Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Winter read to take a tight grip on Vermont for the next 10 days

Winter is back and should have a clear reign over interior New England over the next 10 days. Temperatures should get very chilly even by New England standards but there should be some snow along with this pattern coming a couple of different ways. In the short term, the dry forecast I put out a few days ago should actually get thwarted by disturbance rotating through the Hudson bay embedded within the polar jet. Not much moisture with this feature but clouds and some light snow should overspread the region New Years Day and continue into part of Friday January 2nd. The snow could amount to 1-4 inches and will be of the "very fluffy" variety. Arctic high pressure then takes a very temporary grip on the region Friday night into early Saturday and sets the stage for our next precipitation producer Saturday night into Sunday.

The upcoming weekend storm continues to look significant and though we have narrowed the outcomes of this considerably there remains some small uncertainty regarding the final track of this storm. The main area of low pressure could travel anywhere between extreme southern Quebec and Massachusetts. There are other questions relating to the evolution of this storm as it interacts with the Atlantic coast as there most always is. That all being said, I am relatively confident that some significant snow should impact northern Vermont early Sunday, accumulate several inches and then possibly change to a sleet/freezing rain mixture and possibly not. I don't think the region has to worry about the "R" word anymore though coastal cities should see that almost exclusively. The possibility of a 8-16 inch powder-fest still exists though and hopefully this outcome wins the day and gets 2015 off to a positive start.

Very cold weather is expected to take direct aim at New England next week thanks to the full force of the Polar Jet. We haven't seen the ole PJ in a while actually and it should although we were hit with some chilly weather in these days after Christmas, it will pale in comparison to some very sub-zero temperatures that should impact the region next week. The cold weather will re-build across the region Monday and then a reenforcing blast of arctic air should send readings to their lowest point of the season so far sometime during the middle to later part of next week. Now the interesting part of this story relates to this reenforcing blast of cold and what kind of disturbance might be responsible for this. There have been hints of some potent PJ energy capable of churning up a storm for New England at some point next week. The Euro showed this 12/29 but took it away 12/30 but I mention it since I believe it's worth watching.

Beyond next week we still have to concern ourselves with the ongoing battle of the arctic cold verses the warm discussed in the last update. A upper ridge in the southeast will be prevalent and will push occasionally very mild air in our direction and this is expected to occur again around the time of the 10th. If the southern branch of the jet, remains strong enough, it should be able to break this ridge down and keep the weather interesting as opposed to mild for the middle of January.

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