No ice or rain late Thursday into Friday, just a powdery light snow and some additional snow showers Friday night

 Texas continues to be stuck in the deep freeze and residents are being forced to deal with rolling blackouts for another day. In the meantime its just another typical week of winter weather in Vermont with precipitation coming in multiple forms and big swings in temperature. The lowest thousand feet of MRG inched above freezing on Tuesday but the upper mountain appeared to remain below freezing even as mixed precipitation was falling during the morning. Snow showers accompanied the incoming remnants of the "Texas Special", the now modified arctic airmass that brought sub-zero temps to the Dallas/Ft Worth metro. 

Thursday's weather situation has evolved very quickly. Medium range models had us living in fear of a dreadful Great Lakes cutter just a few days ago and now the storm and much of it's associated moisture are south and east; in fact, too far south and east for a heavy snow in Vermont. The cold air certainly isn't the issue, we will get our dose of the "Texas Special with temperatures in the teens on Wednesday and even below zero Thursday morning. We do need the moisture however and the latest rounds of model data are showing much of the precipitation with the coastal system closer to the coastline. That said, the decaying area of snowfall associated with the initial storm will still get us in the form of that inverted trough structure. So an epic storm is looking less likely but ice or freezing rain is looking very unlikely. Even if the storm is a measly 2-5 incher, it's better than ice and rain.  In the current scenario, the snow would be slower to develop, arriving sometime late Thursday night and persist through a good part of Friday. The snow would be intermittent and not especially intense but certainly powdery. The snow shower situation also looks quite favorable for several hours Friday night, potentially adding 2-4 inches ahead of the ski day Saturday. 

Both weekend ski days look blustery and chilly with temperatures near 20 during the day and teens and single numbers at night. Flurries and snow showers are likely to continue into part of Saturday while Sunday appears drier. 

The Pacific jet is poised to regain control of the North American weather pattern forcing arctic air to retreat and and allowing much milder air to return to southern latitudes including Texas next week. Before that happens in New England however, we might be able to cook something up around the time frame of Monday. Not every model is showing it, at this point it's mostly the European and its ensemble members but often times, the caboose in an arctic pattern or the last storm before the cold retreats can be a big snow producer. Even after this hypothetical storm departs and spring-like conditions emerge in many of the same areas stricken by the recent deep freeze, Vermont should be able to stay wintry through the rest of next week. As we enter March, there are signs that milder air could make a more substantial intrusion to the MRV but next week continues to look wintry.