Excessive mild weather ends Wednesday and pattern to support gradual improvements perhaps beginning late this week

Happy New Year everyone ! Hopefully everyone had a good holiday and if the mild, rainy weather has you down and out I am here to reassure you that better times are ahead. And no I am not a therapy blogger, I don't just say that for the sake of making people feel better, I am actually quite hopeful and optimistic about how the rest of this winter will ultimately play out. We will need some patience and I would certainly recommend that you consider the next few days a sunk cost as far as weather goes, but after that we should see some gradual improvements and I consider the chances for another big snow better than average after January 10th while the chances for at least some snow have improved even before January 10th.

I expect that we successfully sneak below the freezing mark both Sunday and Monday night and I would hope that we can at least end our holiday period with a few hours of sun during the day Monday which is posssible. The mild stretch will continue however through Wednesday with readings again soaring into the 50's on that dreaded southwest wind. The approaching weather system on Wednesday is not expected to bring a ton of rain to interior New England but we won't stay dry either with sporadic wet weather throughout the day. And then it actually gets a little interesting. Though the pattern supports and has supported a very extended stretch of mild weather in eastern Canada, there is just enough available cold later in the week to spice up the weather forecast across Vermont. Winds will become northerly Wednesday evening allowing for a low level push of cold to envelop northern Vermont and eventually temperatures profiles will support a period of snowfall on Thursday. The question relates to available moisture and the evolution of this sagging area of low pressure which is eventually expected to reposition itself and strengthen southeast of Long Island. There have been indications of a corridor of snow with this on Thursday and other indications that the storm may have a second life on Friday and deliver more snowfall for portions of the northeast though we have yet to establish a consensus on where that might be or even if that will happen at all. At the very least, the door is open to a few interesting possibilities late this week and I put our chances for a few inches of snow better than 50 percent while our chances for 6 inches of snow (or more) at roughly 25 percent. 

 As I mentioned, much of eastern Canada along with the U.S. portion of North America has gotten a torch to finish 2022 and to start 2023. Much of Canada is expected to remain on the mild side through this week and next with the core of the warmth shifting westward over time while some storminess undercuts the ridging across the United States. Arctic air across North America will be very limited for the first two weeks of January but the pattern, specifically the mildly negative AO and the ridging expected to establish itself across western North America and weaker version north of Siberia should allow arctic air to slowly spill southward into North America and Vermont as the month progresses. It will be very mild this upcoming week (in spite of the cooler and possibly snowier late week forecast), it will continue to be mild next week relative to average but not excessive enough to allow for a major thaw. After Friday, the forecast does appear somewhat dry or at least free of major precipitation producers, but the pattern supports storminess, perhaps in a very significant way as next week concludes. 

So why would I be optimistic about the rest of January ? Well, I actually prefer a January pattern not overwhelmed with arctic cold as those setups have a propensity to suppress storms and stabilize and mitigate the more convective forms of snowfall that tend to congregate around the mountain. The upcoming pattern however after Wednesday, though  not arctic for a time, is not unfavorable with no glaring teleconnection index beating us down. Meanwhile the AO will support a slow reemergence of arctic chill and most importantly, we have some positive energy in the Pacific with a negative EPO supporting a more split flow setup rather than the angry energy that drives arctic air off the continent.