Update On That Big, Maybe Dangerous Northeast Storm That's Coming

Storm surges and battering waves batter the Massachusetts
coast in early January. The upcoming storm might create
similar scenes in New England Friday and Saturday

I was working outdoors in my yard in far northwestern Vermont on Tuesday, down to a t-shirt and getting an early jump on preliminary spring cleanup.

It was sunny and warm, like a nice day in April. Daffodil shoots are starting to come up.  

In February!

I shouldn't get used to this. Neither should you.

An oncoming storm, though not particularly cold, has the potential to raise havoc across the Northeast, including perhaps Vermont. And this will introduce a long period of normal March weather going well into the middle of March at least.

The biggest concern, of course, is this big storm, which has long been advertised.  There's still LOTS of uncertainty with how this storm will play out on Friday. It's Wednesday, so usually we have a moderately good handle on how storms will behave two days from now. But this one is so complex, a  lot of things could change before it arrives.

Computer models yesterday suppressed the storm a bit to the south, which would have minimized impacts here in Vermont while continuing to make things bad along the coast from New Jersey into southern New England.

This morning, the models have the storm further north, which puts at least parts of Vermont in play, while continuing to threaten lots of bad things along the southern New England, Long Island, New Jersey and Mid-Atlantic coasts.

Today, the storm will be organizing across the South and Gulf Coast, threatening more heavy rain in regions that got deluged over the past week or two. Flood watches are up from northeast Texas and Arkansas on up into Kentucky and Tenneseee.

There could be severe thunderstorms and maybe a tornado or two today in northeast Texas, northern Louisiana and parts of Arkansas.

The storm will move from the southern Plains to near the eastern Great Lakes by Thursday night, while a secondary storm will form off or near the New Jersey coast.

The coastal storm will become the main player. It will strengthen and move very slowly near the coast Friday before lumbering slowly offshore later Friday and Saturday.

With astronomical tides being high this week, with or without a storm, this storm is still expected to cause a bunch of coastal flooding.

The southern New England coast and parts of Long Island appear to be especially under the gun with coastal flooding, and coastal flood watches are already in effect for Friday and Saturday.

There could be major coastal flooding in certain places especially around Gloucester, Newburyport, Boston Harbor, Revere and Scituate, Massachusetts. It's possible things could get so bad that shoreline homes could be badly damaged or destroyed. At the very least, roads and streets will become inundated, and basements and first floors could get flooded.

Areas along the coast are also at risk for very strong winds with this system. Also, several inches of rain might fall in southern New England as well. Wet snow might fall inland.

VERMONT IMPACTS

With the coastal storm now seeming like it wants to hug the coast more and be a little further north than yesterday's forecasts, it now looks like parts of Vermont are under the gun for some trouble with this storm.

There's already a winter storm watch up for western and central New York for the initial storm that will come up to the Great Lakes, followed by Atlantic moisture streaming in from the new, stronger low along the coast. These areas could see five to nine inches of wet snow out of this.

In Vermont, it still looks like the greatest effects will be in southern and central parts of the state, though all of Vermont looks like it will get some precipitation.

There isn't a lot of cold air for this storm to work with, but once a strong storm forms, it creates its own pool of chillier air, and that might be enough to change rain in some parts of Vermont to wet snow.

This is one tricky forecast, and what happens depends on the exact placement of the storm, the timing, and the amount of cooling aloft. There is the potential, anyway, of heavy wet snow, especially in the mid and higher elevations of the southern and central Green Mountains.  The wet snow, combined with expected strong and gusty east winds could really create some power failure problems in the southern half of Vermont.

Speaking of wind, this might be a good set up for especially strong and damaging winds along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, especially in the southern half of the state.

Another thing to watch out for: Especially if the marginal temperatures between snow and rain stay a little on the warm side, there might be enough rain in parts of Vermont to cause some flooding potential. Again, the greatest risk is in central and southern Vermont.

Things could change, but northern Vermont looks like it will have unpleasant weather Friday, with rain, snow, or a mix and some gusty winds. However, if the forecast trend to bring the storm further and further north, the top half of Vermont could also see some real problems with this system.

This forecast is based on what the National Weather Service is saying. They almost guarantee, as do I, that there will be shifts in the forecast as we get closer to the actual storm. The system is a meteorologist's headache, with lots of moving parts, and it has a high bust potential.

Bitter European Arctic Blast Creates Roman Winter Holiday; California Epic Hail

Welcome to snowy Rome, Italy.

Priests had a rare chance to partake in snowball fights
in St Peters Square as an unusual snowstorm hit
Rome this week. Photo by Alessadro Tarantino/AP

Yep. It doesn't usually snow there, but it did this week, big time, as you might have seen in various press reports.

The last decent snowfall before this week in Rome was in 2012, and that last time before that was in the early 1980s. This time, between 1.5 an 6 inches of snow fell around Rome.

Since Rome doesn't usually get snow, the city basically shut down. Schools, airports, public transportation, businesses and streets closed.

Which left the people of Rome to just enjoy the spectacle. People were treated to the sight of priests engaging in snowball fights in St. Peters Square.

Rome did open subway and train stations to provide refuge to homeless people.

After a couple chilly days - with high temperatures near 40 today and Wednesday, temperatures in Rome are likely to rise into the more seasonable upper 50s later this week.

Elsewhere in Europe, temperatures fell into the teens in Brussels, prompting officials there to detain homeless people forcefully to protect them if they didn't want to go to warm shelters, says Reuters. 

The current weather pattern in Europe has been dubbed the "Beast From The East" as the current rather odd weather pattern has shifted winds over Europe so they're going from east to west. The air is coming from Siberia, so of course it's very cold in a broad stretch from Moscow to London.

The weather pattern has also brought an odd burst of above freezing air to the Arctic, so it was actually warmer for a time at the North Pole than in normally temperate western Europe.

SACRAMENTO ICE

A very whitened Sacramento, California after
a Monday hailstorm. Via Robert Krier
@sdutKrier on Twitter.

Meanwhile, in California, they had a hail of a time in Sacramento on Monday.  Thunderstorms combined with colder than normal temperatures unloaded a big dump of hail on California's capital city.

The hailstones weren't big enough to ding cars or damage windows, but there was a lot of it. The hail accumulated up to three inches deep in some parts of the city, snarling traffic with slippery roads. There was so much hail that some people built snowmen, er, hailmen with it.

