Matt's Weather Rapport is written by Vermont-based journalist and weather reporter Matt Sutkoski. This blog has a nationwide and worldwide focus, with particular interest in Vermont and the Northeast. Look to Matt's Weather Rapport for expert analysis of weather events, news, the latest on climate change science, fun stuff, and wild photos and videos of big weather events. Also check for my frequent quick weather updates on Twitter, @mattalltradesb
Yep, that's snow! Webcam image this morning at dawn from the
Nashville section of Jericho, Vermont.
As of early this morning, it was still raining a bit in Burlington, Vermont, and it's sodden out there.
By 5 a.m. this morning, Burlington has had 4.74 inches of rain and melted snow in April, enough for it to be the sixth wettest April on record.
I don't think we'll get enough new rain to take the #5 spot, and we certainly won't break the all-time April record of 7.88 inches set in 2011.
There was even some snow to talk about yesterday and last night in some of the high elevations of Vermont and especially New York, where the cold air from aloft was the toughest and strongest.
Not many reports have trickled in yet, but I do know it snowed all day yesterday in Saranac Lake, New York. A storm total of 5 inches was reported early this morning from an 1,100-foot elevation location in Marshfield, Vermont.
Early morning webcam images across Vermont show widespread snow cover above an elevation of 900 feet or so. It looks like about an inch or more in the Jericho area, and a couple inches around Brookfield, judging from the webcam images.
I saw a scrim of snow on the top of the hill in back of my house in St. Albans, Vermont, so I probably got some snow mixed with rain at my place while I slept last night. But I'll just say that since I didn't see it, it didn't happen.
Don't worry, the weather will turn markedly warmer this week.
Today will gradually get better. Light rain and drizzle this morning (with some higher elevations snow) will slowly taper off. It will still be chilly for the season this afternoon --- highs 48 to 55 across most of the North Country, but that's a bit better than yesterday.
Traffic camera along Interstate 89 in Brookfield shows a snowy morning.
A few scattered light showers might linger into tonight and early Tuesday. But there will be increasing sun Tuesday with a dramatic warmup --- well into the 60s.
Wednesday, the peak of "heat wave" could bring us the first 80 degree reading of the season.
However, wet times are not over for us. A series of weather disturbances, then cold fronts will come in Thursday and Friday with showers and possible thunderstorms.
It won't rain all the time either day, but it will turn humid. (Yes, another sign of spring, the word "humid" has popped up again.)
Thursday's temperatures will probably be in the low 70s and the air will have a muggy feel to it. Some of the showers Thursday and Friday might come down quite hard. That means some areas could get another inch or more of rain at the end of the week.
I guess we don't have to worry about drought wilting our early season blooms. Of course, I can't predict how wet or dry the overall summer will be. We'll have to wait on that.
With all this rain, Lake Champlain is rising toward its 100 foot minor flood stage. As of late yesterday, it had another foot to go to reach that level. No guanantees that it will, but there's certainly a good chance of it.
The weather pattern does look pretty active for the first half of May but I can't tease out specifics of any storms beyond this coming week.
In mid-April, more than a foot of snow as on the ground in places like Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Now, we're talking both brush fires and floods in the same areas. How quickly things change.
About ten days ago, the weather pattern abruptly shifted to one that featured dry, warm conditions in the Upper Midwest.
In recent days, there have been concerns about brush fires. The snow melted super quickly, leaving behind expanses of dry, dead grass, weeds, shrubs and whatnot. It hasn't been warm long enough yet to green things up.
When it gets dry, warm and windy under these conditions, fires can erupt. I noticed Sunday people in large swaths of Minnesota, the Dakotas and surrounding states were under all kinds of fire alerts. Anybody stupid enough to light a match or toss a cigarette outdoors was likely to cause a fire.
Although showers will begin in some areas as soon as Monday, other areas will stay fire-prone for the start of the week. Areas near the South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa borders expect dry air, temperatures in the 80s and winds gusting to near 40 mph on Monday.
Meanwhile, that rapidly melting snow had to go somewhere. Into the rivers it went. In the very same places where there's fire alerts, there are also river flood warnings. Most of the flooding is relatively minor, but in some places, it's kind of bad.
While parts of Minnesota burn in dry, windy spring weather, rapid snowmelt is simultaneously causing river floods in some areas.
Moderate flooding is expected along the Mississippi River near St. Paul, Minnesota.
The flooding is not expected to be the worst ever in most places. Similar late winter and spring conditions existed in parts of the Upper Plains in 2011, leading to record and near record flooding along the Missouri River, especially near Yankton, South Dakota.
Even though the grass is dry, the ground beneath it is soggy from all that melted snow and recent rain. That means spring planting is screwed up at the moment.
Farmers can't get into their fields, so spring wheat planting is way behind schedule, Agweek reports.All is not lost, though. It's gotten drier this week, and farmers have a chance to catch up. Other crops, like corn and soybeans, don't go in yet anyway, so there's time.
Some rain is forecast for the Dakotas and Minnesota for most of this week, but it will be a Goldilocks rain: Light enough so that there will be little additional flooding, but heavy enough to wet down the dry grasses and encourage a spring green up.
Schematic view of a cut-off low, though this isn't today's forecast You see the jet stream going across Canada (thick blue lines and arrows) with a cut off low left behind it in the center of the country.
It's chilly and rainy here on this Sunday and in much of the rest of the Northeast. The Pacific Northwest isn't doing much better.
The common thing causing these dreary spots on the national weather map: Cut off upper level lows.
These things I would say are most common in the spring. The jet stream normally helps bring storm systems generally west to east across the Northern Hemisphere.
The jet stream is basically strong winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere, so things move right along, so a storm usually doesn't sit in one place for very long.
Most storms also have a pool of chilly air with them in the upper atmosphere. The air up there associated with them is cooler than the surrounding air. That helps air rise, cool, condense and drop moisture as rain or snow.
This time of year, in the spring, the jet stream is retreating more and more toward the North Pole. Sometimes the storms within the jet stream are "left behind" to the south. Think of a river that has flooded a neighboring field.
