It's not been a memorable first half of March in northern Vermont (at least for winter weather) and it ends with the worst kind of rain event. After a dreary day with 40-degree rain, Monday night features the real body blow with heavy rain, a big southerly wind gusting as high as 60 mph at the mountain summits, high dewpoints and a spike in temperatures that might take valley locations up to 60 degrees for a brief period. It's all over by Tuesday morning with about an inch of rain in total. Deeper snow would elevate the flood risk considerably, but we've already melted a large percentage of snow while freeing the rivers of most of the ice. Gusty winds persist through Tuesday with sharply colder and sub-freezing temperatures of about 20 degrees on the mountain. We've got the colder weather with us throughout the rest of the week though new snowfall appears minimal. Wednesday should feature sun and less wind followed by more clouds and a bit of wind for Thursday. Some light snow is likely Thursday as the mild air begins its efforts to push the cold away. Sun could make a limited return for Friday helping temperatures reach the 30's and that's about it.
The cold weather for the end of this week is only part of what is now a relatively wintry March outlook going forward. The big storm potential has seemed lacking, but has improved a bit in the past few cycles of modles. Widespread mild warmth has most certainly been the story for the lower part of the continent while Alaska is experiencing an unbelievably cold start to March with support coming from northeast Eurasia blocking. Chunks of this cold will get pushed southeast this week and we know about what's coming for the next few days. What we don't know is what happens this weekend as both milder and colder air push east simultaneously and fight for control of New England. The weather system is a hybrid clipper/Pacific type storm moving over the large, expansive western ridge. It get the help of some nice, late jet action and could eventually bomb out over the ocean. Models can't agree on what to do with this weather feature and several different scenarios appear to be on the table. That said, if we can move much of this weather southward by about 100-200 miles as the recent run of the Euro just did, expectations would quickly change. It's not a bad setup at jet stream level and is certainly capable of producing at least some snow even if it's just convective type snow showers. I would be surprised if we came out of the weekend with little to now snow on the mountains one way or another.
Next week is expected to feature cold weather to start and then gradually moderating temperatures as the week progresses. New England, much the like the winter, appears to be ground zero for the country's cold weather as milder temperatures continue to dominate the central and western parts of the United States. We should be able to spin up another storm late in the week and that happens as the cold is decaying somewhat. Models are split as to whether the cold totally gives it up or can we retain enough to produce an additional winter weather event or snowfall.. I would describe the teleconnection situation as fairly neutralized with help coming from a weakening jet in the Pacific while the AO and NAO indices remain negative.
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