At least the hail was some sort of moisture. California has been very dry this winter, raising fears of a return to severe drought.

There are more showers and mountain snows around California this week. Snow levels in the hills and mountains in southern California are unusually low due to a cold spell out there.

Winter storm warnings are up for elevations as low as 2,000 feet east of San Diego.

Some videos:

Snowball fight in Rome:





Here's a news report from the Sacramento hail chaos:

Bad Storm Likely On East Coast By Friday, But What Exactly Will It Do?

It looks like there will be some sort of big storm
near the Northeast coast on Friday, but exactly
where and how bad is still up in the air. 

As of this Monday morning, the computer weather forecasting models have come to a consensus: There will be a big, bad storm somewhere near the northeastern United States coast on Friday.

Earliest indications are the track of the storm might go from the central or southern Plains to the Ohio Valley, then it would redevelop strongly on or off the New Jersey coast.

However, that forecast track could change dramatically as we get new information later this week.

As you can imagine, there's a lot we don't yet know: What will be the exact track of the storm? Will it rain, snow or mix? How heavy will the precipitation be? Who will get the heaviest precipitation? It also seem likely there will be a lot of wind and probably some coastal flooding. Who gets nailed and who gets spared?

So yeah, there's a lot more questions than answers, but that's pretty typical on occasions when we know there's likely to be a big storm, but it'll happen four or five days from now.

Many of the ingredients for this storm were still off or near the British Columbia coast as of Monday morning. It's hard for forecasting computers to get good data for things that are over the ocean. Weak data, weak results. That explains the lack of clarity with this storm.

Still, we can begin to look at some of the things that could easily happen. Given that the storm will probably be big, most of these things will not be good. I'll pick them apart starting with:

HIGH WINDS

As I said, this will be a strong storm. Big storms have high winds, and it's beginning to appear the orientation of the storm will bring strong northeast gales to somewhere along the coast. Things could shift, but the worst of it looks like it will be somewhere between the central and southern New England coast down to the Mid-Atlantic states.

COASTAL FLOODING

Astronomical tides higher than average are scheduled for around Friday, so the timing of this storm is really bad. Storm surges and battering waves have the potential to be really destructive, as there will be a broad flow of winds off the water, which could really gather up those surges and waves.

My guess is if there's destruction from this storm, the coastal flooding will be the worst of it. At this point, I would pinpoint the New Jersey coast as most at risk, but coastal problems could arise anywhere from Maine to North Carolina.

RAIN/SNOW

Usually, when a late February or early March storm tracks just off the coast and a little south and east of New England, the interior Northeast can expect to be buried in snow. (See: the "Pi Day" Blizzard last March 14 that dumped more than three feet of snow on parts of Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania.)

This time, there's not a lot of cold air for the storm to work with. So the question of rain or wet snow is really up in the air. Even though there is not much cold air to work with strong storms like this potential one manufacture their own cold pool of air aloft.

Heavy precipitation helps bring that cooler air downward. The atmosphere over the western and northwestern side of the storm cools, and you get snow, despite the lack of large masses of cold air from Canada.

Somebody will probably get a lot of rain and/or snow from this, but who gets it is a huge question.

VERMONT EFFECTS

Nobody really knows the effects of this likely storm in Vermont, either. As of now at least, it seems like the storm wants to track well to our south, meaning southern Vermont would get the biggest effects of the storm on Friday.

People in northern Vermont shouldn't dismiss this one yet, though. If the track of the storm is more to the north of what people are thinking now, the north will get into the action as well.

If it snows in Vermont with this thing, the snow is pretty likely to be wet and heavy. It'll be windy, too, during the storm. So if wet snow does happen, we'll have to deal with power failures. That's a big if, an we'll have to wait and see.

This storm is part of a blocky weather pattern that's bringing frigid weather to Europe and an unseasonable thaw to the Arctic.  When weather patterns are this far off the rails, forecasting becomes tricker.  That makes the predictions for this storm even murkier than usual.

As I always say, stay tuned for updates.

Longest Streak Of No U.S. Tornado Deaths Unfortunately Ends

A tornado spins through Kentucky
on Saturday. 

Two people died during tornadoes in the mid-South of the United States Saturday ending a record long 284 streak of no tornado deaths in the nation. 

Before Saturday, the last time someone died in a tornado was on May 16, 2017, when twisters caused fatalities in Wisconsin and Texas.

The bad news, of course, is we are just heading into tornado season. Spring and early summer are the time of year the United States gets the most tornadoes. As we get into March, and especially April and May, the risk of strong, deadly tornadoes escalates dramatically.

In fact, additional severe storms are possible Tuesday in Wednesday in parts of Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

As bad as Saturday was, it could have been worse. Tornadoes caused a lot of damage to dozens of homes in Tennessee and Arkansas. One person died in Adairville, Kentucky and another person passed away in Clay County, Arkansas.

The other destructive tornadoes on Saturday caused some injuries, but no deaths.

Tornado damage in Tennessee Saturday. 

Flooding has been as bad, or even worse problem than the tornadoes and severe storms. There's widespread flooding from Pennsylvania to Arkansas, and some rivers haven't yet crested.

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasitch has issued an emergency declaration for 17 counties. Large areas of the Louisville, Kentucky metro region were under water on Saturday.

As expected, the storm that caused the tornadoes and flooding is up in our neck of the woods in New England.

A damaged red pickup truck is removed after it slid into
a ditch near my St. Albans, Vermont home Sumday morning
amid a mix of sleet, snow and freezing rain. 

As forecast, it's an ugly Sunday out there with plenty of sleet, freezing rain, and a little snow and rain. I noticed a pickup truck slid off the road and was damaged on my road in St. Albans, Vermont this morning.    

In western New England areas like Vermont especially, the precipitation will tend to taper off this afternoon, but it will remain damp and cloudy and raw and quite windy, with gusts exceeding 40 mph at times.

After a rather calm, warmish week, there are signs of some sort of strong storm in the northeastern United States toward Friday.

It's too soon to say who, if anyone, will get rough weather out of that storm. And if there is rough weather, it's also too soon to say what kind of crappy conditions would develop.

Saturday Morning Update: Dangerous Day In South Today

Especially in the orange section of this map, people
should be on alert for severe thunderstorms and
tornadoes today. 

Just a brief update for Saturday morning with this alert:

People who live in a broad path from northeast Texas through Arkansas and on up into southern Missouri, Illinois and Indiana really ought to be on guard today.