When the river recedes, most of the water in the field goes with it. But pools of standing water remain. That's kind of what these cut-off lows are like.
With no jet stream to push them along, cut-off lows tend to meander and don't move much. Which is why this upper low in the Northeast began to affect us Friday and Saturday and will keep doing so into Monday.
As I said, the air in upper layers of the atmosphere is chilly, compared to the surrounding air in and near these cut-off lows. That helps air rise and we get precipitation. The chilly air up above helps make us cold down here, too.
That's why temperatures are so chilly today - in the 40s to near 50 in Vermont. Snow is likely at elevations above 2,000 feet, though I don't think it will accumulate much, except on northern mountain peaks.
To give you an idea of what a supply of cold air there is with these upper lows, temperatures today are in the low teens at about 9,000 feet above central New York.
Directly beneath that cold upper level center in New York, it was only 35 degrees in Utica, New York as of 9 a.m. today, and the expected high temperature today is only 41 degrees. In high elevation Saranac Lake, New York, it was 33 degrees and snowing as of 9 a.m. Sunday.
The upper low in the Pacific Northwest isn't as strong as the one over us here in Vermont, so the air isn't as cool and it isn't as rainy there as it is here. Still, it's cooler than normal in places like Seattle, and they are under threat of showers today.
The jet stream to the north of these cut off lows still has some influence. That jet stream will gradually nudge the upper level low over us to the east in the coming days.
You'll notice it will be a tad warmer and less showery on Monday, and by Tuesday, it'll be back to spring, with temperatures right there in the 60s with sunshine.
We're lucky. Sometimes these upper lows can sit over or near us for up to two weeks. It's good we'll only have to put up with this one for two or three days.
A classic mid-spring weather pattern is unfolding, especially in the middle of the country, and that means there's the risk of severe storms and tornados across the Plains and Midwest.
Meteorologists are confident this will happen. But they're not confident as to how bad this might get. The main ingredients for a severe weather outbreak are certainly there in the middle of the week:
Dry air coming in from the west, wet air coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, a decent sized storm and winds veering with height.
That's a standard recipe for spring tornadoes in the United States.
Those ingredients must come together though just perfectly to cause a significant, scary, deadly and destructive tornado outbreak. You really can't tell if that will happen often until hours before the event.
With a decent amount of luck, maybe there won't be many tornadoes, and those that do form will be relatively weak. That would mean just your standard issue damage -- local power outages, trees down, barn roofs blown off, a few broken windows - bad but they'll deal with it.
Or, if there are strong tornadoes, there's a lot of open space in the middle of the country. If a strong tornado forms, we can pray that it stays over open farm country and causes little damage.
Outbreaks of severe weather and tornadoes are pretty common in the United States during the spring. But extreme storms aren't so common in the Mideast, and they had a doozy this week.
Ten teenagers died when caught in flash flooding near the Dead Sea in Israel. Four other youths died in the region during the flooding. Huge amounts of hail buried parts of Syria. Massive dust storms engulfed Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Parts of Israel had a third of the normal year's worth of rain in a day or two. Tel Aviv, Israel, had an inch of rain in an hour. Jerusalem had two inches. Both cities were awash in destructive flash floods.
Severe flooding also hit Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.
The storm that hit the Mideast had plenty of cold air aloft, and plenty of moisture from the Mediterranean. The combination made the air extremely unstable, which caused the massive downpours and winds.
If there was a bright side to the chaos and tragedy from the weather in the Mideast, it's that the strom hit during a serious drought, so it partly re-filled reservoirs and alleviated the dryness.
Videos of the Mideast show the chaos.
Here's a view out of a plane window as the aircraft flies into a massive dust storm this week in Saudi Arabia. The plane landed safely:
Check out this incredibe hailstorm in Arad, Israel:
Here's a street in Jerusalem overrun with water. Notice tables and chairs floating by:
Tel Aviv, Israel was chaotic, too, in the hail and flooding:
Canadian meteorologist Brandon Gonez, left, seemed delighted to be Rick
Rolled on air. It helped that the actual Rick Astley came on set
A "Rick Roll" is one of the oldest, and many would say most obnoxious internet memes.
For the uninitiated, getting Rick Rolledis when somebody sends you a link saying you MUST watch it because it's so incredible.
Then you open the link and instead of something you'd really go wow about, you get the music video of Rick Astley performing his 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up."
So it was recently on a recent morning that meteorologist Brandon Gonez was going over the rather inclement weather that was plaguing Ontario and Quebec when the familiar strains of "Never Gonna Give You Up starting playing.
Even better: The actual, real live Rick Astley came on to the set to do a meteorological in person Rick Roll
So much for the lousy Canadian weather. Gonez really did seem to appreciate the Rick Roll
Some of you might have thought the epic rains of Hurricane Harvey in Texas last August beat these records as there were media reports of 50 inches of rain in that disaster.
I checked, and that 50 inches was a storm total from Harvey, not rainfall in just 24 hours. Some places in Texas got 30 inches of rain within 24 hours, which is incredible and extreme, yes, but not the record.
The new Hawaii record is preliminary, not official. There's an outfit called the National Climatic Extremes Committee that will convene, review the data, and determine its validity. If this committee decides everything checks out, then this will become the new 24 hour United States rainfall record.
No word yet on when the committee will come up with a decision.
Whether or not that 49 plus inches of rain is real, there's no doubt the flash flooding on Kauai was extreme.
Tourism, certainly a lifeblood of the region, is taking a big hit.The northern shore of Kauai is a mess, but the southern half of the island is fine, and open for business. And so is the rest of the Hawaii island chain.
Some of the moisture associated with the Kauai disaster was picked up and turned into an "atmospheric river" or "pineapple express" that deluged the Pacific Northwest a few days after the Hawaii disaster,notes the Cliff Mass Weather And Climate Blog.
The atmospheric river produced some relatively minor flooding in Washington State, but nothing like what was experienced on Kauai.
VERMONT, NORTHEAST WATER
In case you haven't noticed, it's wet out there this morning. At least it's not snowing. Just note that there is some high water and minor flooding around. This water has nothing to do with the above mentioned Kauai flood disaster. However, you should stay away from any local floods and not drive through inundated streets.
