Nor'easter Snowstorm Unexpectedly Crushes Vermont With Snow

It doesn't look like I'm going to go outside and enjoy
my back deck at my St. Albans, Vermont house anytime
soon as the snow continues to pile up.

Especially for a nor'easter that a few days ago was expected to give Vermont a glancing blow at worst, we got crushed with snow

As of 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, it was still snowing and some parts of central Vemont were already closing in on two feet of new snow. East Barre reported 24.9 inches of snow, Wolcott has 21 inches new and several places are at around a foot and a half.

Even the Champlain Valley, which was only expecting a few inches, will probably go over a foot by the time this is over.

Here in St. Albans, where I live, the storm total was 9.5 inches by 8 a.m. this morning, and it was still snowing steadily. Burlington has clocked in with ten inches of fresh snow.

Totals are impressive in southeastern New England, too, but that was more expected. Even so, the storm overperformed there as well. In Massachusetts, Uxbridge received 27.8 inches; Milford got 26.6 inches, and Billerica received 25.6 inches. North Foster, Rhode Island received 25.1 inches.

Maine and New Hampshire got slammed, too. Danville, New Hampshire reported 27 inches, Rochester and Wyndham, New Hampshire reported 25.5 inches ,and in Maine, 23.5 inches came down in West Newfield and Limerick.

It's not over yet. In southern New England, the problem will be heavy local snow squalls that will bring another very quick one to three inches in some spots, and cause the kinds of sudden whiteouts that lead to highway pileups.

Here in Vermont, we've got quite a bit more snow to get through yet. It will snow all day and tonight in most areas.  Expect at least another three to six inches of snow by tomorrow morning, and weather advisories have been upgraded to a winter storm warning in western Vermont today and tonight.

I imagine quite a few places will get more than six inches of fresh powder between now and this time Thursday morning. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a foot of additional accumulation in parts of the Green Mountains and Adirondacks.  

Just know that roads are bad. You can also expect some scattered power outages due to snow loading on trees.

And in those western slopes and mountain summits, the snow will continue on Thursday.

So yeah, this is unexpectedly epic.

It gets worse in the fact that it's going to get colder, and we're going to get back to normal January conditions by the weekend. That means daytime high temperatures staying in the 20s when normal highs this time of year are around 40 degrees. Nighttime temperatures will be in the upper single number and teens.

All this means the snow isn't going to go anywhere for quite awhile.

More "good" news: It's possible another nor'easter could affect us toward the middle of next week. This is by no means a certainty. It could still easily miss. But we said that about the storm we're getting now. Bottom line: No guarantees, either way.

This is shaping up to be similar to last year. By March 1 of both 2017 and 2018 most of the snow in Vermont had disappeared after record warm temperatures in February. Then in March, heavy snows arrived.

It will be interesting later this week when the National Weather Service office in South Burlington comes out with its latest spring flood outlook.

The last one, issued two weeks ago forecasted a normal to below normal risk of spring flooding. Soil moistures were high, but snow cover was well below normal. If there's not much snow to melt, the risk of flooding is low.

Now, there's a lot of snow. Especially in the mountains The snow depth and water content of the snow in the mountains at this point isn't setting any record highs, but it has increased substantially.  (The snow depth at the summit of Mount Mansfield went from 47 inches on March 1 to 76 inches this morning.)

The far southern Green Mountains and the Berkshires have especially heavy snow depths and water content in the snow.

Last year, spring flooding in and around Vermont turned out to be scattered and minor when the snow finally melted. This year, who knows? If there are a lot of warm rain storms in late March or April, we could have problems. If things melt pretty gradually, no worries.

But we'll worry about that later. Right now, it's snow, snow, snow. Careful on the roads today, tonight and tomorrow. And keep watching that snow pile up.