A whole variety of dangerous weather is breaking out there, including widespread flooding, severe thunderstorms, and, likely tornadoes. A few of those tornadoes could be strong.

It's been raining hard for days in this area, so flooding is already ongoing. A huge batch of rain today is going to make things worse.

A strong disturbance will also make winds change directions with height, a great recipe if you want an early season outbreak of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.

The two biggest metro areas that seem to be under the gun today are Little Rock and Memphis, says NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. 

Especially in the purple and red sections of this map,
people should be on alert for looding today 

Also note that since the ground is saturated in those areas, strong winds would make it easier for trees to become uprooted during those strong winds in severe thunderstorms.

I'm impressed by the big size of today's high risk of flash flooding. According to the National Weather Service, that area extends from the southeastern corner of Oklahoma all the way up into Ohio.

Flooding has already taken a big toll this week in Ontario, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and elsewhere. At least two people have died in the flooding, and other deaths were reported during the week a bit west of the flood zone where freezing caused traffic crashes.

The St. Joseph River in and near South Bend, Indiana has reached a record crest and prompted plenty of evacuations.

The same storm that is likely to cause havoc today in the Mid-South will arrive in Vermont Sunday. There won't be anything too scary here, but it will be an ugly day in the weather department.

Expect snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain changing to rain as temperatures stay raw all day in the 30s. Gusty southeast winds of up to 40 mph will add to the ickiness of Sunday's weather.

It'll stay a little warmer than normal through most of next week. Many daytime highs will be in the 40s. It looks like maple sugaring season is off to an early start.

Still Warmer Than Normal, But Still A Return To Semi-Winter

This school bus got stuck in worsening Arkansas floodwaters
but everyone was rescued.

The very active, odd weather pattern continues across the nation and the Northern Hemisphere, really. We here in Vermont will continue to be affected by it.

It's just that - thankfully - I don't see any super bizarro weather on the horizon. At least in the near future.

We'll still have our challenges. Starting today.

For days now, there has been a conveyor belt of very wet air feeding in from the Gulf of Mexico through the middle of the country and occasionally on up into the Northeast.

That persistant precipitation has led to widespread and worsening flooding in parts of the South, and on up through the Midwest and as far north as Pennsylvania and Ontario.  The wet conveyor belt should last for a couple more days at least.

Some of that moisture gets thrown here into Vermont via disturbances and storm systems riding along the jet stream pattern that is causing that flooding. By the time things get here, there's less moisture, and the wet pattern isn't so consistent. Which means flooding has been minor.

Freezing rain has also been a problem with this weather pattern in parts of the nation's middle, and today, as a disturbance glides up toward us, it will be a problem in Vermont, too.

Don't worry. The trees aren't going go cave in under the weight of ice and the power won't go out for days on end. There's nothing heavy coming. It will be enough, though, to make travel tricky later today and tonight.

The forecast itself is a bit tricky. Some areas will rise above freezing and stay there through most of the precipitation that comes in today and tonight. That will be most true west of the Green Mountains.

East of the Green Mountains, especially in the valleys, there's a greater chance of freezing rain.

Thing zip on out of here tonight, and Saturday will actually be a very nice day across Vermont, with partly sunny skies and warm temperatures in the 38 to 45 degree range.

It sure won't be nice elsewhere in the nation, though. Remember that conveyor belt? Flooding is already ongoing and getting pretty bad in Arkansas and surrounding states. One last disturbance, the strongest yet, will enhance the rains in Arkansas and into Illinois and through parts of the already soaked Ohio River Valley. 

On top of that, chances are rising for the first real severe outbreak of the season on Saturday.  This severe weather at this point looks like it will be centered - you guessed it, in and around Arkansas. They're having a really tough time there.

There have been scattered severe thunderstorms and tornadoes here and there across the nation this winter, but nothing too widespread. (For the record, as of this morning, the U.S. has seen 35 tornadoes so far in 2018, somewhat fewer than we'd normally expect by now.)

Once you get into late February and toward March, the chances of severe weather, especially in the South, begin to ramp up as we begin a transition toward spring. By Saturday evening, you'll probably be hearing about high winds, severe thunderstorms and flash flooding, and probably some tornadoes.

The storm causing that will kind of split in two, one heading toward the Great Lakes, the other toward the Northeast coast. That means rain and mixed precipitation for us here in Vermont on Sunday. Winds could get gusty in some areas, too.

Temperatures here will stay warmer than normal into next week, but not extremely warm like the other day. Generally speaking, highs will be in the 35 to 45 degree range through the next week with lows in the 20s. Really kind of March-ish

Why Very Nice Weather Is Scary

My St. Albans,  Vermont yard Tuesday as the thaw
really took hold. 

If you're outdoors and it's partly sunny and 77 degrees, you should not be scared of the weather. After all, such weather sounds pretty pleasant.  

If you were in Bennington, Vermont yesterday, February 21, you experienced just that kind of weather. Note I said Vermont. In February. You can see why such weather in this case can be a little unnerving.

The weather extremes keep getting more extreme. A few years ago, I would have said it's pretty much impossible to get to 70 degrees in Vermont in February.

Then, yesterday, it was in the upper 70s. And we've now had two Februaries in a row in which it has been in the 70s in Vermont. The winter before that, it was 70 degrees in Vermont on Christmas Eve.

I keep telling you that a weather event on one dot on the map like Vermont does not tell you much about climate change. That is still true.

Yet, the entire East Coast was baking yesterday.

No fewer than 21 cities in the eastern United States from Florida to Maine broke records Wednesday for their hottest temperature on record for any February date.  Wells, Maine; Manchester, New Hampshire and Bennington, Vermont all hit 77 setting February statewide records across northern New England.

Tampa, Florida also hit an all time February record high of 89 degrees this week.

Same spot as above, 24 hours later. 

The weather extremes here in the Green Mountain State seem like they're getting more extreme and more frequent. That wouldn't be that big a deal except the extremes are getting more and more wild across many if not most parts of the world.

Of course, the trouble is, how do you measure the frequency of extremes. The overall temperature of the Earth is rising. That's relatively easy to measure. (NOAA just said that January for the Earth as a whole was the fifth warmest on record. And that means the Top 5 warmest Januaries have all occured since 2007.)  