Widespread flooding is not expected around here with this rain. Even with snow melting off the mountains, there's just not enough precipitation to cause any serious, widespread floods.
It has been a relatively wet April in Vermont. As of midnight last night, the month was running an inch ahead of normal for precipitation this month. It kept raining this morning, showers will continue much of today, and additional showers will come in Friday afternoon or night.
Judging from this photo taken at 11 a.m. in my St. Albans, Vermont yard, I'm about to have daffodils any second now.
Well, we finally made it to spring yesterday. Burlington's high temperature was 73 degrees, the first 70 degree reading of the year.
It was the warmest day in exactly six months, as October 24 was the last time it was warmer than yesterday.
Burlington came close to 70 in February with a record-smashing 69 degrees, and other weather stations in Vermont did pass 70 degrees in February, but as we know all too well, that wasn't really spring.
This, right now, is really spring. My lawn in two days went from brown to could use a mowing in spots. Trees are budding. My many daffodils, which spent the last month struggling against winter cold and snow, are finally growing like gangbusters and are just about to burst into brilliant yellows and other colors.
Finally!
The outlook for the next 10 days or more is generally very springlike, too! Temperatures will be near normal today through Saturday -- highs in the 50s and low 60s which is warm enough to keep the plants growing and happy. We will be dodging occasional rain and showers through that period. That's OK. You know what they say about April showers. And for once these aren't snow showers
We get into a brief cool down later Saturday, through Sunday into Monday. Temperatures on Sunday will be especially chilly with highs in the 40s to around 50 with a brisk north wind. That's cool for this time of year, but nothing extreme.
It'll start to warm up on Monday, and at this point most of next week looks quite warm. Of course forecasts could change, but it looks like Vermont will be in the 70s most days next Tuesday through perhaps Friday. We could even see some summerlike 80 degree readings. Definitely not out of the question.
So if you think things are greening up now, just wait until the end of next week!
Inevitably, there's always a complication. Around May 7 or 8 or so, it looks like at least a brief flip toward cold weather, though of course I don't trust forcasts that far into the future much at all.
I especially hope the American computer forecasting model is wrong - it usually is this far out. But for what it's worth, it forecasts a day or two of pretty much winter cold with maybe a bit of snow and temperatures far below freezing.
That would wreck our welcome emergence into spring by pretty much killing everything that will be growing out there. For now, I wouldn't worry too much about that as that cold prediction is almost surely overblown
This house in Fort Walton Beach, Florida was trashed by Sunday's tornado.
Waterspouts - basically tornadoes over water, are usually pretty harmless. They're usually not that strong, and more often than not dissipate before coming on shore or just afterwards. The normally cause just minor damage.
You gotta watch these things, though, because sometimes there's more than just a minor waterspout going on. You should avoid them at all costs because some waterspouts are actually full-fledged, dangerous tornadoes associated with violent thunderstorms.
This more menacing type of waterspout is no different - and just as dangerous - as a full-fledged land tornado. They just happen to form over water. That happened Sunday in Fort Walton Beach, on the Florida panhandle coast. A waterspout formed in the Gulf of Mexico and came onshore.
The waterspout came ashore as an EF-1 tornado, with winds of between 86 and 110 mph. That's certainly not the strongest tornado possible, but that kind of twister is certainly capable of causing damage, as it did in Fort Walton Beach.
When a tornado hits a populated area, you're sure to get lots of video, and some striking ones came out of Fort Walton Beach.
Several homes and other buildings were damaged by this twister, one of about five that hit Alabama and Florida Sunday. Luckily there were no serious injuries.
Here's a balcony view of the twister passing close by as it came ashore.
Here's another, close view of the tornado:
There's surveillance video of Fort Walton Beach City Hall. Damage looks minor, but even a relatively weak one like this can be scary. Note in one clip how the twister moves a pickup truck:
If you look closely, you can see plants beginning to emerge in my perennial bed in the foreground amid warm sunshine Sunday in St. Albans, Vermont
I really hoped you enjoyed Sunday if you were in Vermont.
It was wall-to-wall sunshine. Most valley locations were in the 50s. Warm enough to enjoy, cool enough to get some outdoor work done effiiciently.
Today will be awesome, too, albeit warmer. Most of us will get over 60 degrees.
By many standards, Sunday was a classic Vermont April day. This is the time of year when you're most likely to get a cloudless sky, very low humidities, a cool breeze but warm sunshine.
Though I would note that April is fickle, as we've really been reminded about this year. We're still recovering from a long string of days with snow and cold rain. And we have another stretch of chilly rains to deal with. Though later in the week, the snow will be confined to the mountains, if it snows at all.
Dewpoints were remarkably low on Sunday in Vermont - mostly in the mid-teens. Essentially that meant temperatures would have had to drop into the mid-teens to create frost, or freezing fog around this neck of the woods. There was definitely no freezing fog to be had in Vermont on Sunday.
I'm sure nobody was complaining about that fact.
Low dew points mean low relative humidities. Relative humidity represents the amount of water vapor in the air. It's the percentage of the maximum amount that the air could hold at a given temperature.
Basically that means the air on Sunday was nowhere near as wet as it potentially could have been
April is the season in Vermont where you do get quite a number of days like Sunday -- clear and super dry.
One big reason it can get so dry on certain days during a Vermont April is because there are no leaves on the trees yet. Leaves emit a lot of water. Vermont is mostly forested. A very large oak tree can transpire 40,000 gallons of water per year.Imagine how much water vapor all those Vermont trees release into the atmosphere each summer. The air would have to be wetter than it is this time of year.
The dry air means daily temperatures swings are big between dawn and the afternoon. More humid air can hold heat longer, so after the sun sets, it doesn't cool off all that much after the sun sets.
Dry air, like we had yesterday and am having today means as the sun sets, it's easy for heat to radiate to outer space rather than hang around where we are. You might have noticed as the sun began to set last evening, it got very chilly very fast.
