Tuesday Evening Update: "Almost" Full Fledged Winter Storm Coming To Vermont

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington has this
snowfall prediction through Thursday evening in the North Country.
Areas in yellow and orange can expect at least six
inches of snow. 

There was a break of sorts in the weather this afternoon here in Vermont. The wind died down, and almost all the precipitation ended. Many areas west of the Green Mountains had temperatures poking just above freezing. It remained overcast and dark, but oh well.

I hope you enjoyed it, because, as I noted this morning, the weather is going to get challenging, starting tonight.

We talked this morning that the weather systems coming in from the west are pretty dynamic. Nothing demonstrated that more that an EF-1 tornado, packing winds of up to 100 mph, that touched down in Cortland, Ohio.

That's incredibly far north for a tornado this time of year. A tornado warning went up for awhile in western Pennsylvania, and hail up to an inch in diameter was reported. (Video of this is at the bottom of this post.)

Rest assured we are not going to see any kind of severe thunderstorms in Vermont. It's just going to be a return to wintry weather.

I'd plan on heading out to work or school much earlier than usual tomorrow morning. This evening, a mix of rain and snow and freezing rain and sleet is going to move in. From the Green Mountains eastward, this looks like it will be almost exclusively frozen precipitation, so up to a tenth of an inch of ice will accumulate on everything outdoors.

Needless to say, roads will be quite nasty and dangerous tonight in those areas. Those roads will stay pretty much lousy all day Wednesday.

As a storm passes by just to our south tomorrow morning, mixed precipitation will change to snow area wide. It'll snow all day, and accumulations look to be even a little more substantial than I was thinking this morning.

A very rare January tornado in Ohio today. 

Snow and snow showers will keep going through the day Thursday all though they will be slowly tapering off in the valleys Thursday.

Generally speaking, this how forecasters, at the moment anyway, are thinking total accumulations will amount to by Thursday evening.  

Connecticut River Valley from about White River Junction South: 1-3 inches

Low elevations of southwestern Vermont, the Champlain Valley from about Burlington south, and the Northeast Kingdom close to the Connecticut River: 2-6 inches.

Central and northern Vermont, the northern  Champlain Valley, and the Northeast Kingdom: 4-8 inches.

Western slopes and summits of the Green Mountains, the Andirondacks, higher elevations of the Northeast Kingdom: 6-12 inches, with possible spot reports of more than that.

Temperatures will fall all day Wednesday, and keep getting colder and colder Wednesday night and Thursday.

Friday and Saturday still look like they will be bitterly cold, with highs in the single numbers and lows well below zero. Welcome to January, folks!

Here's the Ohio tornado in action today. Note: strong language. But I love how the guys keep calling the tornado "a nader."