California Dreaming? Small Storm Producing An Indoor Kinda Day In Vermont

Mid-February "Dog  Days" as I call them.  A winter's accumulation of snow
on the ground this morning on my St. Albans, Vermont yard, with more
snow blowingaround.  It hasn't been an especially cold winter, but it has
been rich in snow, ice and rain.  Typically, mid-February is when
I start really pining for spring. 

This isn't exactly the Storm of the Century on this February Tuesday in Vermont, but it still makes you want to stay inside and curl up with a good book.

As of 9 a.m., that little burst of snow has come into Vermont, and it will probably snow the rest of the morning.

Not a biggie - we'll end up with one to three inches of hard to measure accumulation by the time it tapers off and/or switches to drizzle or patchy freezing drizzle this afternoon. Some areas in the mountains could pick up a bit more than three inches of new snow.

I said the snow will be hard to measure because the wind is picking up, too. That's blowing the snow around in many areas and will continue to do so. That is at least until temperatures go slightly above freezing west of the Green Mountains this afternoon, making the snow a little soggier and harder to blow around.

I'm not  quite as concerned about the wind as I was yesterday, but it still will be a factor for sure. There's a wind advisory over the Champlain Islands and northern New York.  Winds in the northern Champlain Valley will probably gust to near or a little over 50 mph this afternoon. Elsewhere winds might go over 40 mph, especially west of the Greens.

That's enough to take down a few branches and power lines here and there, even in the Champlain Islands, which are used to strong winter winds.  Yesterday, I was wondering about the risk of strong, damaging downslope winds along the west slopes of the Green Mountains.  Winds will definitely be gusty there today, but not as bad as some of the epic wind storms that sometimes strike those areas of Vermont.

There will probably be areas of drizzle, freezing drizzle and snow flurries into this evening, but it wo't amount to much.  Northern areas might see a few snow showers or isolated snow squalls Wednesday as a second cold front comes through.

Then we have yet another one to two day cold shot before it warms up again. Rinse and repeat.

The cold, windy, snow, grey day for me inspires me to post this video, too: