If April Showers Bring May Flowers, Then Gardens Will Look GREAT This Year

After a long winter that extended right through March, it's nice to see things starting to green up here in Vermont.

Plants are finally starting to come up in
my perennial gardens in St. Albans, Vermont
after a long, cold winter. April showers will
encourage these flowers even more.  

Temperatures were near 70 degrees Monday, which was nice. And now we have frequent bouts of showers to contend with.

In fact, here in the North Country, it looks like it could rain every day for the next week except for probably Thursday.

If April showers bring May flowers, this perennial gardens are going to look awesome.

Don't worry, it won't rain all the time, and we won't get drowning downpours. These are April showers, after all, not April monsoons.

Flooding won't be a worry, except along Lake Champlain, which has been above flood stage for a week now.

As of yesterday, the Lake Champlain lake level was at 100.48 feet above sea level, which is about half a foot above flood stage. This is a rather minor flood, not like the disaster of 2011.

The rains over the next week will slow the rate at which the water level in Lake Champlain will fall, but it won't really worsen the flooding.

Elsewhere in the nation, those April showers could become highly unwelcome violent thunderstorms. This year has been blessedly slow in the tornado department in the United States. There has been some, and there have been a lot of hailstorms and severe winds.

But no terrible, destructive, widespread tornado outbreaks. That, unfortunately could change by the end of the week or the weekend, as signs are starting to point toward a lot of tornados in and near Oklahom, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas.

We'll see if that develops.

Back here in Vermont,  temperatures won't be all that warm over the next week, though Saturday could be decently mild. But, with the frequent showers (and maybe a rumble of thunder today) the slow green up of the Vermont landscape will continue.

Yeah, the trees won't be in leaf for a little while yet, but at least their budding. And the grass is turning green. And were those daffodils I saw blooming yesterday

It even smells like spring out there.

I'm SO glad it's here.