Winter Storm — Eastern Windsor County, Vermont

2022-12-16 to 2022-12-17 · Eastern Windsor County, Vermont

Event narrative

A widespread, heavy wet snow fell across Windsor county with snowfall totals ranging from 9 to 12 inches in the valley in eastern Windsor to 15 to 25 inches in the mountains of western Windsor. This resulted in numerous power outages that lasted several days. Some specific snowfall totals include; 25 inches in Ludlow and Rochester, 24 inches in West Windsor, 22 inches in Pomfret, 19 inches in Sharon, 17 inches in Woodstock, 16 inches in Bethel and 9 inches in White River Junction.

Wider weather episode

A powerful west coast storm over the weekend and earlier in the week moved into the Northern Plains during mid-week and largely stalled. However, energy was transferred to the Mid-Atlantic states Thursday (12/15) producing widespread snow, freezing rain/sleet and rain across the Mid-Atlantic into NJ/NYC. A coastal low developed off the Mid-Atlantic during Thursday afternoon and lifted slowly north to south of Long Island on Friday and into the Gulf of Maine by Saturday.

Snow slowly spread across southern Vermont during the early morning hours of December 16th (Friday) and continued into Friday night before dissipating as snow showers midday Saturday. Air temperatures were marginally cold for snow, thus it was a wet, heavy snow that caused widespread power outages in central and southern VT and mixed with rain at times in the Champlain and Connecticut River valleys. Total statewide customers impacted were >100,000 with approximately 60,000 at it's peak.

Snowfall totals ranged from 4 to 8 inches in the Champlain and Connecticut River valleys, 8 to 14 inches in the mid to higher terrain of North Central Vermont with 10 to 20+ inches in the southern Green Mountains.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1060868. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.