Yesterday in Burlington, we started out at 28 degrees and ended up with a high of 58 - a pretty big range. Today will have an even bigger temperature range. We started the day right around 32 degrees and the forecast high in Burlington today is 65 degrees.
The occasional very dry April days we get is one reason why we have occasional brush and grass fires this time of year. Last year's weeds and plants are all dead and dry. The arid April air dries them out further and there you go with the blazes.
It's been fairly wet this month, so the fire danger today isn't extreme. But I'd still postpone burning that brush pile until it gets a little wetter -- which will happen later this week.
You'll notice the early spring plant life does love these sunny, mild afternoons. The grass is noticeably greener than it was Friday, and I bet your early sprouts like daffodils and hyacinth are much taller than they were a couple days ago.
All bright and sunny weather must come to an end. Wednesday and Thursday definitely are looking rainy at this point.
A wildfire explodes viciously as it encounters parched eastern redcedar durimg
devastating Oklahoma wildfires this past week.
Photo by Alan Broerse.
Oklahoma never used to be famous for earthquakes and wildfires.
That's California's job.
People associate Oklahoma with tornadoes, and they still happen there very frequently. (That said there has so far been a real dearth of Oklahoma tornadoes this year.)
But earthquakes, and now wildfires are very Oklahoman, and it's pretty easy to blame the fossil fuel industry, which is such a large part of the Oklahoma economy. Especially the earthquakes, though the wildfires might just be tangentally related to the fossil fuel industry.
Oklahoma is now the most earthquake prone state in the United States. Most of them are caused by wastewater disposal.Oil is extracted from the ground, but a lot of is mixed with briny water. The water needs to be disposed of, so it's injected well below the earth's surface, below the aquafers so drinking water won't be contaminated. This causes earthquakes.
But this is a weather and climate blog, and we're really here to talk about wildfires. This is the third year in a row Oklahoma has had devastating wildfires, and this year appears to be the worst.
There was at least some temporary relief Friday and Friday night for Oklahoma: Numerous showers and thunderstorms dumped some fairly decent rains on the worst of the fire zone. And some more showers are in the forecast this week. But the damage is really done. And extreme.
So what's the deal with all these Oklahoma wildfires over the past three years?
In the late winter and early spring, strong, dry winds often blow in from the west. The winds warm up and often become hot once they get down the slopes of the eastern Rockies, so it's basically a blowtorch by the time you get to Oklahoma.
Relative humidities can often drop into the single digits during these episodes and winds can gust to between 40 and 60 mph, or even more in some instances.
These hot, dry early spring winds aren't new to Oklahoma, and they have always spawned wildfires.
In recent years, though, droughts have gotten extraordinarily bad, particularly in western Oklahoma and northwestern Texas.
Mixed in with these droughts have been extraordinarily wet periods, which encourages vegetation to grow vigorously. For instance, 2015 was a record wet year, and it was warm. Things grew well into the late fall, so there's lots of extra grasses, shrubs and whatnot out there.
Then there was a flash drought in early 2016, and a lot of that extra vegetation went up in flames. This boom/bust cycle of heavy rain and drought has continued. This feast and famine regime could be related to climate change, so there's your fossil fuel link to this wildfire story.
Then there's shrubby tree called the eastern redcedar. It's a tree-sized juniper that you commonly see in the Plains. (I see a lot of them when I visit my in-laws in South Dakota, for instance.)
Before Europeans came into the picture a zillion years ago, lightning or fires set by Native Americans meant the eastern redcedars only lived in small canyons, ravines and outcroppings.
Now, eastern redcedars are spreading super fast across the Oklahoma landscape. Cedar smells great, doesn't it? But the oils that cause that nice aroma turn the trees into firebombs when it gets dry. Basically throw flammable oil on a discarded Christmas tree and thats what you get when eastern redcedars get hit by wildfires.
Instead of low flames skittering across open grasslands, you get the wildfires hitting groves of these trees, creating hot, big, explosive flames that are extremely dangerous, and more likely to set nearby homes and other structures on fire.
Bottom line: The past three years might be a fluke in Oklahoma wildfire history. But the real fear is that this could be a tragic, dangerous new normal for the Sooner State.
My snowy commute to work Friday morning. I'm really hoping I don't have
to experience this again until November at the earliest.
UPDATE:
Some interesting snow data and dangers from Mount Washington, New Hampshire have come to light.
There's anavalanche warning up there today, including in the ever-popular Tuckerman's Ravine. A bunch of snow over the past few days falling on deep, previous layers has created a high risk of human-induced and naturally caused avalanches
So if you were going to go to Tuckerman's on this nice weekend for backcountry skiing, don't bother. Too dangerous.
By the way, I imagine there's a risk of avalanches to back country skiers atop Mount Mansfield, Vermont, too.
Meteorologist Tim Kelley, of NBC10 and NECN fame in Massachusetts (he's also a noted ski and surf forecaster) noted some interesting stats from the summit of Mount Washington.
Today was the 21st day in a row in which at least a trace of snow fell on Mount Washington. They've had a foot of snow in the past week and 52 inches so far this month.
PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:
All but five of Vermont's ski resorts are closed for the season, but certainly not for a lack of snow, which is usually the case this time of year.
It's just that few people are in the mood to ski this time of year, being late April and all.
The high elevations of Vermont, New York and New Hampshire are still deep in snow after this snowy March and April.
A meltdown is finally going to start over the next few days, and I would assume it will continue almost uninterrupted until it's all gone.
The summit of Mount Mansfield had 100 inches of snow on the ground as of yesterday, the most this winter, and an unusually high amount for late April.
Killington always is the first or among the first to open for the season and is the last to close in the spring or close to it. They expect to stay open into May as well.
Even some populated areas of Vermont still have plenty of snow on the ground. The high elevation town of Sheffield in the Northeast Kingdom had a snow depth of 18 inches as of yesterday. Granby had a snow depth of 15 inches.
Still some snow in my yard Friday evening in St. Albans, Vermont
making spring gardening a challenge. Remaining snow do disappear today
As I've been saying for the last few days, we in the valleys looked to be finally pretty much done with snow.
