Amazingly Intense Early Winter Blast Keeps Engulfing Eastern U.S.

Santa enjoys an unprecedented November snow at the Alamo in
Texas. Photo by Eric Gay/AP

This winter blast affected the eastern two thirds of the United States is turning out to be one for the record books.

We here in Vermont are engulfed in this remarkable cold and snowy regime, too, and that will last well into next week.

Some of the weather in parts of the nation have been truly amazing. Houston, Texas had its earliest trace of snow on record on Tuesday, beating the previous mark set on November 23, 1979.

It snowed in southeastern Texas this year earlier than it has snowed in Boston, which hasn't had a flake of snow yet. (It's coming to Boston soon, though.)

Amid snow flurries, Shreveport, Louisiana only had a high temperature of 40 degrees Tuesday. The normal high would have been 69 degrees. Measureable snow hit Pine Bluff, Arkansas this morning for only the fourth time it has snowed there in November since records began in 1890.

Yesterday's snow was all about elevation near the Champlain Valley. Very
scant snow cover at my St. Albans, Vermont house at about
600 foot elevation. See comparison pic below.

Freeze warnings were in effect this morning all the way down to Brownsville at the southern tip of Texas.

If anything, the weather is about to turn worse in the South, and up here in the Northeast, too.

A deep dip in the jet stream is generating a new, wet storm in the Southeast. With plenty of unseasonable cold air to work with. Winter weather advisories were in effect this morning as far south as Louisiana, where snow and sleet were falling.

A winter storm warning is up for tonight for areas as far south as southern Illinois and southeastern Missouri, where five to seven inches of snow is in the forecast.

The storm will continue to organize later today and tonight and then move up the East Coast. As it does so, temperatures will become a little closer to normal in the Southeast, but the winter siege will continue further north in the Great Lakes and the Northeast for many days to come.

Just up the hill from my house in St. Albans at about 850 foot elevation,
just roughly 250 feet higher than my place, it was a winter
wonderland Tuesday afternoon. 

Winter storm watches from this storm already extend as far north as Pennsylvania, where snow and quite a bit of ice will likely come from this storm Thursday into early Friday.

I'm sure we here in Vermont will soon see either winter weather advisories or winter storm watches soon, as the cold storm is likely to affect all of us.

But first, it's damn cold out there.  High temperatures this time of year in Vermont are usually in the mid-40s.

Today it will only get into the mid-20s, with wind chills in the single digits. That's not even a particularly nice day by January standards, never mind November.

Yesterday's snowstorm didn't leave much accumulation in the Champlain Valley but there is quite a bit in central and northern Vermont a little inland from Lake Champlain.

Many areas received two to eight inches of snow. Lyndon Center reported 9.6 inches. Morgan received 9.5 inches and Rochester 9 inches. North Danville got 8.5 inches and Island Pond clocked in with 7.8 inches.  

Snow on the ground, clearing skies and oddly Arctic air in place tonight means some areas of Vermont and surrounding areas will get shockingly cold.

Most of the northern half of Vermont away from Lake Champlain will get into the single digits tonight, and I'm sure we'll get quite a few reports of subzero readings. This is record cold, for sure.

Even in the relatively snow-free Champlain Valley, record lows tonight are possibility. In Burlington, the record low tomorrow morning is 9 degrees. The forecast low is 11.

Then that storm comes up from the south by Thursday night and Friday. This won't be a blockbuster, but still a decent plowable snow for pretty much all of us. Even in the "tropical" Champlain Valley, which didn't get much Tuesday.

There's still quite a bit of uncertain on the moisture profiles with the upcoming storm. Will any warm air will move in aloft to change snow to mixed precipitation? Will dry air entraining into the storm affect how much snow or other precipitation falls?

But for now, the early guess is we'll all get a good three to seven inches of snow out of this. Plan on a lousy Friday morning commute, I can tell you that.

After a "reprieve" on Saturday, when temperatures could get to 40 degrees or so, it's back in the ice box after that. It's possible another round of record cold temperatures - even worse than tonight - could come in by Tuesday.

One computer model has high temperatures -- highs!!! --- only in the single numbers. Which is awful by mid-winter standards. We'll see how that works out, but gosh, this is intense.

This November cold doesn't really tell us whether we're going to have a particularly harsh winter or not. I hope we're not establishing a trend, though.   If it's this wintery in November, imagine how brutal January would be under this weather pattern.

But weather patterns change. Don't abandon your Vermont house and move to Tahiti just yet.