A turnaround for the ages as 1-2 feet now expected for the high country by late Monday

It has been one of the more astounding turnabouts I can remember and it certainly had me fooled. What looked like a completely miserable weather situation to start the 2nd full week of December, consisting rain and a major melt off has almost completely turned around. Using baseball parlance, this is analogous to being down 8 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning and scoring 9, culminating in a walk-off grand slam. It's that miraculous, but you can never say never with weather, as I managed to do the other day. 

I spent some time looking at this remarkable storm and I think current our El Nino has an outsized role in this rapidly changing weather picture and the poor performance of medium range model data in handling it. I suppose that much of Sunday's weather will occur as advertised with both mild weather and some rain which could begin lightly during the morning but enhance later in the ski day as temperatures rise into the 40's. Both the rain and mild weather is hardly a headlining act with this winter storm and even the flooding threat which appeared legitimate as recently as Friday has mostly been eliminated for Vermont and moved to southern and eastern New England early Monday. The initial storm system that is tracking well into Canada could have flooded the region with mild air, but by midday Sunday a new low pressure center will be taking shape in the piedmont areas of Virginia and North Carolina. This storm will explode late Sunday, quickly consuming and consolidating surrounding available energy, rendering the low pressure area to our north insignificant and creating a dynamic weather situation for the entire east coast late Sunday into Monday. 

Temperatures across the MRV will already be cooling down as the rain continues to fall Sunday evening and by around midnight a changeover the snow will commence. About a half inch of rain is now expected to fall, though much of it will have fallen with temperatures in the 30's and the snowpack on the upper mountain will only get a bit dented and certainly not destroyed. And then it gets fun. The snow becomes heavy during the pre-dawn hours Monday, potentially very heavy for a time as the storm cranks into high gear and tracks just west of Boston. The track of this low pressure center is certainly close enough to Vermont to allow some sleet to mix with the snowfall and hold accumulations down somewhat, but we appear to be in a pretty good spot overall. Areas of southern and eastern New England could experience problems with high winds, flooding rain and even thunderstorms but Vermont looks positioned to steer clear of most of that though winds are expected to get blustery out of the northwest Monday. Speaking of that northwest wind, this will allow the snowfall to continue through much of Monday as Lake Champlain enhances lingering moisture over the mountains. The snow consistency will be dense Monday morning but powdery throughout the day Monday and it would be fluffy were it not for the gusty winds. Total accumulations will be in the 1-2 foot range by late in the day Monday with a 6-12 inch storm total more likely in valley locations. 

We'll have a few wintry days to enjoy this during the upcoming week with some light snow likely late Tuesday into Wednesday. Temperatures are not expected to make a run at the freezing mark until Friday.   Longer range weather picture still looks similar (not very cold, but storm potential remains) and I'll have an update on that in a few days.