Wednesday, February 24, 2010

1-foot down hopefully a few more to come

and another one is imminent Wednesday as moisture continues to stream up from the open waters of the Atlantic. Snow which is falling with some serious intensity as of Wednesday morning will continue throughout the ski day. All this snow results from the so called "appetizer" or a relatively weak area of low pressure and its energy is expected to get swallowed by a much stronger system Thursday. Sometimes however the "appetizer" is the best part of a meal and the snow Wednesday combined with the relative lack of strong winds could make it the best powder day of the week.

I am happy to report that the alterations to the forecast are relatively small. The calm between the two storms is moved to Wednesday night as opposed to Wednesday during the day. Snow will then re-commence Thursday morning and then become heavy during the morning hours. The low level push of warm air that is expected to rotate northwestward from the open waters of the Atlantic all the way to the mountains of Vermont is still expected to arrive during the day. The advantage of elevation will prove very critical and warmth at the surface should be shallow enough to minimize the impact of rain above 1500 feet. In fact, the consensus of data suggests very little rain at these elevations even though low lying ares are likely to get wet Thursday evening and Thursday night. Winds will increase and become pretty ferocious later Thursday and will generally come from the east.

Model data suggests that drier air will work to lessen the intensity of precipitation Thursday night. As this is happening temperatures will begin to cool a few degrees and allow any precipitation which is falling (even in low-lying areas) to turn back to snow. The colder weather will move right up the Connecticut River Valley, certainly an unlikely source but its taking the scenic route by moving into the Mid-Atlantic states first before moving north into interior New England. By this time, the storm, which will have already "bombed" and done a loop around the New York City area, will gradually weaken. Areas of moisture will remain however and should continue impacting MRG even after a Thursday night or early Friday lull. Snow will continue at either a light to moderate intensity through much fo the later part of the day Friday into Friday night and on Saturday.

An updated breakdown of accumulations are as follows.

Wednesday: An additional foot of snow on top of the foot which has already fallen

Wednesday night: Light snow and a minimal accumulation

Thursday: Heavy snow during the morning. Snow will turn wet and may go to rain in some low lying area but should continue across much of MRG. 10-15 inches is possible.

Friday: Light and some occasionally moderate snow with 3-5 more inches

Saturday: Light and some occasionally moderate snow and another 4-8 inches

Sunday: More snow and more accumulation

11 comments:

Unknown said...

what is going on with the forecasts out of NWS BTV??? as of this morning they have practically no snow for thursday???
they didn't put up a WSW until yesterday afternoon.

Joshua Fox said...

Howie thats what keeps the SCWB in business. Not to knock those guys at the NWS because they do fine work but the blog is designed to get the information out about weather in the high country and snow in the high country and this can differ from a forecast that is intended for viewers in low lying areas.

Tucker Goodrich said...

FINALLY! :)

So I'm guessing February will wind up with an average snowfall for the month? Yeesh. Ullr has a pretty good sense of humor.

The Package said...

what about the wind, josh?

after becoming ferocious thursday night - will it die down at all? or will this take a few days?

siked!

Joshua Fox said...

Should diminish Friday

Unknown said...

Josh-understood, but given that they completely blew this event. Granted, I'm in NYC, but judging by radar and webcams, it has to be pushing 18-24" in the valley. This time yesterday they hadn't even put up a WSW and were calling for 4-8".

Damon said...

Howie, I'm in Burlington. At 8pm yesterday we had only rain though it was getting a little slick on the ground. Now, we've got about 5" of very wet snow, so NWS pretty much hit it here about 200 feet above sea level.

Tucker Goodrich said...

Howie, I don't know how you're getting the NWS forecast, but if I go to www.weather.gov and enter "Sugarbush Village, VT" instead of "Warren, VT", I get a very different forecast...

Michael Carr - Veritas Literary said...

@Tuck - I'm on the Valley floor and we must have 2+ feet here already as well and it's still dumping.

@Josh - You're forgiven and then some for last week. Thanks for the updates.

Michael Carr - Veritas Literary said...

@Tuck - I'm on the Valley floor and we must have 2+ feet here already as well and it's still dumping.

@Josh - You're forgiven and then some for last week. Thanks for the updates.

Unknown said...

any chance of windhold on Fri?