6-12 for Saturday with a wintry holiday outlook remaining in place

Our reintroduction to winter on Saturday will be exciting with a beautiful powdery snowfall expected to begin around noon and continue at a slow but steady rate through the overnight and into very early Sunday. It is actually a very straight-forward forecast considering. I know some of the model output maps circulating around social media would indicate that southern Vermont is the best spot for this storm. Perhaps, but I would still prefer to be us. We will be in a colder spot with temperatures closer to 20 on the mountain and temperature profiles indicate no threat of mixing - just a cold powdery snow from start to finish with 1-3 inches late in the ski day Saturday and a storm total of 6-12 inches by the start of the ski day Sunday. Flurries will linger into Sunday but the daytime weather will feature some sunshine, blustery and cold conditions with temperatures around 20 degrees. 

We will have additional chances for snowfall late Monday into Monday night (very light) and again on Wednesday into Wednesday night the 23rd. The polar jet disturbance arriving on Wednesday may interact with a stronger sub-tropical feature off the Atlantic Coastline setting up an inverted trough situation and a decent area of snowfall somewhere across interior New England although it will take another day or two to figure out if 1) that actually happens 2) where that actually happens. We will successfully keep temperatures under the freezing mark for an extended stretch, beginning with Saturday's storm and lasting through Christmas; in fact, the actual Christmas holiday will likely feature the coldest weather of the season so far with the phased storm off shore opening the door for a stronger version of arctic air to enter our forecast picture. Having said this, any cold weather should remain in the garden variety category for Vermont with high temperatures in the teens and 20's. The much below normal cold should remain out in the Pacific Northwest for the time being. 

Some of the above dovetails rather nicely into the longer range outlook which continues to consist of winter-like temperatures of a more garden variety and certainly a few chances for snow between Christmas and New Years. The feature in the jet stream that will help keep New England on the more wintry side is a strong area of unsettled weather positioned south of Newfoundland, directly underneath a blocking feature over Greenland. Northwest flow in the jet stream (over us) is generally considered fair-weather flow but a weak ridge in the central United States will try and push storms up in our direction once or twice. We could also attain a bit of colder moisture from the Canadian Maritimes in this setup were we to miss out on a more organized weather system. The colder more wintry outlook remains in place through both holidays right now and certainly no repeat of last year's rainy Christmas debacle. Enjoy the powdery snow Saturday !