Opening Day incoming ! And it's always good to get that announcement before December 10th. Following a bluebird and very cold Friday, with temperatures on the mountain struggling to exceed 10, opening day Saturday should be more comfortable though cloudier as a disturbance well to our north eventually brings some very light snow our way. Don't expect much from this feature, maybe an inch by late Saturday evening. Arctic cold is then reinforced for Sunday, which has the possibility of featuring a period of sunshine. Wind speed should not be too much of an issue after some very cold wind chills early Friday. Winds will be out of the southwest on Saturday and will be a little gusty on the lifts along with temperatures in the 20's. Sunday will be the colder day but with less wind.
A little more clarity is starting to emerge for next week and mostly in a positive way in terms of how it makes the snowfall outlook appear. Sunday's cold intrusion will tighten its grip on the region Sunday night into Monday, producing a very chilly early December day Monday, our 2nd in 4 days. Once again, temperatures will struggle to reach 10 on the mountain after starting below zero. Any sub-zero is impressive this early in the season since it would happen before arctic typically reaches its peak winter intensity. There are at least 2 weather systems after a sunny day on Monday that could produce snow. A clipper system will bring clouds and some snowfall late on Tuesday and Tuesday night. This system should remain a clipper so this limits the upside potential on snow, but the system after that could evolve into something capable of being more significant. This would be in the time frame of Wednesday and Thursday when parts of eastern North America are set to receive a bit of milder air while Vermont hopefully remains on the snowy side of that equation. The end of next week is likely to conclude colder with the possibility of snow showers as the said colder air again reestablishes itself.
The longer range is interesting. One of the more important features will be a jet stream block expected to situate over the Chukchi and E Siberian Sea mostly west of the Bering Sea and Alaska. After neutralizing for a few days, the EPO should thus turn negative once again and allow cold air to dominate most of Canada. This above mentioned feature is far enough to the west however to favor cold in western over eastern North America, yet Vermont and much of interior New England sits a favorable location for colder air and additional snowfall. At no point does it look like the cold is forced into a major retreat across the continent and this is very encouraging. We should continue to see snow dot the forecast for the 2nd full weekend of the month and into the week beyond.
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