With about two feet of snow having fallen across the MRV high country over the past week, the powder hounds are having a well-deserved time of it and they should because we will be shifting quickly into March-mode over the next 48 hours. Additionally, I am not sure the weather pattern is capable of supporting another sustained stretch of mid-winter temperatures after Saturday. We could still get a big storm, but sustained 5-day periods of sub-freezing temperatures might be done for the winter and this is a bit of a change in thinking relative to a few days ago that I will expand on further in the last paragraph.
Those powdery conditions can and should enjoyed on Saturday. Temperatures will start out in the single numbers and make a push toward 30-degrees in the afternoon. Sunshine might give way to some high cloudiness late in the day but the first part of our weekend will feature some excellent visibility and calm winds. Temperatures will hold steady close to the freezing mark Saturday night and there's a chance at a bit of snow or mixed precipitation but this precedes what still appears to be a torchy Sunday. Models have been indicating some rain during the day Sunday but the higher resolution data is beginning to reveal the wet weather to be a more minimal issue. We should see several hours of dry weather with temperatures rising well into the 40's on the mountain and into the 50's across valley locations. Rain if we do see any, should be limited to an hour or two.
This latest round of warmth does appear rather limited in duration but the cold weather behind it does not look especially strong with much of the arctic cold having shifted to western Canada. This is consequential since a strong wave of low pressure is expected to reignite an area of precipitation that will eventually impact northern Vermont late in the day Monday. Though the torch will have been pushed south on Monday and temperatures will resettle back into the middle 30's, it may not be cold enough to support even a spring snow. It's close as of Friday afternoon but conditions appear marginal at best and may only allow for a minimal period of wet snow as the storm pulls away Monday night. Tuesday and Wednesday appear to be very typical March weather days with Tuesday looking blustery, Wednesday more calm and temperatures generally below freezing on the mountain.
This brings us to the period beginning Thursday March 10th and ending Saturday March 12th. It looks interesting since it will feature another big jet stream amplification but the longitudinal position of this amplification is absolutely critical and this has not been trending the way I had hoped. On Thursday we will be working rather tenuously with a soft area of cold weather and we could score some overrunning snowfall from an initial wave of low pressure. As the jet configuration continues to become amplified however it could allow any initial cold weather to give way to a big surge of milder weather and rain in the Friday to early Saturday period in a warm scenario. Push this amplification to the east and the potential is suddenly there for an epic storm. We've seen so much magic in the March 10th-15th time frame over the years that I would be unwise to not make mention of this or completely discount the possibility.
The longer range beginning Sunday March 13th and extending into the next weekend ending March 20th will still feature a decent surge of colder weather and likely some accompanying snowfall to start. The mostly sub-freezing, below normal temperatures would then linger through around St Patrick's Day. I had hoped this would be the beginning of a more sustained 10-day type stretch of winter weather, but ensembles are clearly moving away from this notion. Just as we get the Pacific to cooperate more fully, we will lose the support of the Alaskan ridge which was the blocking mechanism that not only kept it arctic this past week, but is keeping us in the game for a chunk of next week. This has forced me to rethink some initial conclusions about how this month would play out. A modestly cold March seemed like a good bet a week ago but given current indications, March 2022 appears to be headed toward a fairly normal outcome with a bit of cold, a bit of spring and a few fireworks. For the period mentioned above, it is also likely to mean that any cold weather that arrives by March 13th might only be reinforced once before giving way to milder more spring-like weather by the 19th and 20th.
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