48 hour thaw expected late this week while colder weather and snowfall potential are mostly confined to late February, after the holiday

I feel like this blog has inadvertently turned into marketing propaganda for ski areas across the west,  but speaking honestly, it's been a good snow year for them and a bad one for us. Telluride is reporting 170 inches of snow so far this season and Wolf Creek 250 (which is a lot even for them)but the upcoming week is expected to be the best of the season from there southward through Taos in New Mexico where multiple weather systems are expected to deposit 2 feet or more. Flagstaff enjoys a much different climate overall than a town like Warren or Waitsfield in Vermont but average seasonal snowfall is somewhat similar and that 8,000 foot town in Arizona is also expecting 1-2 feet of snow by Wednesday morning. I point all this out because whenever the jet stream because supportive of these types of snowfall totals across the southwestern United States, Vermont certainly becomes at risk for a thaw. It doesn't happen all the time since jet streams can split and the weather out there can operate totally independent of ours, but this happens to be a case their good fortune comes at our expense. 

With the exception of a few weeks, the pattern has been relentless in its support for milder temperatures across eastern North America but the stretch of warmth late this week will not be remembered with any affection. We saw a subfreezing overnight Sunday night into Monday morning and we can expect two more Monday and Tuesday nights before the extended thaw begins Wednesday during the day. An interesting little disturbance is expected to dive southward out of southeast Canada Monday evening and the prevailing flow does support a few inches of snow across our high country before the ski day on Tuesday. Temperatures profiles suggest this snow to be on the wetter side at most elevations, but above 3000 feet, those few inches are likely to be more powdery and those same highest elevations are also the most likely to stay below the freezing mark all day on Tuesday even as sunshine warms valley locations to 40 degrees. 

Clouds are expected to return for the thaw on Wednesday, but increasing winds out of the southwest will blow both milder temperatures and higher dewpoints in our direction. Readings will climb into the 40's at most elevations, enough to soften snow conditions on most of the mountain. We will manage to avoid most of the rain Wednesday and Thursday with precipitation limited to intermittent light rain Wednesday while mainly dry weather is expected Thursday. Unfortunately, Thursday will feature the combination of excessive temperatures (50's ! ), steady southwest winds and 40-plus dewpoints. This is then followed by a period of more steady and occasionally heavy rain (even a Thunderstorm) Thursday night/early  Friday before colder arrives Friday afternoon. We could see a few inches of snow accompanying the colder push of temperatures late on Friday but snowfall totals are unlikely to exceed 4 inches. 

There continues to be signs of a slight pattern realignment further out on the horizon, I'll explain more in the paragraph below, but the return of modified arctic air this weekend is expected to be short-lived with another big surge of milder temperatures expected for early next week. Models have gone back and forth on whether the core of this next excessive round of milder weather reaches Vermont on President's Day, Monday February 20th into Tuesday February 21st; in fact, model consensus has trended in the "not as warm" direction over the past 24 hours but the chances for significant snow are quite low. 

After the holiday period, there are clearer signs of a change. Interestingly the pattern continues to look unblocked at high latitudes and though the jet stream in the Pacific is expected to be weaker past the holiday, I would categorize it as neutral rather than favorable. The core of arctic cold across Canada will strengthen next week however and, according to an aggregation of ensembles data, push southward over the northern latitudes of the United States slowly. The milder temperatures are indicated to persist over the southeast for most of the rest of the month, but New England is expected to see temperatures return to normal by the 23rd or 24th of the month and below normal temperatures are indicated the last few days of the month. Storminess is indicated to persist for the last 7 days of the month giving Vermont a few cracks at natural snowfall before March.