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Thursday, January 12, 2012

A few tweaks and a few more specifics but expectations haven't changed

The first area of precipitation brought 4-6 inches of snow, sleet and freezing drizzle to the northern Green Mountains. As expected, the evening and overnight hours should be relatively quiet although sporadic freezing drizzle could cause trouble on some of the roads. The second low pressure center is spinning its wheels across the Midwest and beginning to push east. It is a very dynamic system with some vigorous jet stream support as alluded to in previous posts. Temperatures in the lowest few thousand feet of the atmosphere, based on some cross sectional analysis will be a bit marginal during the early morning Friday so when precipitation re-commences in earnest between 5 and 7 am it might be more of a sleety rain. By 9 AM the lower troposphere will have destabilized significantly and we should see rain change to snow and temperatures to turn abruptly colder. Snow should continue through much of the day and could at times become heavy during the evening Friday. 6-12 inches of powder Friday and Friday night is a conservative estimate. I would not at all be surprised if we outperform. A lot of the NWS forecasts will be tailored to valley locations where accumulations will be substantially less. Right now for instance the NWS forecast for Washington County says 1-3 Friday with an 80 percent chance of snow Friday night.

Snow showers should continue into Saturday but it will be cold and windy. Wind should taper off somewhat Sunday and completely by Monday although temperatures will be wintry dropping well below zero overnight and only rising into the teens during the day.

There are a couple of more chances for snow both late in the week and next weekend before we may have to battle more adversity by the 23rd or so of the month. More on that in a subsequent update but for now go find some of that long awaited untracked powder !!

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