Several Inches or Several Feet of Snow? Winter Storm Watches Posted.

Alerts:
CPV Weather
         -Champlain Valley Weather has issued a Winter Storm Watch for the Northern and Central Champlain Valley, the Western slopes of the Northern and Central Green Mountains, and the Northeast Kingdom. For the potential of 6-12 inches of snow. The Watch is in effect from 12PM Wednesday to 12PM Thursday.

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NWS Butlington, VT:
         -No alerts are in effect from the National Weather Service at this time.

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Champlain Valley Weather Discussion:

OVERVIEW
         A stalled out/ very slow moving ocean storm will continue to drift out over the open water of the Atlantic ocean, then slowly move up towards the Canadian maritimes. This will throw back areas of moisture from tonight through Thursday night.

SNOWFALL
         An unbelievably tough forecast is upcoming, including tonight's forecast. Low pressure over the Atlantic ocean will continue to throw moisture back aided by warm air advection. Tonight into Wednesday afternoon, scattered to numerous showers will occur on an off, with total accumulations of 2-5 inches over a 24 hour period. By Wednesday a more significant area of Warm Air Advection, and Atlantic moisture will push into the area with the potential of moderate snowfall rates. This will result in the most significant snowfall accumulations. In the 24 hour period ranging from Wednesday afternoon until Thursday afternoon, snowfall accumulations at this point appear to be 6-12 inches, and this is basing off the NAM and the NMM-ARW 4km model. The GFS, and ECMWF are much lighter on snowfall amounts. So if you add snow totals up from tonight through Thursday afternoon, we are talking about a range of 8-17 inches.

Then all eyes set to the storm system possible after Christmas, what even could be a potential blizzard if you believe the GFS, and ECMWF model. Looking at the initial surge of moisture combined with wrap around moisture from the system stalling and potential retrograding, early indications would be 10-18 inches of snow, however this storm is still quite some time out and significant changes to the track is likely. But if we add this 10-18 to the 8-17 from earlier forecasts then we end up with a 6-7 day snow total of 18-35 inches of snow. So within the next week or so, we could see snow totals measured in feet! However I want to urge for everyone not to get overly excited as these upcoming systems don't have the greatest model confidence, not to mention storms that tend to retrograde are not always handled well by models. So we could end up with several inches, to as much as a few feet of snow. Please stay tuned for further updates over the next several days on this current system and the possible major system later this weekend.