I had to tiptoe around remaining areas of snow in my yard last evening to get some garden work done. But that snow will be completely gone by later today.
It won't be particularly warm today and Sunday (40s and low 50s) for highs, but sunshine both days will feel great after all the clouds we endured.
St. Albans, Vermont today will break its seven consecutive day streak of days with snow or freezing rain. Burlington will end its nine consecutive day streak of measureable precipitation.
With the warming temperatures on the way, either spring skiing or spring gardening look like great options, especially Monday and Tuesday under sunshine and valley high temperatures near 60 degrees. (At the moment, Burlington, Vermont's forecast high on Tuesday is 66 degrees. Ahhhh.)
Also, there's no change to the forecast for the type of precipitation we'll get with the next storm system, which will be here mostly on Wednesday and Thursday. Expect rain, not snow.
Once again, my yard in St. Albans, Vermont was a winter wonderland this
morning. About 1.3 inches new when photo taken, still snowing (7:00 a.m.)
Usually when it rains or snows, it's associated with a low pressure system passing nearby.
One such storm scooted by New England yesterday morning, but the main driver of the lousy, unseasonable snow we're having is what is for this time of year an amazingly large and deep pool of cold air high above us.
That cold air up there is extensive (though it's now beginning to wane)
At very roughly 5,000 feet above the Earth's surface, it was below freezing from Minnesota through New England and on into eastern Canada. That cold area extended all the way down into northern Alabama.
No wonder there were wide areas of frost and freeze warnings and advisories in the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic states early this morning. And no wonder it was a frigid 18 degrees atop Whiteface Mountain, New York at one point yesterday.
This upper level cold air is a symptom of a storm in the upper levels of the atmosphere, and sure enough, there was one pretty much centered in New England Thursday. Usually storms at the surface are centered to the east or southeast of the upper low and that was the case yesterday. (It was near Nova Scotia early this morning.
The sun angle this time of year is high, so when the sun filters through the clouds when it's that cold aloft, pockets of warmish air rise, form clouds and showers. Yesterday, here in Vermont, those were mainly in the form of snow showers.
It was cold enough aloft to chill the snowflakes that some of them made it to the ground in the Champlain Valley Thursday afternoon while temperatures were in the low 40s. By late afternoon, some of the snow showers were briefly heavy-ish and began to accuumulate.
Overnight, the snow in Vermont came down in earnest. Of couse, unlike during the day, the snow had no help from the sun causing rising pockets of air.
Instead moisture pinwheeling from offshore Canada around the surface storm up there and the upper level low high above brought wet air down from Canada on to us. The moisture would rise up the western slopes of the Green Mountains, where it was wrung out as snow.
My place in St. Albans is where land begins to rise in elevation east of Lake Champlain. as of 6 a.m. I'd received about an inch of snow, and it was stil coming down at a good clip. I'm sure we'll get reports of several inches or a half a foot or even more closer to the Green Mountain summits.
At roughly 5,000 feet above sea level, it was below freezing yesterday in
the blue area inside the black line
The good news for spring snow haters is the moisture flow and the cold air aloft are going to gradually wane.
The snow today will keep getting spottier and spottier and more confined to the mountains. A few raindrops will come down in the valleys.
The upper levels of the atmosphere are still cold today, so we won't be able to warm up too much today. The April sun, though strong, can only do so much when it's that cold aloft, and when there's clouds around.
But the atmosphere will warm, and day by day, you'll see improvements. As noted in previous posts, Saturday will also be chilly, but at least there will be some sun. Sunday will be cool for this time of year, but not bad. Temperatures near 50 will be easy to take after all the cold and snow over the past week or more
We're still looking at 50s and 60s Monday and Tuesday. The next storm arrives late next week. We're still not sure how big or small this next one will be, but it surely looks like it will be too warm for snow with that one.
For those who like heat, here's a ray of hope for you. Admittedly, long range forecasts looking out several weeks or months are not known for their pinpoint accuracy, but a long range prediction by the National Weather Service issued yesterday calls for generally warmer than normal temperatures in the Northeast during May, June and July.
On the other hand, European models suggest we might have a cool May.
Latest snow depth map from the National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont. Click on it to make it bigger and easier to see. Still a lot of snow on mountain summits Orange and reds represent a foot or more of snow coer.
We had snow flurries in St. Albans, Vermont, making this the sixth consecutive day with some sort of frozen precipitation.
I wonder if that's some sort of record for April. Especially since Friday will likely be Day Number 7 as well.
It hasn't snowed everywhere in Vermont today, but most of the state is in for another late season blast.
There will be rain mixed in with light precipitation today, but that'll change to snow tonight, even on valley floors.
Even Burlington will get into the act with a dusting to as much as two inches of snow by Friday afternoon.
Northern areas of Vermont will get anywhere from one to six nches of snow, with the highest amounts in the more elevated areas. Mountain summits like Mount Mansfield and Jay Peak have the potential to get even more than that.
Mount Mansfield already has 90 inches of snow at the summit. They could close in on 100 inches by the end of the day Friday. Quite a lot - but not a record depth for April. I think in 1996 they had something like 113 inches at the top of Mount Mansfield in April, for instance.
So yeah, get your snow brushes ready to clear your car Friday morning. Interesting, my truck needs repairs, but I can't get into a service center because everybody is switching out their winter tires, so the repair shops are booked full. Maybe the tire change outs should have waited until after Friday.
The good news for the winter weary is the meteorologist are still lock solid on a definitely warm up, along with sunshine coming up.
It'll be a slow-ish process, but we'll get there. Saturday will be the transition day after Friday's snow. Some sun will break out on Saturday, which will be nice, but there will be a cold breeze from the northwest and high temperatures will only make it into the 40s. Still much colder than normal for this time of year, but an improvement over today and Friday nonetheless.
Sunday still looks to be a bit on the cool side for this time of year, but you're going to like it anyway. Afternoon temperatures will be somewhere near 50 degrees, the sun will shine brightly and winds will be pretty light.
