Valley rain and mountain snow will continue Thursday night through Friday. Snow accumulation below 1000′ will be a dusting to 2″. 3-6″ will fall from mid slopes to the summits by the end of Friday. It should have little impact on travel for most of us. However, roads above 1000′ may be snow covered & slushy at times.

In case you’ve been wondering, before the snow started to fall Thursday, our engineers went to the top of Mt. Mansfield. They found the famous snow stake covered with about 90″ of snow. The National Weather Service tells me that’s the deepest the snow as been up there this late in the year since April 2007. It’s going to take a while to melt all of that!

Leftover light mountain rain/snow showers hang around early Saturday but we will be drying and clearing as Saturday afternoon continues. Highs Saturday will jump into the upper 40s. Sunday is not only the 11th annual big chill it’s also the light at the end of this miserable weather tunnel. High pressure will be settling in leading to plentiful sunshine and highs close to 50°. As of Thursday evening, Lake Champlain at the Burlington Waterfront is about 37°. It sounds chilly, and it is, but believe it or not that’s close to normal for mid to late April.

Early next week, the good news continues. High pressure will be here through at least Tuesday helping to provide sunshine and building warmth. Highs Tuesday should go above 60° in Burlington for the first time since February 21! The warmest day in March was the 31st, it was 54°. So far in April we’ve hit 52° twice, that’s as warm as it’s been. 63° on Tuesday will be incredible. The warmth continues on Wednesday but a batch of plain rain showers will arrive.

The weekend is just about here!

-Chief Meteorologist Sean Parker