Holes in what's left of my reason
Holes in the knees of my blues
Odds against me been increasin'
But I'll pull through
Never could read no road map
And I don't know what the weather might do
But hear that witch wind whinin'
See that dog star shinin'
I've got that feelin' there's no time to lose
No time to lose
Wonderful tune Saint of Circumstance that Bob wrote with John Perry Barlow usually attached in live performances with Lost Sailor. I can't swear an allegiance to the part where Bob sings repetitively about the "rain falling down" and fortunately I don't see any of that in this outlook. Though we salvaged the weekend and certainly avoided a worst case meltdown, we didn't get the snow I had hoped for Sunday morning or Sunday night. All that said, we've got some good news this week with the snow situation. Models have been shifting so rapidly and doing so daily that it's pretty difficult to pin the forecast down entirely. You have to operate like additional changes are inevitable.
Though it god colder and more January like to start this week, we don't have the help of arctic air and have some milder days ahead before the excitement begins. Southwest flow begins to develop Tuesday pushing temperatures in the valley areas above the freezing mark and making for a comfortable ski day on the mountains. Breaks in the overcast are more likely in the morning and midday period and some light snow can be expected in the evening. Models do indicate an accumulation by early Wednesday, but man I hate getting too excited about southwest flow type snow. Let's just call it less than 2 inches and probably of a wetter consistency since temperatures are expected to hover around the freezing mark for much of Tuesday night. On Wednesday we have another day of southwest flow, a mini torch with readings up around 40 in the valley. Clouds should prevent temperatures from getting too excessive and models aren't showing high winds which is positive.
The somewhat mild air hits us ahead of a major and very interesting jet amplification. Models have had a very difficult time sorting out what the weather might do as a result of this jet stream event. For a couple of days, there were indications of a major coastal system and just some limited snowfall for northern Vermont. In the last day or so, models have backed off on the notion of a big city snow and are considerably more bullish snow for us. Just a simple question as how the storm in question intensifies and specifically the speed of that intensification. Some caution is advised and this is related to all the changes I made mention of above. That said, simulations in the last 24 hours are converging on low pressure developing over eastern New England very early Thursday with an enhancing area of snow in New York state moving over us early in the day. That area of snowfall is indicated to intensify and power us to what could be our heaviest single day of accumulation this season. The winds are just aligned perfectly for some Lake Champlain help and my biggest concern is just another small shift in how this all might evolve so please make note of that. From the standpoint of potential though, this most certainly could bring us a foot of snow mostly during the day and into the evening Thursday. The Friday ski day might have some new snow on the ground, but none is expected during the day, just a standard blustery and pretty normal January day with temps in the teens to near 20.
The excitement doesn't stop there as models suggesting this east coast trough gets reinforced by another potent jet stream impulse. New snow is likely both weekend days with the potential for a more significant accumulation Sunday. The polar jet is involved with this 2nd potential event which means more changes to the forecast are almost inevitable. Mostly, its just trying to gain some clarity on the type of weather event we are dealing with. Can we spin up a big time Miller A type storm that gets everyone including the coastal cities, or is it another garden variety type snow for most of ski country with some frigid arctic cold arriving Sunday night into MLK day. Temperatures do appear generally moderate through Sunday and then I would anticipate single digit temperatures on the mountain for Monday.
It's possible we get hit with some of the coldest weather of the season between late Monday and early Wednesday though details still need some sorting. Later in the week, the southeast ridge fights back, allows the cold to moderate some while increasing the changes for an overrunning type snow event. I was very encouraged with the teleconnection outlook which continues to show a favorable Pacific jet situation through the duration of January. We don't line up all the teleconnections entirely and I would suggest that we don't really want that this time of the year. Just keep enough cold arctic around to keep the snow flying without suppressing all the action to our south.
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