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| Here's our now very famililar storm prediction map from the National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont. For the storm Tuesday and Wednesday, the most snow would be north and west, where you see the darker orange coloring. There, a foot could easily accumulate by Wednesday. |
The trouble starts Tuesday afternoon and lasts into Wednesday morning. At this point, it looks like it will be mostly snow, but sleet and/or freezing rain could work in, especially south.
Plus, this is one of those weird storms that could create more sleet and freezing rain than expected, even north. I'll touch on that in a bit.
The storm in question will start out as another one that heads by to our west, like many have done so far this winter.
A storm going by to our west usually means snow changing to ice, then rain. But there are major differences with this storm that looks like it will steer things more to the snow category.
The intitial storm heading toward the eastern Great Lakes Tuesday will start us off with a big surge of moisture coming from the south. Meanwhile, there will be a cold high pressure area over Quebec. The surge of moisture will hit that cold air, glide over it and give us a good thump of snow Tuesday afternoon and evening.
Which means you should plan ahead. Like last Wednesday, the timing of the onset looks awful for Vermont's Tuesday evening commute. At least this will be snow, which isn't as bad as the freezing rain we had the last time.
As this main storm starts going by to our west, a new storm will develop somewhere along the New Jersey shore and head into coastal New England. This would shut off the northward push of warm air and keep at least northern Vermont all snow.
Southern and to a lesser extent central Vermont would get a period of freezing rain and sleet under this scenario, but there would be a fair amount of snow, too.
Current forecasts call for roughly a foot of new snow in central and northern Vermont and northern New York. It would be closer to eight or ten inches further south because of the possible sleet. As always, these forecasts are subject to change.
Actually, this is where I get nervous, though, because a big question mark is how early and how fast the coastal storm starts to take over. If it comes into being a little faster and stronger than currently forecast, even southern Vermont would stay mostly snow.
However, I have seen on a number of occasions in this type of scenario that the coastal low gets going more sluggishly than forecast. If that were the case, freezing rain and sleet could make it all the way to the Canadian border Tuesday night.
Right now, it does look like things will move fast enough to keep the north mostly or exclusively snow, but I want to put that ice risk out there because it could happen. As noted, there will be adjustments to the forecast.
The bulk of the storm will come through Tuesday night and taper off during the day Thursday. This will be a fairly warm storm, unlike that subzero snowstorm we had in mid-January. Temperatures will stay up in the 20s Tuesday night during the heaviest snow, and pop into the low 30s Wednesday.
That means when they're trying to clear the roads Wednesday, salt will be a help.
By the way, a lot of freezing rain and sleet will set up somewhere with this storm. At this point, a widespread area of ice looks to form with this storm. It'll start in Illinois and Michigan Tuesday, and spread across Pennsylvania, central and southern New York, parts of New Jersey and a lot of southern New England by Tuesday night.
Some areas could get enough freezing rain to down trees and power lines. The ice will certainly create a widespread area of nearly impossible driving conditions, plus a ton of flight delays. Keep this in mind if you have travel plans this week
Yet another messy storm looks to be in the cards Friday and Saturday. That one at this point looks more like an ice and rain type thing for us Vermonters, but there's time for the forecast to change.
We'll take one storm at a time and deal with the Friday and Saturday thing later.
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