Messy Weather For Vermont, Northeast New Year's Eve

Slick roads in Burlington, Vermont last winter. Road conditions
look like they will be icy again this New Year's Eve in
Vermont, so factor that into your plans. 

Jeff and I usually stay home New Year's Eve. We get a bottle of Champagne, have a nice dinner, and watch the festivities on TV.

It's amateur night out there, and we don't want to get caught up in the crowds, the cold weather, the drunk driving, the can-we-stay-awake-as-we-drive home moments.

This year, we have an extra reason to stay home. The weather is going to be messy, to say the least, New Year's Eve.

Another wet, mixed precipitation storm is on its way, just in time for New Year's celebrations.

Forecasting exactly what will come out of the sky with this storm is even trickier than the last couple of storms. Temperatures will be marginal, and there will be complex layers of warm and cold air in the atmosphere above us. These layers will be rapidly changing and moving, which adds drama and challenge to the forecast.

The current thinking is this will start as a burst of wet snow tomorrow evening, and then go over to a mix pretty quickly. There's a chance the warm air aloft won't really get into the northeastern third of Vermont. If that happens, they'll get mostly snow, perhaps three to six inches of it.

The southern and central Champlain Valley might, might get lucky and have a brief period of mixed precipitation before things go over to rain. Of course, as usual, the ground will be cold, so even if the temperature sneaks a bit above freezing, rain could still freeze on impact.

Most of the rest of the North Country can expect any type of mixed precipitation during New Year's Eve.

The amount of ice and snow we'll get won't be enough to cut power to us. But it will slicken up the roads, for sure. Combined with the usual tired and drunk drivers we usually encounter on New Year's Eve, you can see why we'd want to stay in.

The precipitation dwindles down on New Year's Day, and it will get cold again that night.

The overall weather pattern over North America is fast moving, complex and rapidly changing, so for now, don't rely on forecasts past a two or three days at the most. It's too weird and fast to keep track of, and forecasters really don't have a good handle on what will happen a few days out.

Just expect surprises, I guess.