Winter Returns!

2016-03-16 17:57:07.000 – Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Meteorologist

Although we’ve seen a very mild winter and little in the way of any deep snowpack in place across the White Mountains, a return to more winter like conditions is likely over the next 7 days. After picking up 1.6” of snow and plenty of glaze ice over the past 48 hours the road up had a little bit more of a wintry feel than our down going trip last week. With an occluded front quickly approaching from the eastern Great Lakes this evening, the summit is expecting a quick burst of snowfall late tonight and into Thursday, with 2-4” of new snowfall through Thursday evening. Much colder air will be arriving behind this system for the weekend, with temperatures bottoming out well below zero and some light snow showers hopefully adding a bit more to our meager snowpack.

Although it’s still several days away, most of the models develop a significant storm moving up the Northeast coast late Sunday and into Monday, with at least the potential for heavy snowfall and high winds for both the summit and New England. At this point models have the storm tracking just close enough to shore for several inches of snowfall across New Hampshire, with especially eastern Maine seeing the greatest chance for heavy snow. We will continue to monitor the models closely in the next few days, but for now we’ll enjoy waking up to some fresh snowfall tomorrow!

Looking outside the snowcat this morning near 5300 ft.   

Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Meteorologist