Yeah its warm and rainy, but winter ain't done

After a bit of a hiatus, I am back. Long breaks from blogging can either mean bad news that I would choose not to report or I was simply too busy. Fortunately in this case it's the latter, even though our once thought to be storm turned out be a dud and Tuesday's weather consists of rain and above-freezing temperatures. After the rain however, winter will make a quick return. We will see some terrain enhanced snow showers return to MRG beginning Wednesday and this activity will enhance Wednesday night into early Thursday. We probably won't see much from the snow showers, maybe a light accumulation of a few inches but I suspect this will not be the end of the snow. 

There are essentially two decent shots of accumulating snow over the next 10 days or so. The first comes from a clipper system, a potent one actually, that will quickly track across the northern tier of the U.S. Friday into Saturday. Snowfall from clippers hinge on the track of these often quick moving systems. Often times it is a narrow area of decent snowfall but if the storm tracks through the central Great Lakes into southern New England Saturday as current model guidance suggests, Mad River Glen and the surrounding Green Mountains will be in the sweet spot for what could be a nice Saturday 4-8 inch fluffy snowfall. A 100-mile change in the expected track of this system could of course change the snowfall outcome. In the meantime temperatures will for the most part remain below freezing through the weekend starting Wednesday. 

The weather next week could be worthy of much more discussion and speculation. The weekend clipper will bring a potentially strong shot of March arctic chill into New England and this airmass will be firmly in place in front of a powerful storm system that will approach early next week. This storm will begin its track across the country over the Pacific Northwest, dive into the southern Rockies and then track from there into the Midwest by Monday the 18th. Uncertainty relates to how the storm will progress from that point and where it is in its maturation. There are many fine looking ingredients however for a big post St Patty's day dump. We have had a few such chances this year with a few panning out and others falling flat. We have to look at next week as another such chance but a good one as of now.