Evil empire will make getting some much needed new snow a challenge

I consider the 60 degree rise in temperatures, the ice and the rain to be a bit of a debauchery. Whenever you see temperatures of 20 to 25 below, you should earn some free powder simply from attrition. New England winter weather can be very unforgiving in that regard and as noteworthy as the weather has been for all its snow and cold across much of the country, MRG has done poorly in a relative sense and deserve some good fortune in the near future.

Cold weather will be back in command by Monday evening after the wet start to the day. This is the same, very powerful  arctic intrusion that will send temperatures across the midwest to their lowest lowest levels in a decade. In Vermont by contrast, the cold weather will be less intense than this past Friday, mainly because the core of the airmass took the scenic south of the Great Lakes and had a chance to modify before reaching New England. Still we should see readings between -5 and 15 Tuesday and Wednesday. There is a layer of marginal instability that will provide the platform for some terrain induced and champlain induced snows Tuesday. I expect a few much needed inches from this, enough to get us back in the wintry spirit.

So our need for fresh powder is certainly high but we will be going up against the "evil empire" for a few days as advertised previously. Pacific air will begin scouring the cold out of mid latitude North America later this week. It will take one or two weather systems to rid the northeast of the arctic cold. These are weak systems but they could actually bring interior New England some snow ahead of what we expect will be 1 or 2 pretty mild days around the 12th or 13th of the month. The first of these systems might bring a little snow Thursday night and accumulations should be pretty light. The second on Saturday will have limited amount of remaining cold air to work with, but perhaps just enough to bring some snow to the mountain or at worst mixed precipitation. If the evil empire is going to bring rain or 40-degree temperatures as mentioned, it is likely to happen between Sunday and Tuesday (12th-14th). I am holding out hope that the potential thaw is mitigated or eliminated which could happen if the potential east coast ridge gets flattened somewhat. It will be difficult chore to avert this entirely.

The good news is that the consensus of ensemble data eliminates the evil empire by allowing the Pacific jet to loosen toward the middle of January. The ridge in the eastern Pacific is actually pushed east into western North America and this allows a positive PNA pattern to emerge. We should see a return to more serious arctic chill and hopefully 1 or 2 decent winter storms between the 15th and 25th of the month.