Winter Finally Arrives, Sort Of, In New England

At my St. Albans house, weather watching dogs
Tonks, left, and Jackson wanted no part of the sleet
falling on them outside and wanted back indoors pronto! 

As expected, if you're driving to work in New England this morning, expect unpleasantness.

There's a mix of winter precipitation out there, as the forecast from yesterday come true, generally.

The only difference is the changeover from snow to sleet and freezing rain is occuring a little faster than expected.

As of 7 a.m. it was still snowing in the northeastern third of Vermont on into northern New Hampshire and Maine, but sleet and freezing rain had encompassed  northern New York and much of Vermont.

Massachusetts, and most of Connecticut and eastern New York were getting sleet and freezing rain, too.

At 7:15 a.m. after an early morning that brough a little less than three inches of snow, sleet was falling, mixed with a bit of freezing rain at my Weather Castle in St. Albans, Vermont.

As of 8 a.m., about one to three inches of snow and sleet had accumulated in southern New England. Vermont, northern New Hampshire and western Maine generally had 2 to 5 inches so far.

By the way, down in Albany, New York, it started snowing just before midnight, so they recorded measureable snow on December 28. This was the latest first measureable snow for the Capital District on record, beating out December 24, 1912.

Expect it to be dreary at best in New England today. The morning burst of heavy snow is now blustering through central and northern Maine.  But there's still a fair amount of icy glop to come out of the sky yet today.

The huge storm that caused so much misery and disasters and death to much of the country is finally weakening over the Great Lakes.

(One thing we New Englanders can be thankful for: This storm is just a minor inconvenience for us, not a horrible disaster.)

As is typical when a winter storm moves up through the Great Lakes, a secondary storm will get going today near Long Island and move up the New England coast.

This means that while warm air has surged in high above us, allowing the change over from snow to a mix here at the surface, the new storm along the New England coast will lock in the colder air. We won't get any surges of super warm air down in the valleys where we live.

Which means the sleet and freezing rain will continue across most of New England, except in the far southern reaches of the region, where there will be some cold rain.

The pricipitation - whatever might be falling - will tend to taper off in most areas this afternoon, but patches of drizzle and more likely freezing drizzle will continue on through the late afternoon and tonight.

By the way, springtime in December is OVER for New England.

Oh sure, it might get somewhat above freezing Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, but certainly no 50s and 60s like we had.

And, it will cool off further as we head into the New Year. The ski resorts in the North Country  have snow now, and t's cold enough for them to make snow. Plus  there will be bouts of light but accumulating snow frequently in the northern New England and northern New York mountains, certainly into the first few days of 2016.

True, no deep powder days yet, but at least you have something to play with.

Told ya the skiers and riders would eventually get their chance to have fun.