Broken Spring: Winter Rolls On And On And On And On

I woke up to a dusting of new snow in my yard in St. Albans, Vermont this morning. I should count myself lucky. The dusting fell atop about a foot of snow on the ground, which is less than a week ago.

This is how part of my yard in St. Albans, Vermont
looked on the first day of spring yesterday.
Believe it or not, there is a perennial flower
garden on the lower right of the photo.  

And places near where I live got a lot more snow than in St. Albans last night.

Still, I'm calling this continued cold the Broken Spring of 2014. (though who knows? Maybe later in April and May will turn really warm. We can only hope)

Anyway, northern and central Vermont, away from the Champlain Valley, checked in with 2 to 7 inches of new snow last night, on top of the 2 to 7 inches the night before, which was on top of the remains of all the previous snowstorms we've gotten.

Some communities in northern Vermont now have more than three feet of snow on the ground. (Hi, there, Walden, and Greensboro, Vermont with your 40 inches of snow on the ground yesterday as spring officially arrived!)

Winter storm warnings and advisories are flying again in parts of North Dakota and Minnesota, too where up to 8 inches of new snow is coming today,  atop the 10 to 20 inches that's already on the ground

The upper Midwest goes back in the deep freeze this weekend, with temperatures of below zero in many areas.

That snow in Minnesota today will end up in northern New England by early Saturday morning. That means another two to five inches of snow in northern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire tomorrow.

And Vermont's Champlain Valley, which pretty much missed out on this morning's snow, will share in the two to five inches of snow on Saturday.

Even though daytime temperatures are supposed to be in the 40s this time of year and we're supposed to get thawing, the Midwest and interior Northeast will pretty much stay below freezing Sunday through Thursday.

And, the crown jewel of this Broken Spring: There could be a strong nor'easter along the New England coast, and maybe parts of the Mid-Atlantic around Wednesday.

The storm that's expected to churn up is going to be extraordinarily strong with enormously strong winds. The good news is, as it looks now, the monster storm will move fairly far east of the coastline, so its worst effects might miss the icebox Northeast.

Still, there looks like there could be quite a bit of  wind driven snow in eastern New England, Long Island and maybe even the New York metro area on Wednesday. As it looks now, the big nor'easter will mostly miss the interior Northeast, but you never know.

Stay tuned for later forecasts on that one.

Most long range forecast models keep the Midwest and Northeast cold through most of April. But of course it will get warmer in April, because it can't stay wintry forever. Plus, it looks like the intensity of the cold blasts will lose their punch.  So maybe the snow will actually melt.

And, AND, one long range forecast model suggests a warm ridge of high pressure could nose into the eastern United States for a week or two in mid-April, which would cause some above normal temperatures for a change.

I don't know if that will happen, as other models forecast cold, but at least it's a glimmer of hope.