Climate scientists tell us global warming will cause greater weather extremes. Anecdotally, that's easy to see. In addition to Vermont's February roast, a persistent stalled fetch of deep moisture is once again drowning parts of the Gulf states and South in flooding. The temperature is about to go above freezing at the North Pole like it's done a few times in the winter in recent years, which is very odd.

Arctic ice extent is at record lows for this time of year, and a bitter cold wave is heading toward western Europe from Siberia.

One way to look at the frequency of extreme weather is by examining warm spells, like the kind we just experienced yesterday.

Back in 2014, before many of the latest big, big heatwaves, Real Climate said record hot months at stations around the world were outpacing record cold months by a five-to-one margin. You can infer from this the world is warming as an unchanging climate would produce roughly equal numbers of hot and cold months.

An incredible  36-month streak of daily record maximum records exceeding daily record low minimums at weather stations throughout the United States ended in January, where record lows slightly outpaced record highs.

We're back to our old tricks, though. So far this month, U.S. weather stations have seen 1,707 daily record high temperatures versus just 174 record lows. Also so far this February, 37 weather stations have recorded their all time highest temperature for the month of February while just one recorded an all-time record low.

Another way to look at extreme weather events and trends in those events is the growing field of attribution science.

As Annie Sneed explained in Scientific American last year, computer programs are getting better at simulating the cause of extreme weather events, then estimating what would have happened without climate change. I'd better let her explain it:

"In our experimental set-up, we simulate the event in today's world, and then we remove anthropogenic emissions from the climate model's atmosphere, and do the same experiment again.  ...... Assuming everything else being equal, what is the influence of greenhouse gas emissions?"

This is all great, of course, but still, is there a way to measure the number of extreme events, say 100 years ago, compared to now?

I haven't come across such statistics, but I wish they existed.

Every time something extreme happens in the weather, climate change denialists and skeptics will point to a similar extreme in the past.

Yes, wild weather has always happened and always will, with or without climate change. Yes, it was in the 70s in New England yesterday, but it was 120 in the Great Plains in the summer of 1936.

However, are big hot spells more frequent than they were early in the 20th Century? The denialists and skeptics won't answer that question.

Muddying things further, some extremes that happen are just bad luck and have nothing to do with climate change. Or they would have happened anyway, but were possibly or probably made worse by climate change? How do you measure and prove that?

The consensus among scientists is that weird weather, like yesterday's summery February East Coast heat wave, is becoming more frequent with climate change.

The February heat wave wasn't as harmful as some big extremes, though budding flowers and crops up and down the East Coast will probably fall victim to normal spring freezes. In the past, if it got cold in March, who cares because plants hadn't started blooming yet.

Now we're getting these weird hot spells. California had a record warm winter, forcing crops and trees to start blooming too early. Then the inevitable winter frost and freeze hit last week.  The states $5 billion almond industry was almost certainly damaged by this.

Last year also had record February heat along the East Coast. Cherry blossoms in Washington DC bloomed too early, then many of the blooms were zapped and killed by a March freeze. Those blossoms are starting to bloom again this year, way too early. Will the same thing happen again.

As nice as this week's incredible February warmth felt to many of us, any weather extreme is bad, as I've just outlined.  And if extremes are getting wilder and more frequent, there's lots of trouble ahead.

Which is why I was scared yesterday when it was a very pleasant 77 degrees in Bennington, Vermont yesterday. In February.  Even as, exactly 24 hours later, Bennington was right back to normal February conditions: 30 degrees with fairly heavy snow falling.

Incredible February Heat Records In Vermont, Northeast And Arctic Beyond Unprecedented

This was a snow covered scene in my St Albans Vermont
yard two days ago. Today, amid record heat, I felt like I
should have been planting flowers. 

This is just a quick Wednesday evening update, as I will have more to say about this tomorrow, but some temperatures were recorded today in Vermont and elsewhere are just beyond belief.

A bit of history: Last February, Burlington and Bennington, Vermont reached 72 degrees, breaking by a large margin the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Green Mountain State during the second month of the year.

At the time this happened, I remember saying that even in the worst case scenario for global warming or whatever is going on, chances are we wouldn't see something like that in our lifetimes.

Boy was I wrong!!! Bennington, Vermont reached an amazing 77 degrees today, five degrees above last year's record and so warm it's scary.  I mean, really scary. That's a typical summertime high temperature. In February!

A cold front arrived in Burlington today before maximum temperatures could reach their highest potential. Still, it got up to 69 degrees in Burlington. Had last year not set the February record, Burlington would have exceeded the previous record high for February, which until 2017 had been 62 degrees.

Also today, Montpelier reached 70 degrees, by far their hottest February reading on record. Elsewhere, New York City's Central Park got up to 78 degrees, its hottest February temperature on record.

While all this was going on, extreme weather was causing all kinds of issues elsewhere in the nation. Record lows are being reported in the northwestern third of the United States, but those lows, while very unusual, can't compete with the bizarre warmth it the Northeast.

An airmass with a record high amount of moisture for this time of year today unleashed flooding downpours in Louisiana and Arkansas. These are states that have had an increasing frequency of flooding in recent years and decades.

Also today, freezing rain was falling from Minnesota to Texas.

And up in the Arctic, temperatures are expected to rise above freezing around the North Pole by Sunday. That's something that used to never happen this time of year.

Arctic sea ice is actually decreasing in extent this week. The Arctic ice is already at a record low extent for this time of year. The ice should still be expanding this time of year. It's only February.

According to the Washington Post, temperatures in the Arctic are now as much as 45 degrees above normal. The northernmost weather station in Greenland was above freezing this week for a full 24 hours. This in a place where the sun set in October and won't rise above the horizon again until March. Yet, they've had a thaw.

I'm not a scientist, but these developments are all very unnerving.

I  MUST give you the caveat that an individual weather event isn't proof of global warming. But the extremes today are consistent with global warming. Also, in terms of extremes, today's weather is also beyond the worst fear of many climate scientists.

I'm sure things will settle down once the current wild weather pattern settles down, but today's weather news frightened me more than almost anything I've seen in my more than five decades on this Earth.

Tropical Vermont In February Continues For (Part Of) Today

Here's something I thought I'd never see. A forecast
map issued by the National Weather Service office in
South Burlington, Vermont forecasting high
temperatures today - in mid- February - in the
low 70s across western Vermont. 

Just a quick update this morning as I've got an early meeting.  

