Winter tightens its grip on Vermont over the next week with more wind and several days featuring at least light snowfall

Sub-freezing temperatures have been plastered all over our faces by ferocious winds over the past two days and similar to what was mentioned in the last update there's more where that came from thanks to storminess that is caught up near the Labrador Sea coastline. The setup brings some intriguing possibilities next week and it's gotten to the point where I am excited to see how and what transpires. 

A disturbance brought some snowfall to the Mid Atlantic states Friday and this helped clear the skies over northern Vermont though it was a very windy bluebird day. Weekend weather also looks windy, but not as much as the past two days. We make up for this with more clouds and colder temperatures with readings that should hover in the low to middle teens on the mountain and closer to 20 in valley areas. Limited moisture and the favorable flow should allow for some snowfall throughout both days and late Saturday into Saturday night appears to be the favored time slot for a 2-5 inch accumulation, mainly across the high country. We should expect some clearing late Sunday though I am not sure it arrives before the end of the ski day. 

The storm system on Monday appears to be a well organized system and has some moisture. Unfortunately, in this setup, its doinking off the right upright and out into the ocean, an unusual outcome and one that results from the closed area of storminess downstream that will prevent any northward turn. We will get another dose of sunshine out of the whole deal with good visibility on Monday. We can still expect some wind Monday though the subsequent days will be gustier.

Once the Washignton DC snow producing system departs, the door will come open and I hope the party begins. The storminess is expected to linger in eastern Canada allowing the relative warmth there to linger, clashing with much colder air over the frozen western portion of the Hudson Bay. A disorganized conveyor of moisture and snowfall is predicted to develop from all this and begin to drip into southern Quebec and northern New England as early as Tuesday. We have the perfect flow setup for this with north to northwest winds not only blowing this moisture toward us, but also enhancing the impact because of the Lake Champlain thermals. As we get closer, stability parameters might help us predict how heavy the snowfall could become though its quite possible its just moisture from the stalled out storm and not related to stability. Regardless, continuous snow is possible for Tuesday through Thursday and a period of heavier snow is being hinted at Wednesday night into Thursday. Expect strong winds and temperatures not far from 10 degrees while this is all going on which is less treacherous snow to drive in, but could really hamper visibility as wind blows the cold smoke all over the roads and highways.

The weather map finally evolves enough to offer a respite from the wind by the weekend of the 11th and 12th. We could see some snowfall from a clipper system if it comes at us in the right way. Mostly however, if will feel a lot more comfortable thanks to the lower wind speed and temperatures potentially 10 degrees warmer. 

Generally favorable setup remains in place through the start of MLK Day but ensembles on Friday are showing a temporary loss in teleconnection support around Jan 13-15 thanks mostly to a surge in AO values. A supportive NAO is helping to keep the upper air signal cool throughout the period and a nearly neutral EPO is expected to turn negative for MLK weekend. It all adds up to a less cold but continued wintry mid January outlook. The big synoptic storm appears elusive for the next 10 days and after that we could see some snowfall potential begin to emerge along those lines.

Snow Thursday, light snow this weekend and a lot of windy days thanks to a unique looking weather map

Snowfall early New Year's Day was underwhelming and might have served as decent foundation material had we received more of it. The corridor from Randolph north to Northfield seemed to fare better, scoring closer to 4 inches of the same dense mash that Mad River Glen got. The backend moist conveyor is finally delivering fluffier snowfall as temperatures continue to cool across the entire Green Mountain Spine.  Cooler temperatures have actually arrived in southern Vermont first, wrapping around the very mature cyclone now to our northeast. Snow will be enhanced by the unfrozen Lake Champlain and we should to well Thursday with temperatures in the 20's and 4-8 inches of new snow, 3-6 of which falls before the ski day and another 1-3 during. With the storm hovering over us much of New Year's Day, we managed to avoid the stronger wind gusts, but expect conditions to be very windy both Thursday and Friday with west-northwest winds gusting as higher than 50 mph at the summits. Higher resolution models do have the snowfall shifting northward Thursday night and Friday though some more sporadic snow showers should continue along with steady temperatures now mainly in the teens on the mountain and 20's in valley locations. Winds will remain strong through the weekend though not quite like Thursday, some light snowfall should be expected with a light accumulations one or both days and temperatures remaining in the teens and single numbers. Obviously wind chill temperatures will be much lower.

The forecast over the coming 10 days appears drier in the sense that models have been suppressing the impact of organized storminess to more southern areas of the eastern United States. The presence of the polar jet in January certainly has the propensity to do that. One weaker disturbance passing over the Mid-Atlantic on Friday is contributing to a less snowy outlook on January 3rd (for us) and the storm threat on January 6 also appears to be confined Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and perhaps the NYC metro and will have the impact making our outlook drier and likely sunnier early next week. All that said, the weather map appears uniquely intriguing and this is partially driven by the partially unfrozen Hudson Bay, and eastern Great Lakes. The current storm system is expected to pinwheel around eastern Canada for days and a fetch of moisture is indicated to drip southward toward northern New England next week. Hard to predict if substantial snow materializes from all this, but if it were it to happen, it's most likely during the middle of the week after the east coast storm (to our south) departs and before the approach of a late week clipper system. I might add that we can expect the wind to continue throughout much of next week thanks to this peculiar weather maps. Temperatures are likely to hover in the low teens on the mountain most of the time with the with wind and cloudiness limiting the temperature range between day and night. 

Cold outlook remains in place well beyond next week and the clipper system I alluded to is likely to bring a reinforcing blast of cold to much of the eastern United States by January 11th. The low pressure spinning in eastern Canada appears caught in a giant spider web thanks to this weather pattern. As the pattern evolves and the cold continues, the negative NAO or downstream jet stream blocking is driving this and appears to be limiting storm opportunities at least in model world. One thing I can safely say is that the risk of the rogue thaw has dropped for the first 3 weeks of January and the two inches of glop New Year's morning is likely to remain in place for MLK weekend.