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| Looking out my window past a Christmaswreath at a wintry scene in my St. Albans, Vermont back yard as snow showers blew through this morning. |
There's always a price to pay, though, and we started paying it last night and will continue to pay over the next few days. At least many of us will.
An Arctic cold front is approaching us, and there's a complicated series of disturbances in the atmosphere out ahead of the cold front. These little ripples in the local weather pattern are causing air to lift, and that means precipitation.
These disturbances are also grabbing moisture from the Great Lakes and spitting it out much further from the Great Lakes shores than usual. Namely here in Vermont. And especially northern New York.
The first bit of snow from this set us surprised us in the Champlain Valley overnight with about an inch or so of snow. The air flow will vary slightly in direction from time to time during the day today but be mainly from the west and southwest. That means the spray of lake effect snow from Lake Ontario will move northward and southward occasionally over the northern half of Vermont.
Just be prepared through the day and into the evening for periods of snow and snow showers, with perhaps a snow squall or two thrown in here and there. Road conditions will deteriorate at times, and will change rapidly, so be ready for that.
Snowfall accumulation will be really variable. Southern Vermont valleys shouldn't expect much of anything. Expect maybe a dusting to two inches of additional snow in the Champlain Valley, especially from Burlington north. Some local areas in the Champlain Valley could get up to three or four inches if they get caught in persistent snow showers.
Go into the western slopes of the Green Mountains and things change big time. It'll be a good three to six inches in most areas on the western slopes from Mount Abraham north, says the National Weather Service in South Burlington. A few mountain peaks could go nuts with amounts closing in on 10 or more inches by Friday. (Read: Jay Peak on that one.)
It will get very cold Friday and Saturday with temperatures falling through the 20s and into the teens by later Friday afternoon, the flirting with zero Saturday night. Highs will struggle to reach 20 on Saturday, and a weak system will touch off some snow showers Saturday night.
After that, it looks dry and somewhat chilly Sunday through Wednesday. Bottom line is our weather woes over the next few days will pale compared to that coast-to-coast storm coming up
BAD STORM SOUTHWEST TO SOUTHEAST US
A storm that's going to cause a lot of problems through Sunday is gathering steam now in southern California. It's tracks is going to stay suppressed to the south, so areas from northern Texas to the North Carolina are in for a real wild ride.
Snow accumulations in a zone from Texas to Virginia are still a little uncertain, but it will be substantial for points that far south this time of year. It looks like it could get especially gnarly in western North Carolina on Sunday, where some locations have the potential for a couple feet of snow.
Winter storm watches are already up for a zone extending from eastern New Mexico to northern Arkansas mostly for Friday and Saturday. Upgrades to warnings are likely and I'm pretty winter weather alerts will soon extend to the Carolinas.
This is going to be one of those storms with a lot of potential for lots of freezing rain and sleet. Projections call for the potential for damaging ice in a band from northern Texas to southwestern Virginia over the next few days.
On top of all this mess, flooding is possible with this storm's heavy rain in central, southern and eastern Texas.
I'm sure you will be hearing a lot about this storm in the news over the next few days.
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