That strange February heat wave has arrived and records are already falling. It was more than a little bizarre this morning to take the dogs outside this morning in far northern Vermont comfortably wearing shorts and a t-shirt. In Vermont! In February!

Before midnight, Burlington, Vermont had a record high for the date of 59 degrees.

Before dawn this morning, it was already 61 degrees in Burlington, a record high for today, and the temperature will keep rising before a cold front comes in this afternoon.

It's actually too bad the front is coming when it is. Had it held off until evening, the temperatures would really climb. Still, this heat wave is unprecedented, in an era when we're having unprecedented heat waves now once every few months or more. (Examples: Remember the four days of 90 degree heat in late September, during the autumn? and the 70 degree heat at the end of February last year?)

By the way 61 degrees at 5 a.m. in Burlington is exactly normal for that time of day in mid-July, the peak of summer. Today's forecast highs, in the 60s, with a few low 70s possible in southwestern Vermont, are normal for late May.

If it reaches 70 degrees in Vermont today, this will be the third winter in a row that the Green Mountain State has seen 70 degree readings during both the winter.  That's never happened before.

The flood watch is still in effect for today for most of Vermont and northern New York as the snow is rapidly melting, rivers are rising and ice jams are holding in place. As of dawn, I haven't seen many flood warnings in the region yet, but I have a feeling that will change soon. There was an ice jam on the Ausable River in New York that prompted flood warnings for awhile overnight.

The only good news regarding the flood watch is that although there will be showers around with the cold front this afternoon, those rains won't be particularly heavy and they won't last all that long in any particular spot.

After today, it's back to winter reality in Vermont with temperatures tonight bottoming out near 20 degrees by dawn and rising to only the low 30s Thursday afternoon. Which is normal for this time of year.

Beyond that, we're still in a weather pattern in which there's a strong ridge of warm high pressure to out southeast and cold air over the continent. That will drive a few  modest storm systems by us through the weekend.

It'll be warm enough so that most of the precipitation will be rain, but snow will mix in at times. There will be some light accumulations in the mountains, but not remotely enough to replace what was lost in this heat wave.

While we Vermonters are basking in summer warmth for at least part of today, freezing rain in the middle of the country extends as far south as central Texas.  

A conveyor belt of deep moisture and heavy rain that started a couple days ago continues to run from northeast Texas to the Great Lakes.

Flood warnings and watches continue to extend from Texas to Michigan. Some areas have had up to five inches of rain already. Another six or seven inches of rain or locally more is forecast over the next several days in and near Arkansas, so flooding will continue to spread and get worse.

This Vermont February Hot Spell Will Be Really Weird. Strange Weather Everywhere

Snow was rapidly melting in my St Albans, Vermont
yard this morning. I expect pretty much all of this snow
to be gone by tomorrow with record heat moving in

As of this Tuesday morning, a warm front was slowly working its way north into and through Vermont and the rest of New England, setting the stage for that long awaited record heat.

This is just part of the extreme weather pattern I referred to yesterday that will keep forecasters veyr busy, and likely guessing at what's next for days, if not weeks

As the warm air comes in, signs of the strangeness are there already. Typically, warm air will come in at higher elevations first as a winter warm front arrives. That's true this time, but up above us, it's really warm. Atop Mount Mansfield at 8 a.m., it was already 46 degrees.

Even loftier Mount Washington was 40 degrees as of 10 a.m. Their all time February record high up there is 43 degrees, so they have a good shot.

The warm air will continue to creep in, southwest to northeast all day. High temperatures for the day will probably occur toward evening.  It'l be warmest to the southwest, where parts of New York and low elevations in southwestern Vermont will get close to 60 degrees.

Flood watches continue across the region, for good reason. Part of the problem, of course, is the rain that's falling across our area with this warm front. The air is humid, and will get more humid. Dewpoints will rise into the 50s, which is typical for summer.  When it's this warm, especially when the air is humid, melts snow really, really fast.

Rivers will rise quickly by later tonight through Wednesday. The biggest problem areas, of course, are where there's existing ice jams, but I imagine rivers will go over their banks to cause at least minor flooding across some river valleys in Vermont.

At mid elevations, there was two to four inches of "rainfall" locked in the snowpack. That snowpack will have completely disappeared by Wednesday. So that's two to four inches of "rain" on top of the actual rain coming out of the sky during this hot spell.

Actual temperatures overnight will also be in the 50s, possibly near 60 in some of the warmer areas as we get close to dawn. Again, that's something that we often seen in the summer, but not February!

The February heat here in Vermont will be brief, but intense. It's usually very hard for computer models, and human weather forecasters to get a handle on exactly what will happen, since this kind of thing is so unprecedented.

At the moment, the National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont is going for a high temperature of 69 degrees in Burlington on Wednesday. If not for last year, that temperature would have broken the record for the hottest February day by seven degrees.

That is, except for last year, when the February temperature in the Queen City reached an incredible 72 degrees. So we'll probably end up with the second hottest February temperature on record.

But the top two hottest February days coming in consecutive years?!?!? Wild.

The NWS in South Burlington looked at the trajectory of the air that is supposed to be over us tomorrow. That is, where it's coming from. Their answer: Grand Bahama Island.

Also, if it hits 70 degrees anywhere in Vermont on Wednesday, it will be the third winter in a row where it was 70 degrees somewhere in the Green Mountain State.

Depending on the timing of an afternoon cold front on Wednesday, we definitely have a good shot of seeing a spot 70 degree reading in the southern Champlain Valley, the lowlands of southwestern Vermont, or in the Connecticut River valley down by Brattleboro.

As noted, a cold front will come in during Wednesday afternoon. There will probably be a very abrupt drop in temperature into the low 50s during that time - still awfully hot for February.

OFF THE RAILS ELSEWHERE

This weather pattern, as noted, is causing all sorts of issues across the nation - and elsewhere, really.

Repeated thunderstorms and downpours have much of Michigan awash in floodwaters. Other downpours - amounting to more than half a foot of rain in many areas, will stretch from northeast Texas to the Tennessee and Ohio river valleys over the next few days, so major flooding will be in the news from there.

On the cold side of this weather system, an ice storm is unfolding in parts of Kansas and Missouri. As of this morning, those areas were getting freezing rain, punctuated by claps of thunder at times.

In Minnesota, freezing rain was also coming down. And, as expected, a hard freeze was killing crops this morning in California's Central Valley.

