Thoughts On Just Ended Storm And Several Quiet Days Ahead (For Us, Anyway)

Snow is piled high on the back deck of my house
in St. Albans, Vermont. 

I returned from a trip to New York City to Vermont very late Wednesday night and, as expected, was greeted by quite a bit more snow, as we all know.

There was about 8.5 new inches of snow at my place in St. Albans, raising the snow depth to a little over two feet, something I haven't seen in several years.

The town of Lower Waterford, Vermont took the cake for most snow from this last storm, with 20.5 inches. Several places had over 10 inches of snow. 

Burlington, which had been lagging behind normal in snowfall for most of this winter, has now gone ahead of normal, with 59 inches so far this winter against a normal of 54 inches to this date.

February has brought 30.4 inches of snow to Burlington. Even if the Queen City doesn't get so much as one additional snowflake this month, it will still be the seventh snowiest February on record. (The snowiest February was in 2011 with 43.1 inches. I doubt we'll get that much this month but you never know.)

The Queen City will probably slip below normal for this winter's snowfall again over the next week or two as little snow is forecast for at least a week. The storm parade is suspended for now, and we'll have a temporarily quiet weather pattern for awhile here in Vermont.

Which might be a good thing. All this snow was timed deliciously for the President's Week holiday, perhaps the most important and potentially lucrative time of year for Vermonts ski industry.

The ski slopes are thick with wonderful powder, and I'm sure people will be flocking to Vermont, or already have. My  plane from New York to Vermont had plenty of tourists headed for the slopes, and I'm told hotels are booked all over Vermont.

Yeah, we can all be happy about that.

The deep snow cover has stopped just short of being too much of a good thing in Vermont, in  my opinion. I haven't heard of many roof collapses, but had we gotten another big storm or two, that would have been an issue.

(I know if we were to get another big storm, I'd have to shovel my large deck on my house, which would have been a huge chore, but for now, I'm going to let it go and see if does OK.)

The snow is quite deep in some areas, especially in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. As of yesterday, there was 45 inches of snow on the ground in Island Pond. (Bet that snowmobile mecca is happy with that!). Also, there was 43 inches of snow on th ground at Granby and 36 inches in Sutton.

In parts of Maine, the snow this February is something they haven't seen since 1969. Kingfield, Maine had 69 inches of snow on the ground this morning, according to the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine.

Over the next several days, at least in lower elevations, there will be some thawing  or at least settling of the snow. High temperatures Saturday and Sunday will get to around 40 degrees, and after a cooldown to at or below freezing early next week, more thawing will come in after that.

Of course, winter is not over, and we could face more snowstorms very late this month and into March. We'll have to see how that plays out.