Just a beautiful gentle early winter snow across the entire Mad River Valley on Tuesday. Hard to do better in a typically erratic part of the season and what's even better is that we've got cold locked into place through most of next week. Wednesday is a terrific day to enjoy Tuesday's fallen snow as well. We get some limited sunshine and temperature that mostly land in the 20's on the mountain and 30's in valley locations.
Arctic reinforcements arrive Thursday and with them come snow showers and snow squalls. There's a brief window Thursday afternoon when a burst of snow is likely to get intense, but the arriving airmass is a stable one and should quiet the convective snow shower activity Thursday evening. Expect 1-3 inches across the high country Thursday with an dusting to an inch down low. Thursday night turns very chilly with readings dropping to near zero Friday morning along with strong northwest winds. On Friday however, winds should diminish some and we will left with a cold but bluebird day more typical of the middle of winter. Readings on the mountain will struggle to reach the teens.
The weekend outlook does not consist of a ton of new accumulating snow. Saturday will feature clouds, temperatures in the 20's and perhaps a period of light snow with little accumulation. Sunday should feature more sun and it again turns colder with more arctic air entrenching itself over Vermont in preparation for the 2nd full week of the month. This period, the 8th through the 12th of the month looks solidly sub-freezing yet the outlook has turned drier from the vantage point of well-organized weather systems. Ensembles do suggest snowfall from multiple clipper systems right now though that type of outlook can evolve quickly as the period continues to get resolved by models.
The longer range is interesting since we have a really solid core of very cold early season arctic air over the North American continent. The teleconnections, led by the EPO (weak Pacific jet stream) are supportive and most indications are that they turn from favorable to neutral by around the 10th of the month. Clearly though, there are no indications that there is a mechanism in the jet stream that will force a continental type retreat of arctic air. The core of the cold might shift west for a period after the 10th, perhaps enough to allow for a 1-2 day Vermont thaw after next week though indications are it would be very short-lived. It's quite possible that we see no such thaw at our latitude and simply receive another round of decent snow. Again, relative to a typical early December weather situation, it's hard to take too much of an issue with any of this outlook.
