Big March 13-14 storm should bring MRG modest amounts of new snow though heaviest is indicated to be south of us though this could change

 We are getting a better and more conclusive glimpse of what lies before us early next week and I am feeling pretty certain this storm turns into a very high impact late winter season snow, wind, coastal flooding and power outage event for a broad area of the northeast. It's the kind of storm that earns front page headlines, and will dominate the airtime on local newscasts beginning this weekend. It's a tougher forecast for us and I'll explain why, but the scenarios that have us getting shut out have been eliminated and we should wind up with a decent result by the middle of the week even if we fall outside the bullseye area. In the meantime we still have a tranquil dry weekend ahead and my Iphone is still telling me clouds for Saturday and I continue to think we see a decent amount of sunshine, especially late in the day which I think might go totally blue (let's see who ends up being right). Following a clear, and chilly Saturday night, sunshine early on Sunday will boost temperatures toward the freezing mark on the mountain by the afternoon when clouds from our incoming storm begin to push into the area. 

A disorganized low pressure conglomeration stretching from Minnesota to Georgia might suggest some weather is coming on Sunday, but the big storm will have yet to take shape. That starts to happen Monday morning with low pressure consolidating just east or over Cape Hatteras, NC. As jet energy over the midwest amplifies the jet stream, it will set the stage for a big coastal detonation Monday and its "bombs away". We've certainly narrowed the outcomes from here, but the track, speed and timing of the aforementioned detonation is very critical to the eventual outcome. Bombing storms spend some time defying the prevailing movement of the jet stream and this storm appears to be offshore but will make slight and brief northwest turn and is indicated to position itself over the western end of Cape Cod just as it reaches full maturation. From there the occluded storm is indicated to push eastward, out over the ocean. 

This consensus isn't etched in stone quite yet and subsequent model runs will be needed to provide more clarity and fine tune the outlook.  Given that it's the month of March, I can use a basketball analogy when describing bombing systems and how they like to establish a pivot foot when it comes to the conveyor of heaviest snowfall. The area around that "pivot point" is where one can expect the most intense snowfall rates and amounts and the latest data shows this area to be both south and west of most of Vermont extending from an area around the Berkshires south and west through the Catskills and into the northeast PA. The "pivoting" process in a maturing cyclone such as this one also means that the heaviest snow shifts from an area in front of the storm to an area more in the rear of the storm. Southern Vermont is indicated to be on the fringe of this area and northern Vermont is currently indicated to be out of this area. Still, the outcome is pretty good with snowfall arriving Monday evening and then periods of indicated through Tuesday into early Wednesday. Squeezing a foot of snow out of this current scenario is very plausible but less likely as one moves north to Stowe and Jay Peak. Having said all that, this critical "pivoting" area could easily shift north and we've seen this happen so many times with storms such as this one, which is a late bloomer or others such as the December 2020 event (we missed 30 inches by 40 miles) and most famously the March 2001 event when partly cloudy turned into 50-plus inches. So I would continue to expect changes and for the forecast to evolve moving forward. I will also stress again that this is a high impact event, like so many others that have occurred around this date and heavy snowfall in southern New England along with wind could mean widespread power outages along with the fact that when heavy wet snow accumulates on the roads, it's particularly difficult to drive in.

The storm and the more amplified pattern associated with the storm will ensure sub-freezing temperatures across the high country through early Thursday but forecast has moved in a warmer direction late next week and around St Patrick's Day in particular. Seems at least possible we will sneak a spring-like afternoon into our weather picture in the period between the 16th and 18th before more colder weather arrives by March 19th and extends through the Spring Equinox. There's also some storminess shown to accompany the push of colder temperatures over the weekend of the 18th and 19th and the warmer weather does increase the chances for something other than snow to fall though more accumulating snow is also possible, especially Sunday.