Took a little longer than expected, but Mad River Glen did score the coveted Lake Champlain fluff late on Thursday and Thursday night and the mountain is coming out of this week in pretty good shape. Temperatures were stuck near 10 degrees Friday afternoon and this begins a pattern that will ensure plenty of arctic chill is impacting both New England and much of eastern North America.
Expect a snowy day Saturday as a clipper system in the Great Lakes brings its limited moisture in our direction. Southwesterly flow will help moderate temperatures substantially and skiers can expect afternoon readings in the 20's along with respectable 10-20 mph winds. Snowfall will be mostly light and begin before dawn and then continue through much of the ski day. Storminess off the Atlantic Coast will help make for a dry Sunday with breaks in the overcast. Winds will be similar though a bit more westerly as opposed to southwesterly and temperatures will be about 5 colder than Saturday.
Those westerly winds become a little stiffer for MLK day as some early sunshine gives way to cloudiness. Snow showers are expected, but they appear most likely after the ski day Monday with that early sun helping to boost temperatures up to around 20 degrees at the base. The arctic front roars through Monday night bringing with it a light accumulation of snow and near zero degree temperatures for Tuesday morning. We can expect some sunshine to go along with single digit temperatures on Tuesday and those generally clear skies are expected to persist until early Wednesday before warm advection cloudiness envelopes the region. Those clouds will help keep temperatures in the teens for the middle of the week and most importantly will also bring some snowfall Wednesday night into Thursday. This is the result of a weak area of low pressure that will make every effort to strengthen some and grab what little moisture is available. It's also expected to mark the advance of a reinforcing, stronger shot of arctic chill for Friday ahead of what we expect to be a cold last full weekend of January. Important to leave some room for forecast alterations late in the week. The southeast ridge will get mostly overwhelmed with arctic cold, but is still present and capable of spinning up more storminess Friday into Saturday. Much of that is likely to get aimed farther south with polar jet on top of us while cold is more likely to win both days. That said, I'll leave a little room there for a surprise.
The big story, beginning Friday Jan 23rd, will be the bitterly cold arctic air, the strongest of the season most likely. If we can Friday up to about 10 degrees we are doing well; after that, it looks like we will have to endure a stretch of subzero weather that could last longer than a day. Not totally sure if that's a Saturday/Sunday (24th-25th) issue or a Sunday/Monday (25th-26th) issue and either way, all three days will be extremely cold and accompanied by some significant wind and have a wind chill factor worth preparing for. Models are suggesting a favorable wind direction for snow showers yet cold like this mostly comes at us with a shallow and very stable atmospheric temperature profile. This means we get some good visibility and blue sky to accompany the bitter chill.
Teleconnections support from both the EPO and AO are the driving fundamentals supporting the pattern at least at jet stream level. Toward the end of January, ensembles are predicting the mid-latitude Pacific to get very stormy which is a change from the next two weeks. Because much of this storminess is expected at lower latitudes, it's not expected to shift the EPO into a more adversarial position. We are also expected to retain some support from the AO. There appears to be some thinking out there that would suggest a capitulation of arctic cold in early February and I don't see evidence of that yet. If the aforementioned Pacific storminess, undercuts the ridging in western North America and produces split flow, we will certainly see wintry conditions continue to dominate the Great Lakes and New England.
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