Dry weather prevails through Sunday, but big storm "potential" has emerged for early next week

Temperatures across the Vermont high country have remained below the freezing mark for most of this early part of March although that runs in accordance with our climatology. An abundance of clouds has actually prevented temperatures at night from dropping and interior New England has thus remained enveloped by above average warmth, at least until Tuesday. Though we managed to pull some moisture southward out of Canada Tuesday, most of the accumulating snow was confined to mountainous regions north of us including Stowe and Jay Peak and we can now with confidence extend the dry period through the weekend. There are a couple of storms worth our attention, but this first system, which will push eastward through the Midwest on Friday, is a digger and will ultimately intensify off the coast, well south of Long Island. Portions of the Mid-Atlantic that have seen in some cases, less than an inch of snow this season will finally get some late on Friday, but as the storm consolidates off the coast, it will suck much of the moisture and cloudiness southward out of Vermont. The result for northern Vermont is dry weather and I think more sunshine than what is currently being predicted in a few of the forecasts I've seen. Saturday in particular should feature healthy amounts of sun and the entire period from Thursday through the weekend will see temperatures remaining below the freezing mark except in valley areas and only in the afternoons. On Sunday, clouds from the next storm system may begin to move into the region though as of now, it looks dry. 

Almost 30 years ago, we made a good run at meteorological perfection when a massive storm organized along the Gulf Coast and proceeded to intensify and move up the eastern seaboard. The storm produced a historic storm surge over parts of the west coast of Florida and blanketed the east coast in deep snow from Alabama through New England. In the 30 years since that event, Vermont seems to have made it a tradition to be on the receiving end of some lesser but very respectable storms in this time frame. The Ides of March storm in 2017 came close in some ways to rivaling the 1993 event while many others have been lesser storms, but still produced some epic snow results. I am again hopeful that we can honor this tradition and procure yet another big snowfall and there are indications that it's possible. We have seen several operational runs of both the Canadian GEM and European ECMWF model simulate some amazing results for interior New England, showing a storm going "bombs away" off the New Jersey coast on Monday, March 13th and subsequently slowing in speed as the system reaches full maturation somewhere closer to home. This is how you make for an epic week for the entirety of Vermont ski country and this is certainly a viable result. This herd of cattle is not yet into our ranch however and we simply don't yet have the hard evidence to lock this sucker in.  The American model, run 4 times a day, has yet to simulate a big snow for interior New England over the past 72 hours though it does seem to be moving in the right direction as of March 8th. Operational simulations of the European model have been occasionally dream-like for Vermont but the accompanying ensemble aggregation has been tepid and has been showing a storm remaining east of Cape Cod though certainly close enough to garner a lot of interest. The Canadian GEM and its accompanying ensembles have been the most supportive and I certainly hope we see a consensus of model data move in this direction in the coming days. I do expect the American modeling to become more bullish on a storm soon, but I am really hoping for more support from the ECMWF ensemble and a westward shift in the track. Plenty of time remains in the forecast window for adjustments and we should expect a bunch before early next week.

The coldest part of this weather pattern should impact eastern North America in the wake of this potential storm and should impact New England regardless of the Monday/Tuesday result on Wednesday and Thursday. This is basically ensuring that the entirety of next week remains sub-freezing on the mountain. Following Thursday March 16th, the cold weather appears to soften at least over New England and I would expect we start to mix in some 40-degree temperatures on sunnier afternoons. That said, storminess is indicated to remain so sunnier afternoons may be somewhat limited through the Spring  Equinox and the weather pattern continues to favor snow as a likely precipitation type. 

The large snowfall range I included in the 7-day expected snow total reflects the uncertainty regarding next week's event. 5 to 40 inches seems like I am punting, but I am merely conveying both the storm potential and the possibility that a large part of this will miss us. Hopefully, we can narrow this down a bit by Friday.