Not much love for winter weather lovers through next Wednesday but the pattern does improve thereafter

 We are in the midst of a worst case La Nina scenario consisting of plenty of arctic air on the North American continent but an absolutely wretched jet stream configuration driven by several bad weather pattern fundamentals. The multiple rounds of sub-zero mornings earlier this week will fail to make a dividend payment and the cold will give way to a short-lived but nasty thaw Thursday. Another albeit, softer period of cold weather over the holiday weekend might again get pushed out by milder weather early next week. I have many bad La Nina memories of weather just like this. Certain years we seem to hit multiple home runs but when we don't, this is often what we are left with. 

The area of low pressure responsible for Thursday's big mild push will track from the Red River Valley of the southern plains straight to the Stowe/Smuggs Mt Mansfield region of the Green Mountains. The track of this storm has indeed shifted south, but not enough and we are out of time. Portions of the St Lawrence Valley on northward, Montreal included, will see a nice snow from this weather system and Jay Peak will see rain turn to some ice and 3-6 inches of snow Friday. The MRV will also seem some ice followed by 1-3 inches of snow Friday but this follows a very mild Thursday with wind and temperatures in excess of 50 degrees in valley locations and 40's on the mountain. We may see a few peaks of sunshine during the day Thursday but most of the day will be cloudy with sporadic light rain. A heavier period of rain can be expected Thursday night before a low level push of cold weather chances precipitation to the aforementioned period of ice and then snow. This is not a worst-case scenario thaw Thursday, but it's got all the variables that can eat away at snow including rain (over a half inch), wind and high dewpoints.

There isn't much about the weather over the next week, through February 23rd to be excited about. If you do get desperate however, you can look forward to some light snow from a clipper system over the weekend. For once, we aren't entirely in the wrong quadrant of this moisture hungry feature and we can thus expect occasional light snow most of Saturday and 1-3 inches. It looks better farther north where a favorable wind direction off the still partially unfrozen Lake Champlain should enhance a bit of additional snow Saturday evening. Sunday follows with some sunshine, excellent visibility and afternoon temperatures well into the 20's. 

Arctic air is desperately trying to undercut a peaking and grotesque looking southeast U.S. jet stream ridge early next week. I am not sure grotesque does justice to how bad the weather pattern looks at jet stream level but having said all that, it still doesn't appear like the MRV will get a spring-like torch. The record breaking temperatures will likely stay in the Mid-Atlantic, Virginia and portions of the Carolina's. Instead, northern Vermont is likely to see several days of clouds and multiple periods of precipitation. Some of this could fall in the form of overrunning snow  Monday but additional rainfall or ice will be difficult to avoid in the period in between Monday night and Wednesday. We can also expect several days of lousy visibility early next week underscoring the value of Sunday's weather. As the weather pattern begins to turn less unfavorable late next week, we can hope that one final wave of low pressure riding along the clashing temperature boundary results in some snowfall but it's not worth keeping hopes too high relating to any weather through next Wednesday. 

I wouldn't say the same about the weather beyond next Wednesday where the light for potential winter weather is shining brighter. In the last update I made mention of the strengthening area of ridging in western North America late in February. Now it appears the Pacific, which will spend the next several day in a very angry state, will neutralize by the last full weekend of February.  I don't see any clear indications of a storm and at face value the weather pattern appears a little dry but I would expect an extended stretch of sub-freezing temperatures accompanied by at least some light snowfall to carry us from the last several day of February into early March.