Another day closer to a return to winter and a cold Friday snow !

We got through Tuesday's ski day without any rain, allowing skiers to enjoy the milder temperatures and soft snow. We even got a few hours of surprise sunshine in the morning. By the time some of you read this update, much of the rain will have come and gone, falling over the course of a few hours Tuesday evening and amounting to what appears to be less than a half an inch with temperatures hovering around 40 degrees. Wednesday continues to look mostly dry and most of the ski day appears quite mild with temperatures spiking close to 50 degrees in the valley and remaining in the 40's over the mountains until early afternoon. A strong arctic airmass will begin to envelop the region late Wednesday afternoon and temperatures will plummet, falling quickly below freezing by as early as 4pm on the mountain and soon after across lower elevations. 

Cold high pressure in Quebec will supply interior New England with a blustery and cold bluebird day Thursday and it also sets the stage for Friday's storm which will provide a cold snow to all over Vermont. This appears to be a very straight-forward storm and forecast. The low pressure system responsible has shifted slightly south with an initial area of low pressure tracking into northern Pennsylvania and a second low forming and then consolidating south of Long Island. This does place the MRV on the northern end of the heaviest snow and it also means that places like Stowe, Smuggs and Jay might see a lighter accumulation. For Mad River and Sugarbush however, I very much like what I see with snow beginning around daybreak and persisting into the evening. Total snowfall across our high country still appears to be in the 8-16 range with slightly lesser amounts across valley locations. The sweetspot for snow does appear to be in the southern half of Vermont for now but a little extra latitude shouldn't hurt us materially and allows a late northward shift to benefit the region. As for temperatures, I continue to expect low teens on the mountain and again the Iphone isn't telling me thus and I fully expect it will eventually. 

Some sunshine returns for Saturday accompanying temperatures near the 20-degree mark. Clouds will then advance into the region Saturday night and some light snow is possible for a few hours early on Sunday. A building ridge over Alaska will become a rather dominant player in the weather across North America in early March but in the short term, it will help to allow for a large buildup of cold over eastern Canada. Models remain somewhat unsure how far south this cold advances into the US Sunday and Monday but interior New England appears well-positioned to get a big chunk of it beginning Sunday evening following a light accumulation of snow. Sunday night into Monday should be brutally cold with temperatures falling below zero Monday morning and struggling to reach the teens during the day. 

Hopes for a coastal storm on Sunday night into Monday February 28th have dimmed and we can expect cold and very dry weather to prevail through Tuesday. We do have a better signal for a storm in the middle to later part of next week as the cold weather modifies and March begins. There is some potential for a bigger event here but we will need to retain some access to that aforementioned cold in eastern Canada. To be specific, the timing for this would be in the Wednesday, March 2nd to Friday March 4th window. 

In the longer range, ensembles have established some consensus for a warmer period and potentially some spring-like temperatures around the time frame of the first full weekend of March. I expect the weather to again turn colder by March 8th however and it may stay that way for a while thanks to the continued strength of the Alaskan ridge and the improving situation in the Pacific. The European Ensembles are throwing more weight to this notion by indicating an AO sign switch around this time frame but we have yet to see total support for this. Either way, winter appears far from done in Vermont .