Possible Wet Late Week Storm Threatens White Christmas

This forecasted large storm on Friday and Saturday might
prevent much of New England from having a white Christmas.

It finally warmed up in northern New England, and many valley locations suddenly find themselves with very little snow on the ground. It's just nine days before Christmas.

For many of us here in Vermont, it's beginning to look a lot like another brown Christmas.

We've had quite a few of them in recent years. Although last Christmas I admit we had a nice covering of powdery holiday snow.

But this year could follow a recent trend of sometimes white Thanksgivings and even Easters with brown Christmases sandwiched in between.

There is some hope for a little fresh snow between tonight and Tuesday morning. Periods of snow should bring one to four inches of snow to most of us, with a half foot or more of additional accumulations in the higher elevations.

It'll be cold enough to maintain that snow until about Thursday night. Things could change, but right now it looks like a large, wet storm will move northward through the eastern third of the United States Friday and Saturday.

If things play out as expected, the storm would bring another round of heavy rain to the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic States. These areas are having a record wet year and December. They don't need additional flooding, but they might get it.

Photo taken on Christmas Day last year in West Rutland, Vermont. Last
year was surely a white Christmas.

Unlike the storm that is moving off coast today that will give us Vermonters only light precipitation, the Friday storm looks like it will bring a good slug of rain through the North Country Friday and Saturday. Not good for the ski areas, which had a great start to the season.

It also calls into question whether we'll have a white Christmas. I don't mean to say that's so important. It's certainly not the be all and end all. But people tend to like snowy Christmases.

I imagine colder air will filter in behind next weekend's storm on Sunday, December 23 and Monday, Christmas Eve, so we still have a shot of a white Christmas. The back sides of this type of storm tend to bring snow showers especially up in the mountains.

So we'll see.