Bombing storm to strike Vermont late this week. It will start wet and gloppy and finish big and powdery !!!

The forecast for the end of the week got more or less thrown on its head by the "Bombs Away" situation. This is what makes Vermont weather (and the rest of the northeast) so exciting. A few tweeks here and a bit more energy there and suddenly something really big happens and that really big something subsequently has ripple effects and ramification on the entire evolution of weather events over the course of several days. Terrific news for us powderhounds overall, but this amounts to a massive amount of forecast changes over the next few days and a lot to blog about.

The Wednesday weather situation looks about the same with sunshine, a cold 15-degree morning, a warm 40-degree afternoon and very little wind. The southeastward moving clipper system also looks about the same Wednesday evening as it brings a disorganized area of rain and some snow to the eastern Great Lakes region, Ohio and Pennsylvania included. What looks entirely different is a potent low pressure area off the Carolina coastline Wednesday evening. This feature looks stronger by Thursday morning and entirely intent on phasing with the incoming jet energy from the aforementioned clipper. Instead of an innocuous period of elevation sensitive snow Thursday, the strengthening coastal storm will be consolidating the available energy and most of the moisture. Most of the day Thursday will thus be free of significant precipitation and temperatures will warm into the 40's under a mostly cloudy sky.

The precipitation arrives in earnest Thursday evening with marginal temperatures. Too marginal in fact to support snow in low lying areas and supportive of only a wet snow event across the high country. The phasing of this storm is in fact so impressive, that the coastal low will get dragged inland across southern New England and bombing system will ultimately track over Boston Friday or so it seems. This means a very elevation sensitive storm Thursday night into early Friday and a lot of glop even where it is snowing. Accumulations will range from near zero across valley locations to several inches of the gloppy stuff above 2500 feet by Friday morning.

This however is where things improve. I've been going to the "Bombs Away" well a bit too often but since we haven't had a "bomb" in a few months I felt it was necessary. I've been thinking however of another song in relation to this storm from the amazing and somewhat forgotten artist Herbie Hancock. HH had an awesome era of jazz/fusion/funk in the mid 70's that has proven highly influential and one of those great songs was "Hang Up Your Hangups".  After hearing it covered this past year by another one of my favorite bands, I got to thinking that Vermont needs HH to rewrite the title "Hang On To Our Hangups". This is something that hasn't happened a lot in recent months but storms that "Hang Up" in the maritimes of Canada are truly worthy of the hall of fame treatment. The bombed-out Canadian maritime, stalled-out storm will quite literally open a highway for moisture starting at the Gulf of St Lawrence and ending over the Green Mountains. Many times, this turns out to be the most effective way to produce the epic powder in the northern Green's and those frequent occurrences very much separate out the northern and southern Green Mountains in the snow climatology department.

The strengthening low pressure area Friday will gradually help to cool the lower layers of the troposphere and turn any rain to snow across low lying areas and turn any wet snow to powdery snow across the high country.  The period beginning late Friday and extending into Friday night appears to be solid gold. Consistent snow, some of it quite heavy, gusty north to northwest winds and gradually cooling temperatures. Friday morning's temperatures will likely remain in the middle 30's at the base, cool to near freezing by the afternoon and then drop into the 20's during the evening. By Saturday we should be looking at over 2 feet of mostly powder above the mid-station and a foot of the powdery stuff closer to the base. Ultimately this will be the best score for us since the MLK storm, but its important to get at it Saturday. In spite of what will be some gusty northwest winds, temperatures will be cold enough to keep the powdery conditions in place throughout the day. Sunday's temperatures will start around 20 but warm into the 40's, thanks to the warm afternoon March sun.

As I mentioned the bombed-out storm is a big event and has ramifications on the pattern even beyond this weekend. A large ridge across the center of the country which for a time was predicted to be the major player in the weather next week will get held up and a re enforcing area of cold will descend into ski country across Vermont Monday. We could see a bit of snow as the cold air arrives Monday and we will certainly see another 48 hours or so of sub-freezing temperatures extending into early Wednesday.  The later part of the week continues to look spring-like with some "corn-horn" potential. The very end of the month continues to look potentially stormy but doesn't appear especially cold.

Was really hoping we could get one more good one however and it looks very much as if this will materialize. Be patient, conditions will be gloppy and wet for a while Thursday night at the onset of this storm and only gradually improve Friday. Accumulations will struggle to exceed a foot in many areas because of the warmer temperatures but I would not be at all surprised to see 3 foot totals near the summits. We also got some Herbie Hancock sprinkled into the blog today. He's an American musical treasure and perfect illustration of why our music blows away so much of the competition. We have such a differing array of people from so many different places bringing all that good cross-pollination magic to music. Diversity is good, take pride in it, don't fear it.