going in the Gulf of Maine.

This will push a warm front our way, but relax, this time we're not really going to get into the mixed precipitation.

Instead, we'll endure the cold through tomorrow morning, when temperatures in many areas will be below zero again.  It will warm up and cloud up Saturday, and snow will start in the afternoon.

The way this looks for much of New England, including Vermont, this storm will feature a burst of pretty heavy snow at the onset during the first half of Saturday night.  Snowfall rates could be an inch per hour during this time.

A winter storm watch is up for far southern Vermont, areas near Albany, New York and a good chunk of southern New England.

For Vermont the far southern areas will get the best snow out of this, as it looks now. Which is good, because they largely missed out on yesterday's snow.   These areas should get a decent six to te inches of snow or more out of this. Some favored mountain areas could see a foot or even a little more of fresh powder by the end of the day Sunday.

The snow will become more showery and lighter late Saturday night and Sunday. This is a good set up for the central and northern Green Mountains, which should get a slower, but again, decent five to seven inches, with locally higher amounts, between Saturday afternoon and Monday morning.

The Champlain Valley looks like it will be sheltered from the best moisture, so current forecasts have that area getting only about three inches or so of new snow.

It'll pretty warm on Sunday - highs in the upper 20s and 30s - so you'll get to enjoy playing in that snow then.  We have another cold shot coming at us Monday and Tuesday and into Wednesday, but it will probably warm back up to near seasonal temperatures for awhile after that.