New England To Finally Get Winter Weather

Well, it's a start. A dusting of snow appeared on my backyard
in St. Albans, Vermont on Sunday. It looks like a few
more inches of snow be added to this scene on Tuesday.

Snow and ice storms should be old hat to us New Englanders by now.

As December closes, we usually have experience with several bouts of winter weather.

Not this year, as we end what will be a record warm December. 

We knew winter would eventually arrive, and it is doing so now.

If you haven't heard, I'll break the news to you now: The drive to work Tuesday morning is going to be a wintry hell.

Partly because we're going to have a bunch of snow and ice to contend with, and partly because the first real winter storm of the year brings out the idiots. Some out there still have NO clue how to drive in the winter, and they cause accidents, and traffic backups and all kinds of havoc.

Do us all a favor: If you can't drive correctly in snow and ice, call in sick. Stay at home. Have some hot chocolate. Just leave the rest of us alone.

Today in Vermont, there's a dusting of snow on the ground, finally. This will be the first day this season that Burlington will have a high temperature that's below freezing. Usually, we would have had a dozen or more days like that by now.

Then the storm comes in late tonight.

As always with these types of things, there's a lot of questions as to what proportion of this will be snow, what proportion will be sleet, freezing rain and rain, and when any kind of changeover will occur.

The computer models, of course, disagree on these kinds of mixed precipitation and timing issues, but that's normal. Very, VERY subtle differences can affect whether it snows or ices, so we never do get the forecasts completely right.

As it stands now, expect a burst of snow or mixed precipitation in southern New England before or at dawn, before things go to a complete mix or just rain during the day.

Up in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, it looks like there could be a burst of heavy snow before dawn and continuing around the morning commute time, with accumulations ranging from three to eight inches.

Sleet and freezing rain will gradually work northeastward across northern New England during the day, but precipitation will lighten up some during the afternoon, no matter what form it takes.

But, expect lousy roads all day and into Tuesday night because of all this.

Looking further ahead, the springlike winter weather we had all of December is a thing of the past. It looks like we'll head into the New Year with winter weather, like we always do.

So far, I'm not seeing anything extreme, like last February's Arctic snow nightmare in New England.

But still, look for plenty of seasonably cold air - subfreezing mostly - as we close out 2015 and welcome 2016.

There will be a few bouts of snow as well. Again, nothing extreme, but something we should expect this time of year.

At least that will help New England ski areas start recovering from a Christmas holiday week that was a tropical, snow free bust.