LOOKING AHEAD

The weather pattern across the Northern Hemisphere is turning "blocky." That means that big gyrations in the jet stream are slowing down storms and weather systems and making them move in odd and unpredictable ways at times.

For us here in Vermont, that means a gradual cooldown over the next several days, with several chances of rain and snow. Readings will still be warmer than normal heading into this weekend, just not extreme like we're expecting tomorrow.

With this blocky pattern, we could have some interesting weather much of next week, but nobody really knows yet what we mean by "interesting." Storms? cold? warm? Stay tuned.

This impending pattern is flooding the Arctic with what for them is unseasonably hot air near the freezing point. And very cold, possibly near record cold will spread across Europe and into Great Britain.

Never a dull moment, huh?

This Could Be Vermont's Four Really Off The Rails Weather February In A Row

Day lillies bizarrely begin to sprout during all time
record February warmth last year. 

Forecasts for midweek in Vermont tell us  we'll be seeing temperatures in the 60s to around 70 by Wednesday in most of the state, which is really incredible for February. In fact, it would be unprecedented if not for last year.

If the forecast comes true, it'll make if the fourth February in a row that has rewritten, or at least altered, record books. One of those Februarys, 2015, was very cold. The other three are seeing record heat.

Let's get 2015 out of the way. It was a brutal February, the third coldest on record with a mean temperature of 7.6 degrees. That's nearly 14 degrees below normal. There were no extremely cold nights that month, nothing in the 20s to near 30 below zero.

But the cold was grindingly consistent. In Burlington, 17 of the 28 days that month had temperatures below zero.

Subsequent Februarys turn hot. The first week of February, 2016 saw record highs in the 50s. That week is normally the depth of winter, but I recall working in my garden, digging completely unfrozen ground as I prepared new perennial beds.  I'm so far north that I can literally see Canada from my house.  So that was a new experience.

February, 2016 ended up being the 9th warmest on record. It would have averaged even higher if not for a brief Valentine's weekend cold snap that brought temperatures into the teens below zero before readings quickly recovered.

February, 2016 brought heavy rains, too. Places like Hardwick and Springfield Vermont saw several buildings and businesses damaged by flooding. Rainfall in one storm that month amounted to as much as 2.8 inches in just over 24 hours. That's nearly double the amount of precipitation that usually falls in an entire February.

Garden work in far northern Vermont in umfrozen ground
early February 2016. At that time of year, the earth should
have been frozen rock hard with snow covering it, but
record heat changed that scenario. 

Then there was the piece de resistance, February, 2017, which really, really went off the rails. By the 23rd of the month, Burlington reached 63 degrees, breaking the old all-time record high for February of 62.

But we were just warming up. Literally. On the 25th, Burlington reached 72 degrees, shattering the monthly record. It was also 72 in Bennington during that hot spell, so both figures now stand as the warmest readings on record for anywhere in Vermont.

The warmth was so extreme that severe weather came all the way north into New England. It was so weird the first February tornado on record in Massachusetts damaged homes in the western part of the state.

Now we're waiting to see how weird this week gets. We'll keep an eye on it for sure!

Extreme Weather Pattern Is About To Create Lots Of Extreme Weather

As of Sunday afternoon, the map on the home
page of the National Weather Service was lit up
with lots of colors. That signifies lots of weather
watches, warnings and alerts, meaning there will
be a lot to talk about in the weather over the coming days.
The dark green you see in Vermont is a flood watch.

The jet stream and the weather is going haywire again, which means we here in Vermont, and a lot of people throughout Earth's Northern Hemisphere are going to have plenty of extreme and bizarre weather over the next week or so.

THE PATTERN:

The polar vortex, that whirlpool of very cold air that pretty much always wanders around the Arctic, or at least near it, all the time has split into two pieces. That's rare, but it does happen occasionally.

One piece is ending up roughly over central and northwestern Canada, while the other piece is somewhere around Siberia. That means western North America and parts of Europe and interior Asia are turning quite cold.

The split in the polar vortex means another big squirt of warm air will enter the far northern Arctic, including around the North Pole. (This has been going on a lot lately.)

That's bad, because it's been very warm (for them) across much of the Arctic most of this winter. Sea ice extent is running at record lows.

That burst of above freezing air coming in for the high Arctic will just make things worse.

UNITED STATES SCREWED, TOO

Meanwhile, down here in the United States, a big, strong ridge of high pressure - basically an out of season Bermuda High, is about to pump record warm temperatures into the eastern third of the nation.

Out west, the position of one piece of the polar vortex means it's going to be quite cold over the next several days in the western third of the United States. Again, that's bad. It's been incredibly warm in California all winter. Plants and crops are blooming much earlier than normal as a result.

This cold air is going to nip lots of agricultural crops, especially in California's Central Valley. Hard freeze warnings are up, and it looks like the too-early blooming plants are going to get nailed. I expect millions of dollars in agricultural losses because of this. There also might be some shortages of produce in your supermarket.

More inland, winter storm warnings, watches and advisories are up for wide areas of the Rockies and northwestern Plains state.

Big chunks of The eastern half of the country is in trouble with this weather pattern, too. The orientation of this Bermuda high will help draw massive amounts of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, leading to repeated rounds of torrential rains in a broad band from Texas to Michigan.

Many - but not all -  of these areas have had quite a lot of rain this month already. Some areas from northeastern Texas through Arkansas and into southern Ilinois could get seven or more inches of rain over the next week. There is a high chance of flooding, as you'd imagine.

VERMONT EFFECTS:

We barely got clipped by that storm that zipped by to our south last night. Most of us got one to three inches of snow, with a little less around Burlington and up to six inches and southern and eastern parts of the state.

It's kind of mild today, and some of the snow is starting to melt. But you haven't seen anything yet!

After the 30s today, it'll get into the 40s Monday and 50s to low 60s Tuesday and Wednesday. That's definitely record territory.  This will be an unusually humid warm spell for this time of year. When the air is moist, snow tends to melt much faster than when the air is dry.

The start of a thaw. Snow sliding off my St. Albans, Vermont
roof today clings to the eaves in foot-long sheets. With
forecasts for highs near 60 by Tuesday and Wednesday,
this snow will be gone soon. 

Also, partly because of the humidity, temperatures will remain extremely warm Tuesday might.

Lows early Wednesday will probably stay above 50 degrees in the Champlain Valley. That's normal for late May, not February! That'll keep the snow melt going at a fast clip.

