Heavy Wet Snow Tonight Into Wednesday Night - Power Outages Possible

Alert Details:
         The National Weather Service in Burlington has issued a Winter Storm Warning for much of Vermont, and Northern New York for heavy wet snow accumulations of 12-18 inches in the Northern Adirondack Mountains, 8-14 inches across South Central Vermont, 4-10 inches across North Central and portions of Northeast Vermont, and 4-8 inches for the entire Champlain Valley. They have also issued a Winter Weather Advisory for portions of the St. Lawrence Valley and the far Northeast Kingdom for heavy wet accumulations of snow ranging from 2-6 inches.

         The National Weather Service in Albany, NY has issued a Winter Storm Warning for extreme southern Vermont for the potential of 8-16 inches of snow.

       & Champlain Valley Weather has issued a Winter Storm Warning for the Northern Adirondack Mountains, and portions of Central and Southern Vermont for 12-16 inches of snow with isolated amounts exceeding 16 inches across the highest of elevations, and favored upslope regions lower elevations in these areas will see 8-12 inches. A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for the St. Lawrence Valley, the Champlain Valley, and much of Northern Vermont for 4-8 inches of heavy wet snow.

Champlain Valley Weather Discussion:
         Weather models are finally starting to agree somewhat upon a solution, especially for this first part of the storm. While small differences still remain, I feel confident enough to issue Winter Storm Warnings and Winter Weather Advisories for the area.

         I will admit I was having a hard time deciding whether or not to issue a Warning or Advisory for the areas receiving 4-8 inches. The reason being, this event is going to be around 24 hours long, and criteria to issue a Warning is 6 or more inches of snow within 12 hours or 8 or more inches of snow within 24 hours. Going strictly by that criteria an Advisory was issued, but I was contemplating the possibility of a Warning due to the fact the snow is going to be extremely wet and heavy, and has a good possibility of producing some power outages. At this time though I will hold off on a Warning, but I want you to be aware that the Advisory may be changed to a Warning depending on how this storm evolves. One more point I would like to make about this heavy wet snow, is all areas will have the potential for some power outages. Across the Warning area this will be even more important as the higher accumulations of very wet and heavy snow could cause some roof collapses, especially where 12 or more inches fall. Places that could experience roof collapses would be poorly constructed sheds or barns. With this storm it will be important to keep the snow cleared off your roofs.

         As for this portions of the long durations storm, you can expect a snow/ rain mix to develop across the region late this afternoon and spread from south to north. Snow will become heavy at times overnight tonight, and snowfall rates could reach 1-2 inches per hour for a time on Wednesday. Snowfall intensities like this will result in visibility under a half to quarter mile at times, and result in rapid accumulations. If you must travel tomorrow, use cautions and stay updated on this developing winter storm.

         Before I finish this post I am going to brush upon the next significant portions of this storm, which will be a low pressure system for Thursday into Friday night. This low pressure system will likely make this current system look small. This is because the next storm is not only going to effect a larger area of the Northeastern united states, but its going to have the potential to produce Blizzard conditions. A few models are indicating this potential such as the GFS which strengthens the low to 976mb over NYC, the RSM 976 over Albany, the NAM 980mb over NYC, and the WRF model 986mb over Rhode Island. That's just a few. The only thing with this, as the storm retrogrades back to the above mentioned areas at their above mentioned strength then this may cause warm air to push into our region, especially Northern areas. If that were to occur then more rain might be the result, also strong winds may cause significant shadowing across much of Northern Vermont. At this time though we will deal with the upcoming portions of this complex storm, and go from there. Stay tuned for further updates.