It's March 13th, do you know where your big storm is ? In the case of 2018, about 100 miles southeast of Cape Cod as of midday Tuesday, moving methodically north-northeast. As expected, the storm will turn northward, passing over Nova Scotia/New Brunswick and get hung up a across the Maritimes. Though the southern part of Vermont will see some intense snowfall rates for a time on Tuesday, much of the state will miss the most intense snow bands; instead, seeing mostly steady but lighter snow throughout the afternoon and evening. Nonetheless, northern Vermont appears to be the pivot point (or pivot line) for some of the best moisture as the storm slows its forward progress on Wednesday. Though snowfall rates are not expected to be intense, they will be continuous over the high country, especially from Sugarbush northward and persist through Wednesday, Wednesday night and into Thursday before tapering to flurries sometime during the day. This is an awesome set up for the high country in northern Vermont which should perform exceptionally well particularly Wednesday and Wednesday night with the added effects of upslope . Here is a breakdown of expected snow totals for the aforementioned high elevations.
Tuesday: 5-7" (More in southern Vermont)
Tuesday Night: 3-6"
Wednesday: 4-8" (More in far northern Vermont)
Wednesday Night: 3-6" (More in far northern Vermont)
Thursday: 1-3" (More in far northern Vermont
Total Snow over 3 days: 16-30 inches
Temperatures will remain in the lower and middle 20's through (Thursday) along with rather stiff northwest winds though nothing especially intense. The snowfall will have more of a convective element to it on Wednesday/Wednesday Night into Thursday bringing the fluff factor into play and making it some of the best powder of the year to ski in.
The forecast for Friday and into the weekend and chilled down quite dramatically which eliminates any idea of thawing this weekend. Medium range models basically missed a fairly significant impulse which will help reenforce the eastern trough this weekend and actually bring the first significant round of below normal temperatures to the region in quite some time (The month as a whole is still 5 above normal from a temperature standpoint). Flurries and a few snow showers will also continue on Friday, subside somewhat Saturday and Sunday though remain possible. What a dramatic turn on temperatures though. Teens for lows and 20's for highs on the mountain accompanied by wind chill. Quite wintry indeed.
This wintry theme will continue into early next week. Monday appears dry with temperatures as low as the single numbers during the morning and 20's during the afternoon. Another jet amplification is still indicated for the Tuesday-Wednesday time frame although the colder change in the forecast has also corresponded with a storm track that appears farther south. In spite of this, the possibility of a major east coast storm remains and situation will bear watching for several days especially given the reemergence of blocking in the jet stream across Greenland and the Davis Strait.
Much of this blocking is expected to continue through next week before subsiding by March 24th or so. The substantially negative Arctic Oscillation which has largely been responsible for the southward shifted storm track this month is also expected to subside. Looseness in the Pacific Jet is expected to continue however and should allow colder temperatures to continue to prevail across much of the mid-latitudes of North America through most of the rest of March.
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