Underperforning storms in northern Vermont have been frustrating but winter ain't done yet

Mother Nature was not kind to the Mad River Valley over the weekend. Two significant winter storms impacted the northeast and we received a grand total of 1-2 inches. This after waiting patiently for the negative PNA jet stream structure to abate and open the door for a more sustained stretch of winter. Chalk it all up to some simple misfortune. We had the ingredients for at least one of these storms to produce and the stars just didn't align.

A widespread, broad area of arctic cold is in the process of establishing itself across Vermont and all of New England. The suppressed jet stream and weakened El Nino is putting talk of any big storm to bed for this week but there are a series of smaller disturbances that have the capability of bringing some terrain enhanced powder to the mountain. I am most impressed with the first disturbance which will approach late Tuesday night as temperatures drop from a daytime high of near 20 to the single numbers. Though there appears to be a very limited amount of available moisture, the depth of instability is quite impressive and given the addition of just a little bit of moisture, could yield a few inches of snow from a few heavier snow showers and squalls. Normally I would consider this quite likely given the setup but Lake Champlain is about 80-90 percent frozen which has an impact on some of this available moisture. Still, I consider it likely that we can squeeze at least 2 inches out of this set-up early Wednesday. The snow showers Wednesday will taper to flurries as the day progresses, a day that will be quite chilly with temperatures hovering in the teens and wind chills below zero thanks to persistent northwest flow. Another disturbance on Thursday will keep the flurries going but this very weak clipper system, or whatever is left of it, appears aimed at locations south of MRG. I would thus not be surprised to see more sunshine Thursday and a continuation of very cold temperatures with morning lows below zero and afternoon highs again in the teens.

Winds should subside on Friday and the strong March sunshine should help boost temperatures well into the 20's. The trend of moderating temperatures will then continue into the weekend but there are questions regarding potential precipitation. Some overrunning precipitation, in the form of snow, is expected Friday night into early Saturday somewhere along the east coast while a more robust storm system has an expected impact time of Sunday. The initial area of snow early in the weekend appears more and more likely to miss northern New England entirely thanks to continued northwest flow at jet stream level, keeping dry air in place. We won't miss the precipitation later in the weekend (Sunday into Monday, March 10-11) but we do risk losing the support of much of the cold. As of now, it looks like a snow to mix to rain.

Next week (March 11-15) features a bit of everything. It continues to appear a little less mild verses some of the expectations 2-4 days ago but considerably milder than this week and very March-like overall. Monday will start mild and potentially a little wet. More winter-like temperatures are then expected to return for Tuesday, last into early Wednesday and then give way to milder temperatures later in the week when we might hear the corn-horn echo through the valley.

I realize there has hardly been a plethora of good news in this post. If there is some good news, it's probably in the long range which continues to appear colder. The MJO head faked the forecasting public yet again. After suggesting for several days it was headed toward some strengthier Pacific Jet phases, it will reverse course, neutralize and perhaps reenter some colder North American phases again. The European Ensemble members have been responding most aggressively to this by showing an emerging positive PNA structure around the time of St Patrick's Day weekend. We haven't seen a good positive PNA since around the MLK holiday. I can't get too specific about what might occur between March 16th and 20th but the potential for wintry weather, especially snow along with colder temperatures has gone way up verses where it was a few days ago. In other words, winter ain't done in spite of what has been a frustrating few days.