Factoring in the winds, northern Vermont was quite easily the coldest place in the entire country on Wednesday with most places well below 10 on actual temperature. We beat northern Maine which remains stuck in a warm eddy, we beat northern Minnesota, which doesn't have the wind and Jackson, WY which is currently 1 degree above, is expected to warm to about 15 degrees before the end of the day. Hand us a trophy ! Snow was a bit lighter than Tuesday but is expected to increase in the intensity and accumulate another 3-6 inches in the period between Wednesday night and midnight Friday. With the wind which is expected to continue through much of the ski day Friday before subsiding, it will be difficult to get a sense of the accumulation. Snow that has already fallen will blow around and snow that is falling will blow around and the upper mountains will have a lot of drifting, but if you've braved the elements up there already, I am sure it's common knowledge.
The snow is expected to taper to flurries on Friday and the sun should make some appearances, helping to boost temperatures closer to the 20 degree mark. As I mentioned, we will have to contend with the wind for one more day so dress accordingly. Saturday, has two things going for us. 1) A break from the strong winds 2) Some snowfall. The latter comes from a decaying clipper system still capable of delivering a 2-5 inch snowfall, most of which will occur during the ski day.The sun should make another limited appearance on Sunday and both days should feature daytime temperatures in the lower 20's on the mountain.
The devastating fires in the Los Angeles area are a result of a brutal Santa Ana wind, a common byproduct of a pattern that favors cold weather in eastern North America and dry, stable weather across the west. The persistently negative EPO is the more important cause and there continues to be some evidence of more split flow after January 18th which would increases the chances of organized storminess after that. Until then, which constitutes the next 10 days, it will continue to be smaller disturbances and clipper systems that bring us snowfall. It appears we get a decent dose of the fluffy clipper-type snow in the Tuesday/Wednesday time frame and perhaps some warm-advection related snowfall later in the week. The warm advection type snow precedes a temporary push of milder air which could be part of a more major storm system for MLK weekend or not. The colder pattern does support a strong outbreak of arctic cold hitting around MLK day which could be the strongest of the season so far. Still a terrific January pattern overall.
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