Snow on Friday begins a beautiful stretch of winter weather that should extend through at least part of the Christmas holiday

Doesn't seem likely that Friday's storm turns into a coastal bomb, but the Green Mountains appear well situated to do about as good as anyone from our upcoming weather event. This storm has already bombed over the northern plains and it is expected to fully mature and occlude over the western Great Lakes by Thursday. Typically, this can spell trouble across New England, but it's the NAO to the rescue with low pressure expected to reform closer to the southeast coast on Thursday, strengthen and then proceed northeast bringing moisture into a widespread swatch of the Northeast. 

Meanwhile the cold dry air has managed to overperform across interior New England early this week allowing us to procure the first round of single digit temperatures this month Monday night. A storm spinning its way in the maritimes has failed to return moisture into western New England but has managed to suck the cloudiness and instability away from Vermont allowing for the bluebird weather. The dry air, will serve us well as moisture arrives Friday morning. We should see an all snow event beginning around daybreak and persisting at varying intensities through Friday evening. Coastal New England snow lovers have been showering love on the American GFS model because it indicates a track which would keep snow further south. I don't for a minute buy that however. We should see that model conform to the rest of model consensus which would keep the best snow and mostly powder snow at high elevations, over interior New England. Even the Champlain Valley which as recently as the weekend seemed earmarked for some rain, appears to be primarily snowier though their snowfall could still be a bit gloppier. As for us, I think this is a solid 10-14 inch event Friday and Friday evening with some additional snow possible later in the weekend which I will discuss below.

We should a break in the snowfall either early or through much of Saturday with some limited sunshine allowing temperatures to creep above the freezing mark in the valley locations though the high country should stay mostly in the 20's. The initial pool of jet stream energy associated with this storm will gradually move over Vermont Sunday into Monday allowing for elevation sensitive snow showers that should persist through Tuesday. I don't love the wind trajectory in this time frame for the MRV and would favor heftier accumulations in this time frame from Stowe and Smuggs northward to Jay Peak but we should be able to procure at least some additional snowfall in this time frame while temperatures remain generally in the 20's during the day. There is some activity in the southern branch of the jet stream to watch for the middle of the week, but there is a stronger signal for a significant storm around Friday December 23rd. A lot of the right ingredients are in place emphasized by a amplifying jet stream and a big surge of arctic chill in the middle part of the country. If nothing else, it sets up the Christmas holiday beautifully with wintry conditions locked in place through at least the 28th of the month. 

There is a beautiful upstream block in the jet stream expected to form north of the Bering Sea. This would correlate to a very intense outbreak of arctic cold across the western two thirds of North America with a burst of intense cold expected for the Christmas holiday along the eastern seaboard. There are indications that the surge of cold would abate somewhat after the 26th but with some remnants of this pattern remaining in place up until New Years. This is the best looking Christmas setup since maybe 2005 which goes back 17 years ! Almost as old as the blog.