Bummed about the weekend, cautiously excited about next week !!

Lots of exciting times are on the horizon but I am bitter about the upcoming weekend. This time we had nearly a 2-week stretch of extreme cold including several days of -20, we have ice on a third of Lake Ontario and nearly all of Lake Huron (first time for that in 20 years) and yet our first big precipitation event in the "activated" pattern will be a snow to ice event. According to the Euro, precipitation has the chance of changing to freezing rain and even rain for a short time. The weekend system is not especially strong. It will travel up through the eastern Great Lakes and without any hesitation, head into the St Lawrence Valley, bringing its push of warmth into interior New England. We should see some snow late in the day Saturday as temperatures moderate to the freezing mark, but the snow will taper off and precipitation will continue as drizzle or freezing drizzle. By Sunday morning, temperatures could be a few degrees above freezing and we could see a few rain showers early in the day if the Euro model turns out to be correct and I am afraid it might be. I know a lot of forecasts out there including the NWS are more or less suggesting primarily a snow event and I am still hopeful but not encouraged by some of the latest indications.

So with that negativity out of my system lets talk about next week. In the last update I mistakenly thought Wednesday was the 4th and thus advertised that storm for the "4th". It is however the 5th, not the 4th and it is this storm and this day we are getting increasingly excited about. Models have been fairly consistent with the exception of perhaps one cycle and have generally been showing a healthy and very moist system moving out of Texas into the Ohio Valley and ultimately right at interior New England. Unlike the weekend event, the storm will transfer much of its energy to the coast and unlike the weekend event, we will have a fresh supply of cold air to work with both in front of this system and behind it. Nonetheless, we still have to hope the storm cuts a bit further south verses some current indications. I don't think the current track is suggesting any ice or rain but we could see a heavy snow to sleet event and could also be impacted by a dry slot if the area of low pressure tracks too close to the region. Optimistically speaking, if the storm tracks close to where the ensembles have it, the snow totals could be impressive and we will be back in business across all of northern and central Vermont.