Epic snowfall appears unlikely this week, but 8-16 is certainly a big help

Northern Vermont managed to escape what turned out to be mostly a rain event for southern New England Saturday. We now await the arrival of some much needed cold air which is poised to arrive Sunday along with some snow showers. Temperatures will fall into the teens as the day progresses and there appears to be just enough moisture out there for a 1-3 inch accumulation across the high country during the morning Sunday. Of course, there is much more interest in the coming week where snowfall prospects continue to look good. The potential phasing of the system in question doesn't appear as promising as it did a few days ago and the weather system as a whole appears slightly less organized; nonetheless, there are a lot of nice ingredients in place, and just enough cold air for a healthy and needed accumulation with snowfall beginning Monday evening and continuing, sporadically, through Thursday

As of the current weekend, the storm in question is a moodest snow producer for portions of the Rocky Mountains and it will advance quickly across the country Monday. Unfortunately, models do indicate that it out-paces some of the polar energy in the jet stream which remains poised to infuse itself into this weather situation during the middle of the week. This slight delay will likely cost us a big storm, but this remains a very good set-up for the Vermont high country with a period of snow Monday evening or early Tuesday and then continuous snow at varying intensities later Tuesday, Tuesday night, Wednesday and part of Thursday. The snow on Wednesday and Thursday comes in response to a nice pool of instability which should allow for terrain enhanced snow accumulations over the high country. Northern Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire appear to be a very good spot for accumulations of 8-16 inches with a few favored locations performing even better.

Northern Vermont is not just a good spot for accumulations this week but is a good place  for winter in the overall sense through January 20th I am happy to report. I've mentioned a few times that this is not an especially wintry pattern for North America and El Torchy has been and will be prevalent through mid January across large expanses of the United States. Vermont will continue to avoid much of it however and do so in style with the aforementioned accumulating snow this upcoming week; furthermore, the concern about a mild surge of weather on the weekend of January 12th and 13th has been alleviated largely. Instead, much of Vermont ski country should see another chance to score some more snowfall either by way the northern or southern branch of the jet stream. Hopefully both !! Temperatures won't be especially cold both this week or during the week ending January 18th and are likely to average above normal during both, but for the time being, actual temperatures appear as if they will fall short of excessive levels.