Also, there will be a fair bit of rain during this, especially over northern areas, which will be closer to a stalled front.

The combination of melting snow and the rain could lead to flooding. Most of Vermont and northern New York is now under a flood watch Monday through Wednesday.

The biggest problem here is the ice jams left behind from that other mega-thaw in January. They're still there, and this thaw and rain will either dam up water behind the ice jams, make the ice jams even bigger, or move them into more populated areas.

As we found out in towns like Swanton and Johnson back in January, this can quickly lead to destructive flooding.

So yeah, we'll probably have quite a bit to talk about in the weather department over the next several days.

Saturday Update: Surprise Friday Snow, Temporary Spring Still Coming

After much of the snow in my St. Albans, Vermont yard
disappeared in 50 degree temperatures on Thursday,
 an unexpected 3.3 inches of new snow that fell Friday
returned my property to a wintery look Saturday morning.

I was frankly a bit dismayed Friday evening as I drove home from work in Burlington, Vermont, which barely got a dusting of snow during the day, to my house in St. Albans, Vermont, where I measured 3.3 inches of new powder that came down during the day. 
Some northern areas of Vermont, like St. Albans, got more snow than expected as a cold front came through during the day. There was enough moisture in the air to wring out when the cold front invaded.

When I said yesterday that, regarding this early preview of spring, results would vary. They did.

A more expected storm is still expected to hit southern New England tonight, with a quick burst of five to 8 inches of snow likely in most of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Similar amounts are likely near or just north of New York City. 

But that will be it for winter for the next several days as the long awaited big thaw is still coming.  The new snow in southern New England will almost certainly be melting rapidly by Sunday afternoon.

It's already developing as warm air builds in the Southeast and off the Southeast coast. There were record highs in the low 80s Friday in North Carolina. While that warmth has temporarily subsided down there, it will resurge - all the way to New England next week.

All the picky details still need to be worked out. Nobody knows exactly where warm fronts and cold fronts will set up, and when they will go through our region.

If fronts stall close to Vermont Monday through Wednesday, the warmth will be tempered by clouds and rain, but it will still be warm -- with unseasonable readings in the 50s. If the sun breaks through, it could get ridiculous, with temperatures maybe topping 60 degrees.

Places as far north as southern New England could reach 70 degrees. Like I said, insane!

Also, like I noted yesterday, despite the oncoming warmth, winter is NOT over. I'm absolutely certain we'll have at least an occasional bout in March with mid-winter style cold and snowstorms.

Temporary Spring Is Here (*Results May Vary)

Melting snow made for a watery walk down a Winooski,
Vermont sidewalk Thursday as springlike weather arrived.

UPDATE: That storm in Uniontown, Pennsylvania last night was confirmed as an EF-1 tornado.

Also, the cold front has arrived in northern Vermont and as of 1:30 p.m. it was snowing harder in some areas than I originally anticipated.

It will taper off later this afternoon, but be prepared for some icy roads for the next few hours as temperatures drop below freezing.


PREVIOUS DISCUSSION
Boy, yesterday felt like early April in Vermont with temperatures in the 40s an 50s.

Burlington reached 53 degrees, just one degree below the record high for the date. Bennington, Vermont was a balmy 58 degrees and Plattsburgh, New York, a toasty 56 degrees.

Also fitting the spring season, there was a possible tornado last night in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The National Weather Service will investigate that one.

It's rare for tornadoes to strike as far north as Pennsylvania in February. Plus, early reports suggest this likely tornado was quite destructive, damaging or even destroying several homes. So far, only minor injuries have been reported.

There will be an interruption of sorts to this early spring weather, but it's coming back tomorrow. A cold front is sagging through Vermont today from the north, bringing a much chillier, but not ridiculous change toward winter, but it will be very temporary.

Also, lots of moisture riding along this slow front is largely missing Vermont, so there's no flooding problems like in places such as western Pennsylvania and parts of Ohio last night. 

Another storm will zip along this front Saturday night. By then, the front will be south of New England. This means southern New England, the New York City metro area, Long Island and northern New Jersey is in for a quick four to eight inches of wet snow Saturday night. Winter storm watches are in effect for those areas.

The snow will extend into Vermont, but it won't be bad. At this point, it looks like two or three inches in far southern parts of the state, tapering down to a dusting or so in the north.

By Sunday afternoon, this early taste of spring will begin to return once again. The overnight snows in the south will begin thawing in the afternoon, and even far northern Vermont should get at least into the mid and upper 30s.

Then the warmth floods in, with temperatures well into the 40s Monday. It's looking like we might be in record high territory here in Vermont with possible highs in the 50s to low 60s Tuesday. Wednesday looks nearly as warm at this point.

Some rain will accompany this warmth. We'll have to watch the lingering ice jams from January, as the warmth and rain will cause some rises on river levels, and that will move the ice around. It's hard to say at this point how much rain we'll get.

If the rain is particularly heavy, it could cause real problems. Early indications are rainfall will be under an inch, which isn't bad. Meteorologists will be watching this.

By the way, the pattern we're getting into, with warm, wet air in the east and wintry weather in the northwestern part of the country could favor a severe weather outbreak in the central and southern parts of the United States.

It's too soon to speculate on precisely where and if this might happen, so stay tuned. However, heavy rain in the Tennessee and lower Mississippi Valley over the next 10 days or so already has weather watchers there definitely worried about flooding.

Back here in Vermont, we of course know that despite the likely February warmth coming up, winter is not over. There will surely be bouts of wintry cold and snow in March.

This is just a tease. Enjoy it, unless you're a snow lover.

In Exception, Record Lows Outpaced Record Highs In January, But That Will Change In February

Ice jam and flooding on Boston Post Road in Enosburg,
Vermont on a rainy, record warm January 12. The warmth
came just five days after record cold. 

Starting in December, 2014, the number of record highs across the United States outpaced the number of record lows in each month. At least through December, 2017.

That long streak was broken in January, when that brutal cold wave in the eastern two thirds of the nation created more record lows than record highs.

According to the Guy On Climate blog, using information from the National Climate Data Center, said there were 1,918 daily record highs in January and 2,750 daily record lows. (Burlington, Vermont had one of those record highs and one of those record lows in January.)

Thus, January ended a remarkable streak of 37 consecutive months where United States record highs outpaced record lows.

