Clipper City Ale - The beer of choice

The old microbrew from Baltimore, MD, was sadly retired. When I looked up the web page, knowing I would reference it in the blog, it no longer existed. It remains however, the beer that comes to mind when we are expecting snow from multiple clippers. I sense some grumpiness regarding the weather pattern which is understandable. The mountain has endured a 4-day period of generally sub-zero temperatures and although we did get some snow on MLK day, we need a lot more to really make it happen for us.

I can't promise a big storm over the next 4 days but we should do nicely from our Clipper City Ale scenario. The first, a dynamic, coma-shaped surface feature, will rotate around our "hashtagged" polar vortex and spread snow to the Green Mountain range Saturday morning. The snow won't be particularly intense at any point during the day but should continue through the evening. The snow will be of a fluffy variety as it often is in clippers, and 3-5 inches of this low density stuff is what I would expect by late at night Saturday. Temperatures will moderate into the lower 20's Saturday with the snow but will fall sharply back into the single digits Sunday, the drier of the two days. The next clipper marks the entrance of a massive intrusion of arctic chill. Snow from this will arrive Sunday night and persist through early Monday. Once again, this system is capable of bringing another few inches (lets call it 2-4). It then turns brutally cold Monday evening into the overnight as the PV drops into the northern Great Lakes and then swings through southern Quebec Tuesday. 

Unfortunately, and two days since this last update, there is no evidence of a late next week storm on any of the medium range operational models and I would not expect any talk of one. Not to say it can't happen but there is no evidence that any serious energy in the southern branch of the jet stream until the beginning of February. This isn't to say that it can't happen but that it simply doesn't look good as of now. The overall evolution of this pattern appears  relatively in line with what was discussed previously. The extreme cold that was caused by the super-positive PDO regime will give way to a more variable but relatively normal temperature range. The combination however of some lingering cold and a more active jet stream should make for some exciting stuff I am hoping as we head into the month of February.