Monday and Tuesday -- Nirvana: Quite a bit of sun, especially on Monday with highs somewhere in the 55 to 65 degree range. It will be heaven, won't it.
Some showers could arrive Wednesday, but temperatures will remain close to normal -- temperatures well into the 50s.
There are signs some sort of nor'easter or coastal type storm could come through toward the end of next week. Don't worry, if this storm materializes, it looks almost certain that it would drop rain on us - not snow.
For the fifth consecutive morning, the daffodils attempting to grow in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens are shivering in the snow.
For the fifth consecutive day, frozen precipitation is falling outside my window this morning in St. Albans, Vermont.
And it's going to snow tomorrow. And Friday. Make it stop!
It probably will.
I'm not going to promise anything, but there's a decent chance that the snow that falls in Vermont through the rest of the week will be the last of it for the season. At least in the lower elevations.
I'm pretty sure it will snow in the mountains in May. It almost always does.
Once we get into late April, it should be hard to get snow in the valleys. Certainly not impossible, but definitely more difficult. Normal daytime temperatures are approaching 60 degrees by the last week of the month, and normal lows are above freezing.
Signs are getting stronger that the weather pattern is changing, and next week should be warmer, which would pre-empt any snow. I'm guessing that by the time we get any new cool spell sometimes in May, that cool weather would still be too mild to support snow.
Again, that's not a promise. It can certainly snow in Vermont's valleys in May. Sometimes quite heavily.
The worst example of a May snowstorm, according to David Ludlum's trusty "Vermont Weather Book." was on May 15, 1834, when the storm total came in at three feet deep in the hills above Newbury. It snowed at a rate of one inch every 10 minutes, which is an incredible rate for a mid-winter storm, never mind May. In that snowstorm low elevation Randolph and Rutland got a foot.
In more modern times, we've gotten May snowstorms. In May, 1966, it snowed for three days in a row up in Newport. Burlington got 3.5 inches of snow on May 9. 1966. That was the latest in the season Burlington has ever gotten so much snow.
For the record, the average date of the last one inch snowfall in Burlington during the spring is April 5. That 1966 storm is the record for the latest one inch.
The average date for the last snow flurry in Burlington, just a trace of snow, is April 15, so we're already passed that, too. Though I think Burlington will get at least a trace of snow Thursday and/or Friday.
The latest trace of snow on record in Burlington came on May 31, 1945. So yeah, it can happen.
But just for laughs and giggles, let's just hope that this week's snow is the last of it for the season. A man can dream, can't he?
Huge crashing waves caused by hight winds froze onto this lamp post on the shores of Lake Superior.
More videos are coming in -- in dribs and drabs - of some wild moments in the past week's wild weather in North America.
That's the nice thing about technology these days: Everybody's got a camera.
You've already seen some videos that got our attention in prior posts, but here's a few more.
The first involves a family in Danville, Virginia on Sunday who were audably worried as they drove in stormy weather amid tornado warnings.
Then all hell breaks loose. Spoiler: They're OK, and theywent on to check on others in the damaged area (it wasn't that big a tornado, it looks like.) And they check out some of the damage.
Totally worth the watch:
Up in Toronto, Canada, they had an ice storm this week with the big storm. Watch this video of a dog in danger. (Another spoiler: She's fine) The dog was in the back yard, and was startled by what must have been a loud cracking noise.
Frightened, the dog ran to the back deck. Good thing, as you'll find out:
In that same Canadian ice storm this week, a hungry raccoon braved ice and strong winds to get at a bird feeder. It didn't go well. Love the kids indoors laughing at the little critter:
The storm caused a blizzard in the Midwest, and of course high winds were widespread. Check out this beautiful video of huge waves crashing ashore on Lake Superior. Notice how water was freezing on the shore. Remember this is a lake, albeit a big one, not the ocean:
The storm caused very heavy rain in New York City and surrounding areas on Monday. Nearly three inches of rain deluged Manhattan. It turned out not to be a good day to take the subway, as flash flooding caused scenes like this:
As I write this at mid-morning today, it is snowing again outside my window in St. Albans, Vermont.
Despite lingering snow on the ground and falling snow, these plants in my St. Albans, Vermont perennial bed are giving it the old spring college try.
Granted, it's not really sticking, but come on! It's April 17! And this is the fourth day in a row we've had some sort of frozen precipitation.
Plus it's incredibly soggy out there, too. In most of northern Vermont, we've had more than two inches of rain and melted snow and ice over the past six days. And it's still coming down, albeit lightly at the moment.
It's interesting that atop Mount Mansfield, snow cover has actually increased a little since the first of the month, and it will increase more this week.
On April 1, there was 80 inches of snow up there. As of yesterday, there was 88 inches. Normally, the snow cover on Mount Mansfield would be shrinking at a pretty good clip at this point.
At least yesterday's wind along the western slopes of the Green Mountains wasn't as bad as it could have been. Peak gusts reportedinclude 72 mph in Wells, 65 mph at Breadloaf, east of Middlebury and 64 mph in Mendon. Pleasant Valley, northeast of Underhill clocked in at 59 mph.
As of mid-morning, about 1,400 homes and businesses still had no power. Not as bad or widespread as the April 4 windstorm, which is good.
Today, we'll continue on with the cold rain and wet snow, which will accumulate some in the higher elevations.
Rain and snow showers will be more scattered and lighter across Vermont Wednesday than they are today, so I guess that's a break. I suppose.
NEXT WEATHER MAKER
This week, a new storm is creating much of the same coast to coast weather misery as the last one. Just not nearly as extreme as last week, with the exception of Texas and Oklahoma and that neck of the woods. There, wildfires, already fatal and bad, will probably get even more extreme today.
Another storm, certainly weaker than the last one, is taking a somewhat similar path as the epic one the nation just had. It's coming off the lee of the Rockies in Colorado, and will trudge across the Midwest and into New England by Thursday.
Like the last storm, it's pulling extremely dry and windy air into the Southwest, where the fire danger is once again extreme today. Many of the wildfires that started out there Thursday and Friday aren't even out yet. New ones will start today, so this is awful.
