Though weather pattern flip is unlikely by the holiday, winter weather and snow is likely to make a return, at least in some form

 I can't provide any good news for the upcoming week except to reiterate what has already been discussed and amplify on a few themes. We can expect to see sunshine Monday, Tuesday, and parts of Wednesday and Thursday while most of our nights will stay sub-freezing. It will be mild Monday and then very mild late in the day Thursday, Thursday night and into Friday morning. Last I checked, it's pretty hard to blow a building down that hasn't even been built and I am of course speaking figuratively about our snowcover. If clouds do give way to sunshine and wind on Thursday, we could see temperatures approach 60 across low lying areas. If it stays cloudy, it will stay cooler much like it did Saturday but the mild air combined with wind will chew away at any existing snowcover man-made or not. Those snow-eating conditions will continue into Thursday night before cooler weather arrives during the day Friday. It's a very mild week overall but we've been anticipating this for a while and although a pattern flip still isn't imminent, the outlook continues to improve starting as early as the December 18th-19th weekend. 

There are a few important bullet points to keep in mind. 1) Climatology in late-December Vermont is quite different than early-December Vermont. Marginal patterns can be productive by late December. 2) The pattern doesn't look ideal but the weather pattern continues to look less and less unblocked by the winter solstice (sorry about the double negative there but trying to apply the most accurate adjectives). 3) The coldest weather in the northern hemisphere continues to be heavily focused on our continent, opening the door for arctic air to provide a much needed assist in this marginal overall weather pattern. 

The bottom line for the days leading up the holiday and beyond: The focus of the cold appears to be on western North America just as it did a few days ago but with the jet stream at high latitude looking more blocked, arctic air appears capable of being a significant player across northern Vermont. We will certainly need it given the continued presence of a ridge in the jet stream in the southeastern United States. The period beginning December 18th and extending through Christmas is likely to feature several chances for precipitation. Though we are unlikely to score victories for every potential event, we will be back in the game which is certainly a big improvement over the upcoming week where we will have "no game". Hopefully we all stayed dry today !