Happy Spring! Now Watch It Keep Snowing

Spring's arrival gets the cold shoulder in
New York's Central Park on Friday. Via
Twitter, @EverythingNYC  

Astronomical spring arrived on the United States East Coast yesterday but you'd hardly know it.

Snow socked a pretty big area from around Washington DC, up the coast all the way to New York City and along the southern New England Coast.

Many areas received anywhere from two to eight inches of snow.

I'm sure people were thrilled.  Much of the new snow will melt today in the mid-Atlantic states as they briefly warm up into the 50s today.

Up here where I live in northern New England, we were able to laugh a little bit since Friday's snow missed us and temperatures were even able to get a little above freezing (though it was still colder than normal.)

In the North Country, the laugh's on us today and Sunday, though.

There's quite a powerhouse of a cold front on a door step that will blast through later this afternoon and tonight, and it's going to plunge temperatures back down low enough that might make us pine for the balmy days of January.

And it's going to snow. A little.

There will be lots of mixed rain and snow showers around today in northern New York and Vermont, then spreading into New Hampshire and Maine as the day wears on.

This cold front doesn't have huge amounts of moisture with it, so it's not like we're going to get inche sof rain or feet of snow.

But the front does have a lot of energy with it. Which means I wouldn't be surprised if some pretty nasty snow squalls get going in some areas.

With falling temperatures turning wet roads to ice in some spots, suddenly horrible visibility as the squalls move in and strong, gusty winds, there could be some nasty surprises out on the roads.

It's going to be kind of hit and miss, so in some areas things won't be too, too bad, and others, conditions will get bad fast.

Snow squalls almost never last long, so any place that gets blasted by them will recover pretty fast, and nobody will get more than an inch of snow, except some places in them mountains. And maybe in northeastern Maine.

This time of year, high temperatures in northern New England are in the low 40s. In January, normal high temperatures are in the 20s. On Sunday, as thoughts should be turning to spring high temperatures won't get out of the teens in much of northern New York,  Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Add in winds gusting past 30 mph, and maybe to 50 mph in Maine, and you get below zero windchills.

Like I said, January is better.

So let me guess: You won't be out tilling the soil in your backyard garden on Sunday, will  you.

Poor Maine is getting the worst of it, as has been the case this winter. It'll be a little colder and a little windier there than in the rest of New England.

Bangor, Maine, which had its coldest month on record in February and is having its snowiest winter on record, is not improving much.

Bangor so far is having its coldest year on record, at least to date. That city also has a good shot of having its coldest March on record, based on what's already happened and on the bone-chilling forecast for the next few days.

Winter-blasted southeastern Canada is also in for bone chilling cold, strong winds and some snow over the next couple of days, too.

I know you're sick of my pessimistic New England forecasts, but the outlook into early April doesn't look so great, either.

Temperatures will ease up temporarily at midweek, bringing in some thawing. But it's back in the ice box by next weekend, though it won't be as cold as it will be tomorrow.

No big warm ups are likely into early April, either.