If you, as a casual weather enthusiast, appreciate the flare for the dramatic that Vermont possesses then please enjoy the transition to abruptly colder weather Wednesday evening. The mild, showery weather on Wednesday might even include a few rumbles of thunder. The cold front will pass in dramatic fashion, dropping temperatures over 10-degrees in a matter of minutes around 7 or 8 pm and 40 degrees in a span of 12 hours. Snow is also expected Wednesday evening over the mountains. I continue to think 2-4 inches for the high country that will get very wind blown by the start of the ski day when temperatures are in the single numbers. Some sunshine will try and squeeze its way through the very light wind blown snow showers on Thursday but I would continue to describe the day as very blustery and chilly with temperatures hovering in the low teens. It's quite a transition but my big picture concern is that this is the last legitimate intrusion of arctic air for several weeks and that snowfall will be confined to the wetter elevation sensitive type events in the middle or later part of March.
Friday's temperatures will recover nicely from single digit readings in the morning to 30-plus readings in the afternoons. Winds won't diminish entirely but will decrease somewhat combined with a healthy dose of sunshine. As temperatures continue to modify over the weekend, it was my hope that we could keep sunshine in place. We have a chance to do that early on Saturday though this jet stream ridge appears dirtier allowing clouds to quickly advance up the coast and ultimately blanking most of New England for at least the later part of Saturday and into Sunday. Temperatures on both weekend days appear likely to eclipse 40 on the mountain but disagreement has emerged for Sunday and into the early part of next week on the extent of mild weather covering northern New England. The Euro has begun to show a low level push cooler temperatures from Quebec confining temperatures to the 30's and 40's during the days while there continue to be other indications of 1-3 days of 50-plus temperatures next week. I am inclined to believe that the cooler outcome has some validity, but there continues to be high risk for another rain event of some sort on Wednesday or Thursday of next week. It also might not be the last wet weather we see in this mild early March regime as ensembles suggest more wet weather for the 2nd full weekend of the month. One theme I would like to hammer home though is the return of clouds which will dominate the outlook beginning this weekend and persisting for better part of the week that follows.
The return of a more favorable NAO, a neutralized AO and a gradually less angry Pacific support some semblance of normalcy to the Vermont weather picture for the middle of March. Like I mentioned though, arctic cold looks extremely bottled up over our continent, concentrating its focus on Alaska and the Yukon mostly. Snowfall is still possible but I would favor it over the higher elevations and when snow does fall, there will be concerns over snow consistency. A first such opportunity for an elevation style snow event appear to be around March 11th or 12th or about 12 or so days away. It will follow a lot of above freezing temperatures even with a cooler outlook next week.
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