Winter came back finally. The sub-freezing temps will be accompanied by some snowfall for the ski day Saturday all courtesy of a ferocious looking clipper system as far as clipper systems go. I had hoped the snow provide some help as early as Friday, but the start time appears to be closer to 8 PM with some early blue sky giving way to clouds during the day. The area of low pressure with this snow producing feature will track right over northern Vermont early on Saturday and as I mentioned in the last update, the jet dynamics look pretty healthy. The front end thump late Friday evening appears considerably more impressive than it did a few days ago, enough to produce 3-6 inches before first tracks on Saturday. We get some additional love for the ski day Saturday as well. Even as temperatures creep above the freezing mark in valley areas, the situation appears highly convective with snow showers expanding southward as the day progresses and the flow becomes more northwesterly. It being March means the convective cloud tops can get higher and the snowfall from those clouds can be heavier. The heavy snowfall is likely for only a limited window of time in the middle to end of the ski day and that's what will limit those accumulations more than anything else, but 2-4 would be my best guess in addition to the 3-6 Friday night. This yields a total event accumulation of 5-10 inches. Temperatures on the mountain on Saturday could be changeable, rising to 30 early in the day but falling by as much as 10 degrees with gusty winds with the snowfall I mention. Convection can do that in a rather mesmerizing way since it can efficiently transport much colder air aloft down to the surface and do so very quickly.
We are confronted with a very changeable weather situation for the next few days. Sunday is nothing like Saturday, Monday is nothing like Sunday and on and on through the middle of next week. Cold weather and blue sky atop the newly fallen snow on Sunday will give way to clouds. Overall though, its a winner with low wind speed and comfortable afternoon temperatures up near the freezing mark. Models do indicate some light snow late on Sunday which appears pretty immaterial considering what follows. Monday, as you might have seen is nothing like Sunday. Wretched visibility in the classic New England soup scenario. The clouds will produce some rain and some areas of freezing rain early in the morning until readings slowly climb above the freezing mark in every location. We had high hopes for the Monday storm at one point in time. The middle of March has produced some of our best storms in recent years, but it won't be this one. After passing over Lake Huron, this area of low pressure will head straight to northern Quebec and it's too strong of a storm to manage an energy transfer to the coast. Temperatures may hang near 40 for a good part of Monday with some occasional light rain and then surge into the 50's with wind for Monday night. This will be accompanied by more rain, some of which will be heavy and will thus wipe out our most recent snow. Rain will be over for early Tuesday as a sharp cold front dries us out and provides some clearing. Expect some snow showers as Tuesday progresses.
It's another 48 hours of so of sub-freezing temperatures between Tuesday and most of Thursday and then its back to a changeable March weather situation. The outlook doesn't look especially exciting on the ensemble weather map, but I would say I was more encouraged today that we could score an exciting winter weather event even without a pattern that supports sustained cold. Much of the mild weather in the long range appears positioned across the middle of North America while the core of coldest weather becomes concentrated over interior eastern Canada. New England appears to the be area where the air masses clash and it could all come to a head on the weekend of the spring equinox in the form of some kind of storm with some cold weather in its wake.
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