Rinse And Repeat: Third Nor'Easter To Hit New England After All

This is just one forecast model of what the next
 nor'easter might look like on Tuesday. This one
depicts near blizzard conditions over southeastern
New England. Results may vary, however. The storm's
impacts might be less, or at least different, depending
on where it actually tracks. 

For days, meteorologists and computer forecasting models have been going back and forth on whether the third nor'easter in 10 days would hit New England.

As of Sunday morning, a consensus has arisen: The answer is yes, another nor'easter looms.

There's still a lot of picky details to work out on exactly how big the effects of this new storm will be, and where the worst of it will strike.

As of this morning, winter storm watches covered all of New Hampshire, the southwestern half of Maine, much of eastern Massachusetts, and a little bit of Connecticut and Rhode Island.  I imagine watches, warnings or advisories might expand a bit over the region.

Meanwhile, as the storm begins to gather, there' is a winter storm warning for Monday in parts of western Virginia, a little bit of West Virginia and the western mountains of North Carolina. That's a little far south for a winter storm warning for this time of year. Not unprecedented, but still definitely unusual.

At this point, the thinking is the storm will consolidate and head east northeast off the North Carolina coast on Monday. The original hope is the storm would continue on that general track and pass too far off the New England coast to have a huge effect.

Now it's looking more and more like an upper level storm over or near southeastern Canada will "capture" this nor'easter and draw it in more of a due north direction off the coast of Cape Cod and on toward the eastern tip of Maine Tuesday.

Just how far offshore this storm will be as it moves due north will determine how badly it impacts New England. (This track does seem to mean that unlike the last two nor'easters, New Jersey and southeastern New York won't be affected too terribly bad.)

In New England, it's looking like the track might favor heavy snow in the eastern half of the region Monday night and Tuesday. I'll get into specific Vermont effects in a minute but we will get some snow out of this in the Green Mountain State.

The snow will once again be heavy and wet, and this nor'easter, like most, will have quite a bit of wind with it. There's been so much tree and power line damage in eastern New England from the last two nor'easters, and this wet snow/wind combination will just make things worse. It's a wonder there will be trees left in that region.

VERMONT EFFECTS

Even as we contemplate the next nor'easter coming along on or about Tuesday, we're still feeling the effects of the last one here in Vermont - the one that began last Wednesday.

As expected, one last round of snow came through mostly northern Vermont last night as the old nor'easter spun down over southeastern Canada. The heaviest snow overnight came, as predicted, along the western slopes and spine of the the Green Mountains, and in the Northeast Kingdom.

A lot of places reported three to six inches of new snow overnight. Some big jackpot winners with the Saturday night/Sunday morning snow include 11 inches in Morgan, Vermont, and eight inches in both Underhill and Smuggler's Notch, Vermont.

This latest round of snow was finally tapering off as of mid-morning Sunday, and things will be pretty quiet in the weather department until late Monday night and Tuesday.

Again, how much snow Vermont gets will depend upon how close to the coast it gets. As noted, winter storm watches extend as far west right now as the New Hampshire/Vermont border.

A storm track closer to the coast will envelop all of Vermont in relatively heavy snow on Tuesday. A track a little further offshore will put mostly eastern Vermont in the snow zone, at least initially.

Much like the last storm, this new nor'easter looks like it will want to stall or slow down somewhere near the northern tip of Maine or the Canadian Maritimes. This would put northern Vermont in an extended period of snow Tuesday night through Thursday.

That's a repeat of what's happened in the past few days. The biggest accumulations under this scenario would be in the mountains. (Valleys would be a little warmer, so the strengthening March sun would tamp down on snow accumulations, and melt a little bit of the snow during the afternoons.)

There's still a lot of questions about how exactly this storm will pan out, so expect some possibly big adjustments in the forecast between now and Tuesday morning. Nor'easters are notoriously hard to forecast, especially in March, when temperatures are more marginal.

Just expect things to stay relatively wintry for the next several days at least.