Late week storm shifts north but so does the cold air

With that news, I can't help but to resign myself to the thinking that Vermont has simply failed to own the 2009-2010 winter. As of Monday March 8th, our limited amount of winter cold was expected to receive some reinforcements. To a degree, this will happen but not on a noticeable scale and the cold weather this week does not appear strong enough to withstand a surge of warmth that will accompany the moisture from the next storm.

The weather system in question is a southern branch piece of jet energy with plenty of moisture. As Vermont continues to see dry and seasonable temperatures in the Tuesday to Thursday time frame, this storm will track out of the Rockies and into the central plains. From here, the storm will dance and spin its way toward the Atlantic Coast and position itself near the New Jersey coast by Saturday. This would seem to be a very favorable path but the storm will mature very quickly in the plains and ultimately occlude before reaching the eastern seaboard. The occlusion process, much like the powerful storm two weeks ago, has the impact of allowing warmth to wrap from the eastern flank of the low pressure center to the northern flank. The moisture which is likely to make its delayed arrival in north-central Vermont sometime on Friday, will arrive after much of the limited amount of cold weather is scoured out. At the very least I was hoping the high elevations could salvage something out of this event but preliminary temperature profiles across the region during this time frame suggest even this may be a stretch. In summary, unless we get a big fundamental shift in the way this storm evolves late this week, it will be rain for Friday, Saturday and rain and snow showers for Sunday and Monday. I know this is disheartening news given that the big telefest weekend is upon us and adds to the frustrations that seem to be way too common this winter in our parts.

The general period between March 14th and March 21 still appears favorable as far as winter weather is concerned. I expect temperatures to be biased to the cold side as a consequence of a positive surge in the PNA index. The departure of the storm this weekend may allow snow showers early next week and we will then hope the storm track remains far enough to the north to get in on the next weather system which will probably be around the time frame of March 20th and 21st.