What A Messy Storm In The Middle Of The Country!

A large area of the central U.S., in pink, is under a winter storm
warming. Blue areas are mostly under winter weather advisories.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

The weather here in Vermont was certainly a nice holiday gift. Most places around the Green Mountain State had at least a little fluffy snow on the ground. The sky was blue, the sun shone brightly, the air was crisp and seemed to sparkle it was so clean.

Now it's back to reality, folks. In Vermont, it has tended to cloud up since yesterday, but there's no really bad weather to talk about until Thursday night. I'll get to that in a minute

First, as advertised, there's a sprawling storm developing in the middle of the country that is causing a  wide variety of havoc for people. Especially those traveling back home from holiday gatherings.

A vast area from eastern Colorado to Minnesota is under a winter storm warning. Near blizzard conditions are likely in many of these areas, especially tonight and tomorrow. A  foot of snow could come down in many these areas, and winds will easily top 40 mph in gusts.

It looks a stripe from central South Dakota, into southeastern North Dakota and parts of western Minnesota will get the heaviest snow, with up to 18 inches possible.

Along the eastern edge of this snowstorm, sleet and freezing rain will make travel especially scary, and might cut power in a few areas.

On the south side of the storm, severe storms, possible tornadoes and maybe some flooding are risks today and tomorrow.

The focus today is on Texas, where the storm threat is highest. The biggest tornado threat later today and this evening is probably in central Texas in an area centered around Waco.  Overnight, into tomorrow, there is a slightly lesser, but still real chance of tornadoes heading into east Texas and Lousiana.

The Southeast is quite sodden from recent storms, and this particular system will spread heavy rains throughout that region over the next couple of days. It actually looks like weather fronts and moisture will stall over the Gulf Coast region into next Monday, continuing the flood threat at least until then.

VERMONT IMPACTS

That huge storm system will certainly affect us here in Vermont. It will sort of be a rinse and repeat of last Friday, with some differences. Those differences mainly involve more mixed precipitation than last time at the onset, and somewhat less rain than we got a week earlier. That means flooding won't be as big a problem as it was last weekend.

Snow, sleet, freezing rain and in many places rather strong, gusty winds will develop in Vermont Thursday night and continue into Friday morning. I'm guessing the Friday morning commute will be pretty darn tricky. That's especially true along and east of the Green Mountains, where it will take longer to warm up.

Some areas might pick up an inch or two of snow and sleet before things go over to rain.

Friday looks wet, and the precipitation will wind down at night into the form of rain showers changing to snow showers. No big accumulations are expected from that.