The Way To Run Winter: Mountain Snow, But Not Much In Valleys

Jay Peak, in far northern Vermont, typically does well with
the weather pattern Vermont is in, and this weekend is no
exception. This photo taken at the resort Saturday, came
after a foot of new snow in the previous 24 hours.
It was still snowing up there Sundayy 

The past couple of days has been my kind of winter weather in Vermont: Not much snow in the valleys to get in the way, but some decent accumulations up in the ski areas.

It hasn't been cold, either, which is a bonus.

As always, changes are coming, but for at least the next couple of days, we'll continue with the light stuff in the valleys, and the somewhat heavier snows in the mountains.

We will finally go back to a long interrupted, true winter

Today is the fourteenth consecutive day that the temperature has gotten above freezing in Burlington, Vermont. That's an incredibly long streak for January. Especially since on seven of those days, the low temperature never got below freezing, either.

We might be in the running for one of the top 10 warmest Januaries on record.

However, the shift back toward winter has already started, as progressively colder and colder air is filtering in.

The first salvo in this process was a strong upper level disturbance that went through Friday evening interacted with quite a bit of moisture over northern Vermont to really dump some surprising amounts of snow in parts of the north and mountains. 

Westfield, Vermont picked up 11 inches of new snow and Eden Mills clocked in with 10 inches. Many of the northern Vermont ski areas picked up six or more inches of snow.

Another disturbance is coming through today. It doesn't have as much moisture to work with as Friday night's system, but expect snow showers this Sunday afternoon, again especially across the north and mountains.

The snow showers, when they come through, could be briefly heavy anywhere in Vermont, so watch out for possible slick roads and briefly low visibility.

Expect just a dusting to a couple inches in the valleys with more than that in the valleys.

Then it's into a couple days of normal midwinter weather -- highs in the 20s, lows around 10.

A small weather system Tuesday might drop a dusting to a couple inches of snow, then, for the first time in a month, really, we'll actually get into some colder than normal weather for awhile.

Oh, don't worry, you hardy Vermonters, it won't be anything extreme. Just highs in the teens and lows a few degrees either side of zero toward the second half of this week and next weekend.

You can handle it.