Terrific setup for some intense snow showers Sunday into Monday across the MRV high country

Winter is poised to make a late March return to northern Vermont. Though the strength of the cold weather in the period between late Sunday and Tuesday is impressive, it is not atypical for interior New England to get bouts of January-like weather in early spring. March and April in Vermont can quite frequently feature the most volatile weather of the year and outcomes have ranged from near heat in 1998 or 2012 to intense cold like in 2011 or 2014 to big snow like we saw in March both in 2018 and 2019 (and plenty of other years). We've managed to mix it up pretty good this month and gone with the "all of the above" option, but with winter lined up for the final encore. 

The intense area of early spring cold air is poised to get infused into an impressively deep jet stream trough in eastern North America. Lingering relative warmth underneath this trough on Saturday is going to create a dynamic and convective setup across interior New England with any sunshine triggering instability clouds and a mixture of rain and snow showers. Valley locations can expect sprinkles and an occasional mixed rain/snow shower while the high country above 2000 feet will see some occasional heavier snow showers. The setup is certainly convective enough to produce graupel, a northern New England staple in early spring resulting from these type of setups. The MRV is actually not well positioned for Saturday's precipitation with the wind direction more westerly (favoring areas such as Jay Peak) while a disturbance passing to our south focuses showers on southern New England. This will change on Sunday as winds become northwesterly and low level cold arrives from Canada. Snow showers will be intermittent in valley locations but more persistent and occasionally heavy over the Vermont high country. It's worth reiterating how absent this has been from our recent winter season. Most of our snow deficit this year can be attributed to the lack of instability and terrain enhancement and specifically the inability of the weather pattern to produce a setup conducive for such. Sunday into Monday will feature the best conditions of the season for the very type of snowfall we have been missing. Though a rather innocuous 1-2 inch accumulation on grass can be expected in valley locations Sunday, 3-6 inches of mostly powder can be expected above 2000 feet and this snow will continue Sunday night into early Monday. Snow totals can be tricky to predict in these instances as some areas can get luckier than others based on where individual snow bands setup and exactly how the wind is blowing, but 6-12 inches is my guess for the MRV high country as a two-day total by late in the day Monday. 

Clouds will begin to decrease by later in the day Monday setting us up for single digit temperatures Monday night and a better visibility day on Tuesday. Monday will feature temperatures mainly in the teens which is over 20 degrees below normal. The sunshine on Tuesday will help boost readings into the 20's but above-freezing temps should hold off until Wednesday and perhaps even Thursday above 3000 feet. Both milder air and rain will put this wintry encore to bed late on Thursday into Friday but a second encore is not out of the question in early April. A rather persistent ridging feature above the Yukon is responsible for some of this and there is evidence of some split flow in the jet stream which could help give rise to more storminess in the first few days of April.