Melt most of our snow, open Rt 108 to Smuggs and like magic, the heaviest accumulating snow event for the high country appears !

We are about halfway through April 2021 and daytime temperatures are averaging almost 8 degrees higher than all of April 2020. The outlook for the coming 10 days does look a bit cooler relative to average and won't include another succession of 70-degree temperatures but it won't change a final outcome of a warm and dry month. The latter characteristic is of growing concern going into a summer that I already expect will be on the dry side. I don't update the blog in mid-April for dry weather however, I update for snow and a storm that could prove to bring the largest accumulating snow of the season to Sugarbush and Mad River Glen this season. And it wouldn't be right if it didn't involve another late inning northward shift. 

We are obviously way out of our climatological winter and the storm in question is not working with any impressive area of polar chill.  But this is an impressive storm and a supportive, very blocked weather pattern and we have a northward shift so its game on. As of Wednesday (April 14), we already have a closed upper level low slowly advancing eastward out of the western Great Lakes and now feel very good about an infusion of sub-tropical synoptic energy early Thursday. Temperatures will still be mild for most of Thursday across the MRV and all of Vermont for that matter but as the storm phases and deepens throughout the day, it will manufacture its own kind of cold air, the kind that allows it to snow in mid-April. So, we can expect rain during the afternoon and evening hours and then start seeing some snow, first at high elevations and eventually even at lower elevations during the evening hours, just as it begins to get dark. The best zone for snow is in Vermont but still appears to be in central and southern Vermont and into the Berkshires for now. This favorable snow zone however has been shifting north with each succession of model runs however and the MRV high country is only about 40-50 miles away from the bullseye zone as of Wednesday afternoon.

Because the cold air is very "storm manufactured", the snow will be very gloppy in nature, even at high elevations. Atmospheric cross-sections reveal very little change in temperature with elevation but there will be some (heck there is always some). Taking some of the high res data at face value would indicate that temperatures Friday morning are 32-34 below 1500 feet and maybe 28-30 above 3000 feet. So, we could at least get close to some drier snow if one can themselves up toward the summits. The snow Thursday night into Friday is no joke however. Can you believe this could be the biggest accumulating snow event of the season ? I will never not welcome such a storm but there's a little SMH in all this since we just saw one of the earliest Rt 108 >Smuggs opening in a while and are currently working with very limited open skiable terrain in VT. Mother nature doesn't care however, it will do what it wants to do. In valley locations up to the base of MRG this appears to be a 4-12 inch event, but above 2000 feet, 10-20 inches is looking more and more likely. In this best "snow zone" across central and southern Vermont, upwards of 2 feet or more appears likely in some of the high elevation areas. The snow is expected to be heaviest early Friday morning and taper off to snow showers or snow flurries by late Friday afternoon. 

The storm will also put an end to a rather impressive run of mild weather that we saw through much of early April. The weather pattern appears to be a bit more unsettled generally and more seasonable on the temperatures side. This essentially means a bunch of sub-freezing nights and above freezing days. The upcoming storm will  help with our precipitation deficit and models indicate that we could sea a bit more in the next 10 days though there are no glaring indications of heavy rain or snow after Friday. 

Enjoy the spring snow