A cold and wintry upcoming 5 days, a better pattern emerging around the turn of the month and some mild weather in between

We managed to avoid the rain Friday, score a little bit of snow Friday night before the continuous flurries and snow showers on Saturday. Colder temperatures are also building across interior New England and are expected to prevail through much of the upcoming holiday week in spite of a less than ideal jet stream configuration. Worth taking a moment and raising a glass to commemorate that and Sunday might be a good day to do it, with excellent visibility some blue sky, relatively calm winds and crisp winter-like temperatures near 20-degrees.

I'd downplayed the notion of snow for Monday but there had been indications of that possibility over the past few days (I admit, I remained a cynic). As of midday Saturday, it looks as if the Monday snow should materialize. We should expect just a limited dose but the light snow should develop Sunday night and continue for several hours into early Monday. Its not an especially strong weather system and most of the moisture is expected to remain to our south, but 1 to as much as 4 inches is the most likely outcome when the snow tapers off Monday afternoon. If the storm in question continues its northward trend, another, albeit small, upgrade will be necessary.

Dry and cold weather prevails for Tuesday and much of Wednesday both of which should feature some sunshine and only Tuesday should see much in the way of wind.  The more noteworthy weather system for the upcoming week remains on target for Wednesday night into Thursday. That said, it appears to be a very garden variety event with precipitation stemming from a strong area of warm advection induced forcing associated with a building ridge in the jet stream centered near the Carolina coastline. It will get plenty warm near the center of that aforementioned ridge but the balmy temperatures won't dent Vermont until the weekend and a few inches of snow and a reduced risk for ice is my expectation from the weather system in question.

Temperatures are expected to remain below the freezing mark through Friday but the mild air associated with the large ridge in the jet stream will make a second and bigger push toward Vermont by the weekend of Feb 23/24. The details remain cloudy but this next big surge of milder air will ultimately be more successful and scouring any lingering cold. For now, the mild intrusion appears to be a roughly 2-day event with temperatures closer to 40 as opposed to 50 or higher.

There are stronger indications over the past two days that the prevailing negative PNA pattern will either completely break down or evolve materially as the month of February nears a close. It has been an incredible run of cold across the west that has allowed temperatures to average almost 30-degrees below normal in parts of Montana for the first 15 days of the month. With the pattern continuing another week, many of those areas have a chance of posting one of, if not the coldest month of February ever recorded. As this negative PNA dominated pattern finally starts to change or evolve, it will involve the trough in the jet stream across the west getting a big eastward push from a building ridge over Alaska. The uncertainty relates to the speed and ultimate strength of this potential Alaskan jet stream feature, but it has the potential to have a big say on our weather toward the end of February into the beginning of March. Can't say much as to the specifics as of yet except to say that Monday February 25th is more likely to remain on the milder side with colder temperatures more likely as the week progresses. There are also indications of a weather system around the time of February 25th, one that could certainly require a quicker arrival of colder air to become a winter weather producer.