Lake-effect snows continued over the weekend with lake moisture extending across New York into western New England. We saw a few resorts posting some afternoon reports on Sunday. Killington posted 2" and Mount Snow posted 1". A Monday morning report from Mt. Washington had 2.4" of new snow and the snow stake at Stowe had 2". Base depths for open resorts are now sitting at 1-2 feet across the region. 

The story on Monday morning is the cold temperatures. The region is currently experiencing some of its colder temperatures of the season with some valley locations dropping below 0F across the Adirondacks and into the single digits in the North Country slope side. Mt. Washington is sitting at -9F with a wind chill of -46F.

Comparison between the NAM and HRRR high-resolution models for 24-hour snowfall on Monday and Monday night. 

The resorts won't be "as cold" on Monday with high temperatures climbing into the low 20s, but gusty west winds will make it feel like single digits and teens most of the day. Dress warm if you're out and about in the North Country and able to get on a slope. Some of our high-resolution models are suggesting some snow showers across the Greens and Presis on Monday night as a dying cold front crossing the region. The NAM squeezes out maybe an inch or two. The OpenSnow blend is less bullish and in line with the HRRR. 

Forecast rundown:

• High pressure noses its way into New England on Tuesday with continued windy conditions across the region and temperatures in the 20s slope side. 
• Light snow is again possible on Tuesday night as another weak front crosses the region. Snows will be light with 1-2" possible across the Greens. No widespread significant accumulation is expected outside of the mountains.
• Both Wednesday and Thursday (Thanksgiving) look pretty tame with high pressure in control, temperatures in the upper 20s across the mountains, 30s at bases, and near 40F in the valleys.  

The weather turns on Friday with the approach of a complicated storm system from the southwest that we'll be dealing with into Saturday and Sunday. The models are currently favoring three unfortunate scenarios with (1) rain Friday into Saturday, (2) rain but mostly later into Sunday, or (3) less rain. The National Weather Service over in Gray, Maine highlighted these three clusters in their forecast discussion on Monday morning and gave them 60%, 20%, and 20% odds based on model guidance. Let's take a closer look.

EMCWF model forecast (deterministic) for 1PM Friday into 1AM Sunday.

The ECMWF model forecast is about demoralizing as it gets with rain starting Friday afternoon and continuing into Saturday with temperatures pushing above freezing almost everywhere except the highest peaks in the Whites. There's a few patches of purple in that forecast suggesting perhaps some mixing with snow at the start, but there's not much to hope for here. 

GFS model forecast (deterministic) for 7AM Friday to 7PM Sunday. 

The GFS model forecast is so slow that I had to zoom out and change the loop duration to show you the progression of the storm. Friday features a shot at light snow across the North Country, no precipitation on Saturday, and then rain moving in on Sunday. This is incredible model-to-model differences for a forecast just 5 days out. 

Ensemble comparaison for the odds of 3" of snow in the 24-hour period ending at 7AM on Saturday. 

The odds of accumulating snowfall out of these scenarios is not looking good. The 24-hour odds of 3" inches of snow is currently pegged at 20-30% in the ECMWF ensemble over the Adirondacks, White Mountains, and northern Maine, with GFS ensemble odds at <10%.

ECMWF ensemble grid of running 24-hour snowfalls for central Vermont. 

We could cherry pick the ensemble members as a consolation prize. A few of the ECMWF ensemble members are suggesting that 8-12" of snow is at least possible across central Vermont, but the odds are low single digits (e.g., 3 members out of nearly a 100 when combined with the GFS ensemble and other models). Sorry folks. 

I won't post our 10-day snowfall forecast map today. I believe the map is a bit too generous for snowfall on Friday and Saturday, and the blend of the three different forecast scenarios described above pushes at least some snow through the weekend into Sunday which is not likely (you can find it on our site and in the app if you want). Depending on which storm solution verifies, we should see at least some backside upslope snows later in the weekend. If you were hoping to see snow, best odds (albeit low) would be to head to Maine. 

Given the uncertainty in the forecast, it's also impossible to point toward when our next shot of snow would be. It's all spaghetti. We'll have to wait until the forecast becomes more certain. I'll shoot for an new forecast on Wednesday or an update if things change.

-Jay Cordeira, Meteorologist for the New England Daily Snow