Late week storm track shifts southward just a bit and snow potential takes a hit as a result

Got a few more days upcoming that are more typical of late March weather. Muddy roads freezing overnight only to becoming muddier roads the following day as temperatures climb yet again. This will be the case for both Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday appears to be the sunnier of the two days, Wednesday will have more clouds but both will feature temperatures well up in the 40's across valley locations and 30's in the high country.

The big story remains the late week storm. A weak push of colder air will try and advance into Vermont late Wednesday. A wave of low pressure associated with this cold nudge will allow some snow to enter the state Wednesday evening. Unless we can gain access the the chillier weather a little quicker, most of the snow associated with this will fall from Stowe northward Wednesday night into early Thursday with 3-5 inches likely toward Jay Peak. Mad River is probably looking at a gloppier inch or two above 2000 feet and mainly mixed precipitation across the valleys. The rest of Thursday should be mainly overcast as the storm gathers strength across Indiana and Ohio.

I've alluded to the notion that a lot could go wrong with this storm. We've got a strong blocking feature in the jet stream northeast of us, a limited supply of cold air and a potential early occlusion as potential road blocks and it appears, based on the last 24 hours or so of data, that all 3 will pose a problem. Though the storm will gather a healthy supply of convective moisture and take a hard run at the Midwest metropolitan areas, it will swerve right across PA as it encounters more of the blocking in the let stream. This would be fine by itself, but the storm is likely going to close off across the Midwest as well which will confine much of the snowfall to the east-southeastward moving upper low rather than allow the snow to advance northward into New England as it typically does. Though this is still a nice looking storm, the best snowfall is likely to occur across the states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania rather than Vermont. Still, the frontogenetics across the region aren't terrible and the airmass doesn't appear overwhelmingly dry. There have been instances where the models have grossly underpredicted the northward advance  of the moisture in similar situations. The easiest example would be the early March event from 2001 (one of the greatest snow events ever for the state) which also was powered by a very negative NAO. I am thus retaining a small amount of hope for this storm but the data over the last 24 hours was, needless to say, not encouraging. Given current model trends, this system is likely to mostly be a non event for all of northern New England and southern New England may not do much better.

All hope is not lost for big snow however (at least not yet). We didn't get the trend we were looking for on the March 2nd event but the data is a bit more promising regarding a potential midweek event next week (March 7th or thereabouts). This is a slow evolving jet amplification that will again close off a bit early across the Midwest. There's a bit more available cold air with this one however and since the occlusion is likely to occur so far north in the Upper Midwest, there will be an opportunity for east coast action as the upper low advances slowly toward the coast. Another situation with a large upside potential but shut-out potential as well.

There's been some chatter in the weather circles about the warm arctic and cold wave currently gripping Europe including pictures of snow in Rome (Not Rome, NY). This relates to much of what we've discussed about the overall pattern configuration early in March with colder temperatures favored at the mid-latitudes and warmer temperatures favored at the north pole. There is stronger evidence today that some split flow in the jet stream could produce some fun stuff as we approach the middle of the month  and at the very least should keep the snow falling across the western ski areas. The cold is expected to peak across the east coast immediately following the potential storm next week before waning somewhat after March 10th. Still no indications of extreme below normal temperatures but the first half of March should at least feature a consistent run of sub-freezing nights and temperatures struggling to reach 40 during the days.