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| Here's that familar National Weather Service so forecast map. The upcoming storm could dump up to a foot of snow across the north. More or a mixed precipitation event s foreast further south in Vermont. |
Yet another messy storm is on its way, and if forecasts hold, it will arguably be one of the largest if not the largest winter storm of the season.
It's another one of those storms that has a lot of question marks regarding the intensity and type of precipitation. Yeah, I'm sick of that scenario, too.
The storm is also going to last a long time, too, starting early Thursday and going on into Friday evening.
Given the questions with this storm, expect a few surprises, as usual, but I'll at least get into the broadbrush outlook for this thing in Vermont in a moment.
WIDESPREAD BAD WEATHER
This is another one of those storms that cause a variety of bad, sometimes dangerous weather across large parts of the United States.
As of Wednesday morning, a roughly 2,700-mile long (very long!) stripe of winter storm warnings, watches and advisories extended from western Texas all the way to Maine. That of course includes Vermont.
South of the storm, severe thunderstorms and maybe some tornadoes should hit the Gulf Coast states today and the Southeast on Thursday. In the southern Appalachians and parts of the Southeast, up to five inches of rain could come down with this storm, so flooding is an obvious concern there.
VERMONT IMPACTS
That flooding concern in the Southeast is a hint that this storm could bring lots of precipitation to at least parts of Vermont. The storm has a lot of moisture to play with, and it seems poised to dump a good portion of it on the state. It's a complicated forecast, so there's bust potential. Anything other than locusts could come out of the sky with this one.
But here's how the National Weather Service in South Burlington and other meteorologists currently think this will play out.
It'll come through in waves, with the first one passing quickly through Vermont before and during the Thursday morning commute. So plan on taking extra time on your trip to work. It will be the first of several problematic commutes. It'll snow hard for awhile, but it won't last long, which will leave us with maybe two to four inches of powder.
Which will quickly be covered up with a bit of freezing drizzle. Not much, mind you, but enough to be bothersome. It'll just be patches of that drizzle, or light freezing rain here and there for most of Thursday afternoon and night. The roads won't be perfect Thursday afternoon and evening, but at least it won't be too cold, so the salt should work on the main routes.
Friday, we get into the bigger Round Two. By then, a strong storm will move northeastward along or near the New England coast. Meanwhile, cold air will be trying to push in from the northwest. When you get a situation like that, you often get a band of very heavy snow or some type of precipitation somewhere along the northwestern side of the storm.
Part of Vermont could well be in that zone, so there's a good chance that someplace in the Green Mountain State could be in that band of very heavy snow for a few hours on Friday.
It's very hard to predict exactly where that relatively narrow band of heavy snow will set up, and how hard the snow will fall.
In any event, any mixed precipitation will change to snow from northwest to southeast Friday morning and early afternoon. It looks like many places across northern Vermont could get a good foot of snow out of this. A winter storm watch is up for northern Vermont for this reason.
The further south and east you go, the less snow accumulation you'll get because of the longer period of mixed precipitation or even plain rain before the changeover to snow. A winter weather advisory is in effect in the southern half of Vermont, at least for now. There's a chance that that advisory could be updated to a winter storm warning, if things begin to look even worse down there than currently forecast.
I worry that it might. There could be a period of heavy sleet or freezing rain before the changeover i parts of southern and eastern Vermont. It remains to be seen, of course.
Needless to say, both the Friday morning and afternoon commute will be crappy to say the least.
As always, this tricky forecast is subject to change. More mixed precipitation could work its way into northern Vermont than expected. Or the opposite could happen, with more snow and less mix in the south than we now anticipate.
Also, as usual, the tail end of the storm is easiest to forecast. Snow will retreat to the moutains and western slopes of the Greens Friday night. The wind will pick up, so blowing snow will be a problem. And temperatures will crash with a brief shot of Arctic air behind the storm.
Saturday will see clearing and cold weather. Then, starting Sundaty, it's back to the cloudy, mild weather pattern we've been in lately.
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