No good news regarding weekend storm but next week does look better

Winter-like temps are ready to or have already (depending on when you read this update) returned to the MRV. We didn't receive a tremendous amount of rain but it certainly got quite mild and that was accompanied by a rather persistent southwesterly wind. Snowpack across the state took the expected hit and we will have to wait several days for significant amounts of natural snow to return. To put it plainly, this is simply a bad week for Vermont skiing but somewhat par for the course if one is to look at it from a December inVermont climatology perspective. That same perspective would also suggest that the weather failures of the current week would rid our system of such occurrences for the rest of the month. Time will tell if that is the case. As of know, the early look at Xmas week is mixed and could go in either direction.

I don't have any good news regarding the weekend. An entirely disappointing looking storm to say the least. Of particular frustration relates to the track of this potent, sub-tropical originating system, which appears destined to track somewhere over eastern New England (this is usually very good for us). The eventual track will certainly have an impact on where temperatures end up on Saturday but precipitation type will be predominantly rain. Perhaps if a similar storm should impact the region several weeks from we would see a more snowy result but the early maturation of this storm and the lack of a fresh supply of cold air will allow the still relatively warm Atlantic Ocean air to advance well into interior New England. We need to shave about 2 or 3 degrees off the entire lowest mile of the atmosphere to make to make the situation more interesting but that appears unlikely at this point. Rain or some freezing rain is likely to arrive in the morning on Saturday and continue for much of the day, possibly getting quite heavy for a time before abating sometime during the evening. Temperatures should hold steady Saturday in the middle to high 30's. There is a healthy cold pool of air associated with this system which will allow snow showers to return Sunday to the high country of Vermont along with gusty winds. Wind direction suggests the highest amounts of accumulating snow will be across the far north and maybe 1-3 inches at MRG.

The news does get better after that however. There is more activity in the southern branch of the jet stream next week and another storm appears likely to follow Saturday's only this one is likely to take a more favorable track and have more cold air to work with. I don't want to get folks too excited about this right now with models indicating varying results and rather strongly suggest, as of now, that the storm will remain at least slightly out of phase with some incoming polar energy during the middle of the week. At the very least however, there does appear to be some storm/snowfall potential Tuesday into Wednesday of next week. Much of the entire week should also see predominantly sub-freezing temperatures although it might be a little premature to say that definitively.

The Christmas holiday outlook as of now appears mixed as mentioned. There continue to be indications of a strengthening jet stream in the Pacific quantified by a positive EPO. A warm signal is being indicated for a time across much of eastern North America in the days just prior to Christmas. That being said, that Pacific jet stream is expected to fall short of  "evil empire" standards and the pattern is expected to remain stormy enough, particularly the southern branch of the stream, to keep the weather picture interesting. One thing we are unlikely to see for the rest of 2019 is a massive intrusion of intense arctic cold. The cold we do see will be much like the next few days - shortlived and isolated to the northern latitudes of the United States and not especially intense.