NAO on its way down and we hope for results sooner as opposed to later

Some help does arrive Wednesday in the form of a classic Alberta Clipper which will dive southeast into interior New England. Clouds from the system arrive Tuesday night and snow should begin to fall just before dawn Wednesday. This system is limited in its supply of moisture but we will do our best at MRG with an inch or so by first tracks time an an additional few inches during the ski day. I might add that we will get some help Wednesday by TIS and will thus allow accumulations in the mountains to be higher than the dusting to an inch that is likely to fall in Burlington.

Questions remain for the weekend
We will see a gradual erosion of the cold air as we progress into the late part of the week. The trend toward milder temperatures will precede the approach of a more significant storm system. The events surrounding the storm will get kicked off with a bit of wet snow on Friday which may turn to some rain early Saturday. At this point however we hope the NAO begins to intercede on our behalf. A negative NAO can act as an effective mechanism for deflecting systems to the New England coast and thus allowing the would-be rain event to become snow. Since most of the cold air associated with the weekend system sits behind the storm in the Midwest we will have to hope that the storm pulls the cold into Vermont while the system intensifies as it interacts with the Atlantic Coast. This would result in a change to snow on Saturday and some accumulations both during the day and at night. Models have been hinting at such an occurrence sporadically but have yet to provide any definitive answers. Lets just say this could go either way.

Another system, another chance - the active weather continues
A repeat performance appears to be the setup for the middle part of next week and let me just say there is no rest for the weary on the SCWB. Very incredible the active weather which has prevailed which includes one system after another and all with varying impacts on the mountain. That is the best excuse I have for some of the wrong turns I have made in the forecasting game. In the case of next week, there remains much in the way of potential but with most of the cold air to the west of the system we will need a track close to or off the coast. I put a lot of faith in the NAO in terms of its ability to scratch out a few victories for us and it will have another chance to do just that during the middle of next week.