Next the storm goes out in the Midwest, where it collect more moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and will drop the wetness, as yes, snow in those hard hit areas out there.
Incredibly deep snow drifts in the Upper Penninula of Michigan this weekend.
Can we just say how incredible the snow has been out there in South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan this month?
And it's sticking around, since this area has also had easily its coldest first half of April on record.
Green Bay, Wisconsin got two feet of snow in that last storm. Amherst, Wisconsin got 33 inches.
In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 24.9 inches of snow has fallen so far this month, making it easily the snowiest April on record. And Sioux Falls is in for two or three more inches of snow tonight and Wednesday with this latest storm.
That new snowstorm from the Plains will get here on Thursday, ensuring we get a continuation of the cold wet, dreary and snowy weather we've been seeing in Vermont for all too long in April.
Originally I was thinking there would hardly be any snow coming with Thursday's system, but of course, we must get the snow, and snow we'll get!
The early thinking from the National Weather Service in South Burlington is three to five inches in the mountains and a dusting to an inch in the valleys. Most of the valley snow would come Thursday night.
Conditions should slowly improve Friday and Saturday
GLIMMER OF HOPE?
Long range forecasts are hinting at possibly warmer than normal temperatures in the Northern Plains and Northern New England during the closing days of April.
There are signs that the weather pattern is about to change somewhat, giving everybody something of a break. It'll start in the Texas and Oklahoma fire zones on Thursday, when highly welcome showers and thunderstorms are forecast.
Things will dry out and warm up in the Dakotas and Minnesota, too, so the snow will finally melt there, too.
Finally, the weather looks like it will turn drier and sunnier with temperatures much closer to normal levels starting Sunday (Highs in the 50s. )
Despite the cold and the snow, spring is chomping at the bit. Grass is starting to green up, and against all odds, some of the daffodil and hyacinth plants in my yard have grown a bit. Lilac buds were encased in ice yesterday, but they made it through like troupers.
The warmer weather next week will surely accelerate the long-awaiting spring greening we've been pining for.
Workers make emergency repairs to the roof of this Milton, Vermont
house damaged by strong winds last October. Winds strong enough
to cause structure damage, and lot of tree and power line
trouble are likely today along the western slopes of the Green Mountains.
Another slug of freezing rain came through much of Vermont early this Monday morning, adding another layer of glaze to everything out there.
Kinda depressing for mid-April.
Now the wind is picking up, as expected. In some areas the ice hasn't melted from the trees, or won't have melted yet when the wind cranks up. That will just increase the chances of power failures.
Wind gusts reported as of 10 a.m. include 64 mph at Mendon in eastern Rutland County and 58 mph at Breadloaf, in eastern Addison County, Underhill Center has reported a gust to 54 mph. Winds will probably increase more over the next few hours.
Ice from overnight freezing rain glazed everything, including my budding
lilac bush, in my St. Albans, Vermont yard this morning.
To give you an idea of how the wind is screaming ferociously several thousand feet overhead, a wind gust of 94 mph was reported early this morning at the summit of Whiteface Mountain, New York
The eastern slopes of the entire range of the Green Mountains is under the gun for damaging winds today.
Here's how this works: As mentioned, there's incredible winds several thousand feet above the surface, coming at us from the southeast. Lower level winds are lighter, but are still coming from the southeast.
These lighter winds go up the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains and sort of overshoot the tops of the ridge lines. These winds sort of "grab" pieces of the much stronger winds raging higher up, and then send those strong gusts tumbling down the westenr slopes of the Greens.
Winds could reach 75 mph in gusts along the western slopes in Rutland and Addison counties. Winds will probably be a bit lighter along the western slopes in northern Vermont, but I will not be the least bit surprised to see gusts in the 60 to 65 mph range in eastern Chittenden and Franklin counties, in towns like Underhill, Cambridge and Bakersfield.
The National Weather Service in South Burlington is thinking today's winds will not be as widespread as those in late October, which caused lots of structural and tree damage in western Vermont all the way to Lake Champlain.
These types of storms are usually confined to the immediate western slopes of the Green Mountains, with exceptions being last October's storm and the very damaging one in Rutland back in April, 2007.
Still, this time, we unfortunately do have a shot of damaging winds extending further west than the immediate slopes. It really depends upon how much force the winds could muster as they push westward
There is a temperature inversion today, a situation in which in gets warmer with height. That tends to suppress the ability of the strong winds to get too far to the west, away from the Green Mountains.
On the other hand, it is April. Even though it's cloudy, sun's radiation can get through. This can "break" the inverstion, reverting things to the normal situation where it gets colder with height. If that happens, it's possible, but definitely not certain, - that damaging winds can extend as far west Rutland, Middlebury and Williston.
The downslope winds along the immediate western slopes of the Greens can create breaks in the overcast sometimes. If that happens, more sun can get through and the strong winds can propogate further west. It's unclear if any breaks in the clouds will form.
Only time will tell.
By the way, the strong upper level winds are overhead in much of the Northeast. If thunderstorms in the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England can "grab" these upper level winds and bring them to the surface, there could be local damaging winds in some of those areas, too.
WXMI Meteorlogist Garry Frank in Grand Rapids Michigan pictured here mid-rant as he complained on air about everybody complaining about this cold, snowy, miserable spring. We feel for ya!
Like practically everyone else, I've been whining about this wintry spring, one in which warm temperatures, greenery and pleasant sunshine seem like a cruel joke that will never arrive.
As I write this late Sunday afternoon, it's a lovely 33 degrees with a mix of sleet, rain and freezing rain outside my St. Albans, Vermont house.
And you wonder why people are so frustrated with this month's weather?
It's not just us in Vermont. As you might have noticed, huge tracts of the nation have had a cold, snowy, miserable April so far.
That includes Michigan, where WXMI Fox 17 meteorologist Garry Frankin Grand Rapids last week had his fill of people complaining about his un-springlike weather forecasts this month.
He had an on-air rant, which went totally viral of course, because his frustration is our frustration. Yes, we're whining about our lack of spring, and we're sick of whining about it and sick of hearing others whine about it.
