December 20th
I am dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know!
Sticking to the song theme from earlier in the week ...
No need to dream, it’s the real thing!
And it's not old snow, it just keeps snowing and snowing.
Very opposite of last year!
It's snowed here five days in a row. With close to 10 inches so far and still counting.
As a matter of fact, as I write this at 2 PM on Friday. It is snowing just as hard in Boston as it is at Jay Peak, Vermont!
My head is spinning a little bit.
I also forecast the weather for Boston sometimes.
And none of us saw this coming!
There are about two or three reasons it’s snowing today.
Here at Jay Peak, Vermont, it has to do with The Jay Cloud!
With an Arctic boundary sliding to our south, we are now ringing out every molecule of H2O in the form of dendrites.
In New York City it’s also snowing, that has to do with low pressure that’s been sliding across the nation from the Pacific to the Atlantic over the last week. It’s been a very active pattern!
As for Boston, that has to do with an onshore flow, it’s very cold air coming over the water.
In addition, there’s an ocean storm powering up east of Virginia where there were thunderstorms this morning.
Weather is fun ... and often unpredictable!
It’s winter solstice weekend after all.
And we’re probably going to string together days six and seven in a row of snow.
And that will get us to about 24 of the last 25 days with snow, back to Thanksgiving.
There was some non-snow precipitation mixed in there.
But it’s pretty deep down beneath several new layers of powder.
It may stop snowing for a short time later Sunday into Monday before it starts up again Tuesday and Christmas Day.
There’s a lot of math involved here, but say another 20 hours of snow accumulating greater than a quarter of an inch an hour.
That gets us to an additional 5 inches of snow for Saturday.
As the ocean storm to the east powers up and moves away, high pressure builds in with the temperature falling through the teens into the single numbers by dinner time Saturday. Wind is ramping up a bit too, gusting past 20 mph late in the day and overnight before slowly diminishing on Sunday.
Sunday, we have some diamond dust snow in the air with arctic sunshine gleaming through, the temperature holding in the single numbers ~ above zero.
High pressure crests right overhead Sunday night, allowing for radiation cooling and an inversion.
That means down in the valleys we be 10 or 15° below zero Monday morning
And much like last Sunday, as you drive to the mountain the temperature goes up.,
On the backside of this arctic high-pressure system, there’s going to be a warm front, combination cold front, with another band of snow coming in late Monday and continuing off on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
With the warmer front on Tuesday, we may get back to 25° with another 5 inches of snow during the day.
And then the cold front on Tuesday night, means temperature goes back down into the teens on Wednesday with snow likely continuing for much of our Christmas day.
So if we added it all up from Friday to Wednesday, we’re talking about close to 15 or 20 inches more snow between now and Christmas Day.
It will probably turn somewhat warmer after that.
But it looks like high pressure is going to stall in southeastern Canada, it’s going to be a blocking pattern with cold air tough to erode around here.
It’s likely there will be more weather action by New Year’s Eve.
The jury is out on whether we can keep our streak of snowy days in a row going right through the end of 2024.
But we’re giving it our best effort!
This could be the year that breaks a streak.
Will let that rest there for now.
Talk again, Christmas Eve Tuesday.
May your days be merry and bright...
And may all your Christmas' be white.
-TK
