Vermont December Was Two-Faced: Winter To Mild

Snow squalls lurk west of St. Albans, Vermont on December 18. The
first three weeks of the month were wintry in the state. The end of the
month, not so much.

After a very wintry November in Vermont, December brought more of the same, making us think we are going to have a long, long, hard winter.  Then, suddenly, right before Christmas, everything changed and winter ended, sort of, for now.

Before I get into my December in review, a program note: I'll get to a Vermont weather review for 2019, and the just-ended decade, within the coming days. It's New Year's Day. I'm starting slowly.

Through the first astronomical day of winter on December 21, Burlington was running about 2.8 degrees colder than normal.  Not really the coldest ever, but there was a noticeable chill for sure for the first three weeks of the month.

The weather then went rogue with the start of astronomical winter. Every day from December 22 through the end of the month got above freezing. In fact, Burlington was still just above freezing as the clock struck midnight and 2020 arrived overnight.

Elsewhere in Vermont, a cold start to December and the warm end made the month come out right around normal, temperature wise. Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Springfield all ended up the month at between 0.2 and 0.6 degrees on the warm side.

In northern Vermont, no big storms hit until the closing days of December, when that wintry mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain passed through.  That left precipitation near to below normal there, with the driest region being in the Champlain Valley. Burlington ha only 1.59 inches of precipitation for the month, which was 0.79 inches below normal.

Southern Vermont was bookended by larger storms. On December 1, the two southern counties of Vermont were socked by more than a foot of snow.  Also, that mixed precipitation mess leading up to New Year's Eve was much more dramatic than in the north.

In the far south of Vermont, ice accumulated enough to cause a bit of damage to trees.  The storm down there was also punctuated by lightning and thunder.