Spring beginning to creep into the outlook over the next two weeks but pattern continues to support storminess through the end of the month

The recent bombed-out nor'easter once again managed to work itself into a hall of fame list of storms impacting the region between March 13-15. The 2-day plus snowfall of close to 35 inches actually outperformed some of the other great storms that have occurred over the last 30 years in this period, and like many of the other historic snows around here, involved a late-inning northward shift mainly involving the placement of the low pressure center. Some of the higher resolution data performed horribly with this event and a few model runs were close to completely shutting northern Vermont out of all the action early on Sunday.

 

As I was enjoying of the more epic days ever on the mountain, I am getting tweets, emails and even a text about the potential for rainfall or mixed precipitation on Friday. I really had no idea how excited everyone could be about rain, perhaps I should predict more of it ! But yes, we do actually have a tiny bit of wet weather to worry about. The rain is in fact not a big deal and it comes following a little bit of snow or mixed precipitation Friday morning (I am expecting less than a tenth of an inch). The bigger deal is the few hours of above freezing temperatures combined with higher dewpoints Friday afternoon. I don't think its too far fetched to think the upper mountain could avoid most of that and thus keep some of that new snow-softness in place for the colder weekend, but it is close and I do expect the lower elevations to make a run at 40 degrees Friday afternoon. Colder weather returns to the high country Saturday with temperatures remaining below the freezing mark in spite of some limited sunshine. Snow showers are then possible early Sunday, along with even colder temperatures mostly consisting of 20's on the mountain and near 30 in valley locations. Snow showers could yield a small accumulation of less than 3 inches.

 Beyond the weekend, it's looking somewhat like spring, but winter won't go down without a fight. The colder weekend weather will moderate for early next week and the Monday-Wednesday period should consist of at least some sunshine and slightly above freezing afternoons but well below-freezing overnights and mornings. A first real corn horn blowing could happen on one day late next week (Thursday or Friday), but there is a signal for some storminess around Saturday, March 25th that could feature any or all precipitation types and if that storm can't bring any new snow, we appear to have another chance for late-season action around the 27th or 28th. 

The big picture setup continues to feature a little bit of blocking in the Davis Strait while early spring storms are allowed to tunnel underneath, such as what was described in the above paragraph. I would not describe the pattern as overwhelmingly cold beyond the time of the spring equinox and one should begin to expect a lot of above freezing temperatures during the daytime when its not snowing simply because it's late March.