Burlington, Vermont has seen its cloudiest January since 1951. This could be due to the fact that the Great Lakes are open and warm. I haven’t seen the sun in more than two weeks. Burlington is 18 inches behind in snow this season.The snowpack in the Champlain Valley is 1-4 inches of ice and snow. The mountains of north central Vermont have recieved 75-125 inches of snow this season or about average but the snowpack is only 8-18 inches depending on elevation due to quite a bit of rain, ice and warm weather. The snowpack is durable for sure. During an el nino year I would expect up and down weather with quite a few snow/ rain/ snow events, however this year backside snow has been hard to come by due to the lack of cold air intrusions. We just haven’t had any big polar pushes with extended cold. Temperatures of less than 10 degrees have been rare which is not typical.Trees above 2500 feet are overburdenned with 3/4 + inches of ice and a foot or more of wind driven snow during a couple of mid January events. Above 3000 feet the spruce have been toppling on an hourly basis for days making for extensive ski patrol chain saw work. I have attached some photos. I looks like we are headed for 10 days of sun and temperatures in the 20s and 30s. I expect that we will have at least one coastal storm followed by some extended cold during the second half of February.