Storm after Christmas is most likely to start wet but could still finish snowy while pattern to start 2024 looks promising

Happy winter solstice folks ! Nice to be able celebrate the occasion with some bright sunshine, something we should be able to do again on Friday, a chilly day embedded within our current mild weather pattern. Most of the North American continent with the exception of Alaska has gotten in on the mild air and much of central Canada can expect an unusually mild Christmas next few days as above freezing temperatures surge northward deep into the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontarios. Vermont will get milder as well beginning with some 30 degree readings on Saturday afternoon and upwards of close to 40 on Sunday, Christmas Eve. Cloudiness associated with this warmer push of temperatures is expected to advance into the region for the weekend and some light snow or mixed precipitation is expected to make it as far as western and central NY late Saturday but is not indicated to advance eastward from there. Thus, the dry forecast through Christmas day (and even beyond) continues to hold and so does the mild weather with temperatures expected to reach the mid 40's both on the 25th and Tuesday the 26th. 

The latest on the potential storm for next week is this. We remain in search of our lost cold because there's very little to be found in Canada. The track of next week's storm looks promising, but the cold is in such short supply across Quebec as low pressure approaches from the south and west, that a first chapter in the story of this storm appears to be rain. The wet weather would arrive would arrive late on Tuesday or on Wednesday December 27th and persist for several hours. As this is happening the jet stream will be undergoing a bit of a realignment and this will allow allow chillier air to move southward, giving the storm in question a potential infusion of much needed cold before it slowly departs. Lots of questions remain unanswered, but our hope is that a 2nd chapter in this story could be a snowier one late in the holiday week. The storm appears to be moving slow enough for this to be a reasonable possibility, especially over the high country though we need a few things to fall into place. The IPhone is telling me rain for the Thursday/Friday time frame (28th and 29th) and I don't think this paints a complete picture of the various possibilities. 

I really like the outlook for the New Years holiday into the early part of 2024 though I am surprised at the amount of social media weather personalities are talking up the cold. The pattern does support "colder" outcome than the mild December we are experiencing but there is no indication that the polar vortex is gearing up for a major assault on the midwest or northeastern United States through the first week of January. This is actually a good thing for Vermont snow lovers because the combination of just normalized temperatures and the split flow regime setting up across western North America is fantastic for big storm potential. It is more likely we are confined to lighter snowfall amounts for the New Year's holiday weekend along with the seasonable day time temperatures, but I would certainly expect talk of something bigger to enhance as we advance a few days into 2024.