It's just one indication, though I admit not proof, that the climate is off the rails. You should have roughly an even number of record lows and record highs. Some months would  have more record highs, others would have more record lows, depending on the weather pattern during that period. But long term, it should even out.

You'll notice the record lows in January did not outpace record highs by all that much. Some months during the three year streak of warmth were particularly lopsided. For instance, one standout, February, 2017 had 7,180 record highs and just 178 record lows.

So far in February, as of Tuesday, there had been 962 daily record high maximum temperatures across the country and 69 record lows.

Most of those record highs were in the western part of the nation. Over the next several days, record and near record highs are likely on various days over the next week or so in the eastern and southern third of the country.

Meanwhile, cold air will be mostly confined to the northwestern third of the nation, That chilly air isn't exceptional, so there won't be very many record lows to report in the coming days.

Sea Level Rise Might Be Worse Than We Thought

Water from melting flows off the Greenland
Ice Sheet. Recent research suggests ice
sheet melting in Greenland and
Antarctica might be worse than first thought. 

The science shifts a little from time to time as to how bad sea level rise is going to get with global warming. The latest study is mostly bad news on this front.

The latest salvo in this discussion is a new study that says melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland are now speeding up the process.

Global warming causes sea levels to rise in two ways: Warmer water expands. When the water heats up, it gets "bigger" meaning it has nowhere to go but up.

The other way sea levels rise is more obvious: Land based ice sheets melt, and the meltwater eventually makes its way to the oceans. Hence, higher water.

The latest research says the pace of sea level rise has picked up over the past 25 years mostly because of the melting ice sheets.

According to The Weather Channel:

"Of the 3 inches of sea level rise in the past quarter century, about 55 percent is from warmer water expanding, and the rest is from leting ice. But the process is accelerating, and more than three quarters of that acceleration since 1993 is due to melting ice sheets in Greenland an Antartica, the study shows."

The bottom line is that by the year 2100, sea levels could rise by two feet, instead of the one foot projections we've commonly heard are due by the end of the century.

One big wild card in all this is probably Antarctica. Will big parts of it keep melting faster and faster? Or will increased snowfall over that continent at the bottom of the Earth offset some of the melt. It tends to snow more when it's warmer, as long as it's not above freezing. A warmer Antarctic climate could increase snowfall. On top of that, some sort of natural cycle has increased snowfall in Antarctica over the past 10,000 years.

A NASA study, using satellite analysis, says the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice per year from 1992 to 2001. That rate slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.

It's possible this net gain trend will reverse itself in coming decades. Plus, everybody knows that parts of Antarctica are indeed showing a melting trend. And other research, including the new work I described above, contradicts the NASA findings.

As you can see, scientists really need to continue figuring out Antarctica and how it relates to climate change.

Meanwhile, things are worse in some areas than others. Changing sea currents and sinking land in some parts of the U.S. East Coast are making things worse. After sinking land amid rising sea levels can never be a good thing.

The combined land sinking and sea level rise means that the sea level in the past 100 years has shown a net gain of 11 inches in New York and Boston, 16 inches in Atlantic City, 18 inches in Norfolk, Virginia and 25 inches in Galveston, Texas.

While some of the research is still a little murky, one thing is clear: It's only going to get worse.

Freezing Rain + Trampoline = Cool Video

They had a bit of freezing rain in Missouri a few days ago. The ice coated everything, including a backyard trampoline owned by the McNew family.

So, Dylan McNew, 14, had a buddy film a slo-mo version of him leaping on to the ice-covered trampoline. The results are awesome. Watch:

Early End To Vermont Winter? Well........It's Complicated

Tonks the Weather Dog out in our St. Albans, Vermont
driveway today sniffing the air for early signs of spring.
Tonks says there are subtle, vague indications to be hopeful.

This seems to be turning out to be - at least from what I can see - as something I'd call a front-loaded winter in Vermont.

The winter hit earlier than in recent years way back in November and December. And as you'll recall, by the second half of December and early January, the weather got quite harsh.

Since then, it's been a relatively easy season, as far as Vermont winters go, and there's nothing in the immediate forecast that I would call all that wintry. In fact, there are signs most of the rest of February will be kind of gentle.

Looking back in more detail, November turned out to be a little colder than normal, and December was more than three degrees chillier than what we would normally expect.

Then there was that first week of January when the temperature fell to a record 20 below in Burlington, Vermont and close to 40 below in some of the cold hollows of the Northeast Kingdom.

Then we got a break, and despite some wintry shots, we've been coasting since. It's as if winter got all revved up and exhausted itself early. Like I said, front loaded. The second half of January was more than seven degrees warmer than normal.

February so far is running 3.5 degrees warmer than normal in Burlington. Though it's somewhat chilly today, the forecast indicates the running February average will get even more above normal in the coming days.

We're expecting highs in the 40s Wednesday and Thursday. After cooling off to near normal readings Friday and Saturday, we go back above normal next week, and could get all the way to almost the end of the month with the majority of the days being on the toasty side.

I would almost dare to bet my next paycheck that it won't get down to 20 below again in Burlington this winter.

By mid-February, the Vermont winter cold usually begins to show signs of abating anyway. It least in most years. The sun feels a little warmer in these longer days, and the normal average temperature begins to creep up. It's just this year, the early signs of winter's end seem just a tad more pronounced than in some years.

One thing this means is, I'm hoping Vermont sugarmakers are ready to start their season early once again. It's looking more and more likely there's some decent sap runs coming in the next couple of weeks.

There has been a general trend in Vermont and elsewhere for earlier seasons anyway in recent years.

You want to catch the sap now, in case March turns out much warmer than normal, which would end the season early. Of course, at this point, we have no idea what kind of month March will be.

March is, of course, a wild card. Probably the most wild card month of the year. True, we've had a warm March here and there, like in 2012, in which Vermonters spent a week during March in summery temperatures in the upper 70s and low 80s. 

We also know March can be extremely wintry. Just last year, after Burlington, Vermont reached an incredible, unprecedented 72 degrees in late February, March brought us the three-foot- deep Pi-day blizzard and a deep snow cover that lasted into the first days of April.

March, 2007 and March 1993 might as well have been midwinter months, they were so cold and snowy, so you can see anything can happen.

Winter might or might not be largely over, but we can now take comfort in the fact that this winter will not go down in history as severe as we thought it would be back at Christmastime. Even if March turns out to be rough on us.