Frank was also sick and tired of hearing his fellow news reporters at WXMI whining about it.
So he went on this rant, which is probably worth watching over and over again.
Midwinter conditions: I took this photo of my St. Albans, Vermont yard today, April 15. I swear I did not take this image on January 15, but it sure looks like it.
Well, this sucks.
On this Sunday morning, we're still stuck here in frigid temperatures - in the 20s. Most of us are getting light snow, sleet and freezing rain, and that state of affairs should continue all day.
Temperatures which should be in the 50s by afternoon will stay stuck remarkably below freezing all day.
Some parts of far northern Vermont will have close to 48 hours of continuously below freezing temperatures before this is over -- in April!
I guess I try to console myself by saying it's worse elsewhere and it is (I've got news and video at the bottom of this post to prove it. You'll want to take a look.. However, it's not much worse elsewhere than it is here in Vermont, I'm afraid.
Still, we don't have all that much ice on the trees. At least not yet. And snowfall has been relatively light. Most areas in the north received 2.5 inches of snow and sleet or less. Here in St. Albans, I was at an even two inches as of 7:30 this morning
Today, precipitation won't come down particularly hard, and might stop altogether for some brief periods. But it'll all be snow, sleet and freezing rain, with less snow and more freezing rain by afternoon.
More occasional freezing rain, possibly turning into a cold rain later on, should continue tonight.
Things are coming together to produce a destructive high wind event, mostly along the western slopes of the Green Mountains. This one could turn out to be as dangerous and damaging as the epic wind storm last October, and the extreme nor'easter winds that trashed Rutland and surrounding areas in April, 2007.
The wind direction, the pressure gradient between the storm approaching from the Ohio Valley and that frigid high pressure system in Canada that has been torturing us this weekend looks like they might come together perfectly to create very strong downslope winds Monday along the western slopes of the Greens.
There's danger anywhere in that range Monday from east of Bennington to northeast of St. Albans. At this point, the National Weather Service in South Burlington is saying the worst of the wind might end up in eastern Rutland and Addison counties, where winds in some spots could gust to 75 mph.
Elsewhere along the western slopes in Vermont, winds could gust to 60 mph or higher. There are also signs that some gusts could "bounce" further west into western Vermont. That's what happened in 2007 in Rutland, when those downslope winds extended westward into the city's downtown, which caused a LOT of damage.
This also happened last October, when those winds extended westward, especially into places like Colchester, Milton and Georgia, where there was a lot of tree and structural damage.
There's no guarantee these winds will extend into more populated areas, but it's something to watch.
A couple of other things that are expected to make this wind storm even more dangerous than it otherwise would be: The soil is saturated, and thus softer, making it easier for winds to push over trees. (The soil didn't freeze in this snow and cold snap, or if it did, only the top inch or so is frozen, so that doesn't make much of a difference.)
Also, there might also still be ice clinging to the trees in some areas when the wind gets cranking, making it all the more likely they'll topple in gusts.
If you live along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, definitely get your flashlights and your LED candles ready. And charge up your devices. I guarantee power failures on Monday.
I would also repeat that the wind could get strong enough to cause scattered power failures and tree damage away from the western slopes of the Green Mountains, too.
If there's any good news in this awful weather and awful forecast, it's that it looks like the flood threat on Monday is definitely diminished. So much so that the National Weather Service has dropped the flood watch.
It won't rain as hard as originally anticipated on Monday and Monday night. Plus, it won't get as warm as originally forecast. And what warming we do get was originally scheduled to start coming in today, but has now been postponed until Monday.
That means less runoff from melting snow and ice, so rivers won't rise so much. There might be localized minor flooding, but it won't be that huge a deal.
LOOKING AHEAD
If you want full-blown spring here in Vermont, keep waiting. It's going to be awhile. That said, things will get better than they have been this weekend. Temperatures will still stay a little colder than normal all of this upcoming week, but it won't feel like mid-winter. Maybe like March, with highs mostly in the 40s most days.
It'll stay unsettled with scattered rain and mostly mountain snow showers Tuesday and to a somewhat lesser extent Wednesday. It looks like another storm is coming in Thursday or Friday, but it's unclear at this point if we'll get a lot or a little precipitation out of that one.
The good news is it looks like whatever comes Thursday and Friday will be mostly or exclusively in the form of rain and not ice and snow.
Unfortunately, at the moment I'm not finding many hints of any springtime warmth of note in any of the long range forecasts
MISERY ELSEWHERE IN U.S., CANADA
The blizzard in the northern Plains and into the western Great Lakes area is finally beginning to diminish today.
Tornado damage in Meridian, Mississippi on Saturday. Photo by Paula Merrit/Meridian Star
There have been some incredible snow totals out there, especially for mid-April, and in some areas it's still snowing.
Some examples so far: Tiverton, Wisconsin got 24.` inches of snow. An even 20 inches came down in Okreek and Winner, South Dakota. Canby, Minnesota got 19 inches.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota got 13.7 inches of snow Saturday, it's snowiest April day on record. So far this month in Sioux Falls, they've had 24.9 inches of snow, making this by far the snowiest April on record there.
Minneapolis got 11 inches of snow through midnight Saturday, bringing this month's total to 22.5 inches, to create that city's snowiest April, breaking the old record set in 1983. It was still snowing in Minneapolis this morning.
Between the heavy snow and winds gusting past 50 mph, many Interstate and other highways were shut down in the region Saturday.
Winds have calmed down out there temporarily, but very high fire danger is expected to resume Monday and Tuesday.
Severe storms and tornadoes continued in the South Saturday, with one tornado in particular causing a lot of damage around Meridian, Mississippi. (one of the videos below shows it.) Today, severe weather and possible tornadoes could develop in the Southeast, especially in the Carolinas.
Some videos now.
We'll start with a couple of moments of tornado drama. The first was a giddy guy being way too close to an Arkansas tornado on Friday.
Next, we have some people in a house in Meridian, Mississippi as things get bad in a hurry as a tornado comes over. Pretty terrifying!
Here's a news clip of lovely blizzard weather in Nebraska:
