Did Someone Say Snow? Again?

Despite the recent chill, I'm starting to see more pops of spring
color around the shed on my St. Albans, Vermont property. 

It's the end of April and spring should be in full swing.

But is it?  

This year, occasionally, at least, it's hard to tell. March and the first half of April in Vermont were pretty good in the spring department, at least by Vermont standards.

Temperatures during that time were generally warmer than normal, and some of the early spring garden plants got off to a roaring start.

Since the middle of the month, things went down hill,  back toward winter. Sure, there's been a couple nice days thrown in there, and today is certainly going to be nice enough. Sunshine and temperatures in the 50s to near 60 is not far from normal this time of year, after all.

But another chilly storm is on our doorstep, and for some Vermonters, it means, yes, more snow.

This next storm is going to be a pretty strong one.  It was developing around Missouri this morning and will steadily move northeastward toward New Jersey or so by Sunday night, all the while gaining more oomph.

Since it's going by to the south, central and southern Vermont, and by extension, central and southern New England, will see the most action from this.

The storm will spread a cold rain across New England Sunday, and it will come pretty hard at times Sunday afternoon and evening.  In Vermont, that's especially, I would guess, south of a Middlebury to Wells River line.

Temperatures will be close to cold enough for snow in the higher elevations. The heavier precipitation will probably bring down some even chilier air, bringing some snow Sunday evening down to elevations as low as 1,000 feet.

Having mostly survived a nasty cold wave earlier this month, spring
blooms in my St. Albans, Vermont ard bask in a little warm sunshine
this  morning before the next cold storm arrives tomorrow. 

A slushy coating is a good possibility in central and southern Vermont at 1,000 foot elevations and that will gradually increase as you go up in elevation. By the time you get to the top of Killington Peak, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a foot of new snow way up there.

Other high elevations of New Hampshire and Massachusetts will also probably see areas of accumulating snow out of this. It won't be the latest snow on record, but it is awfully late in the season.

Southern Vermont could get more than an inch of rain (and melted snow) out of this. It's been dry-ish, so this amount of rain shouldn't cause any flooding  problems.

As noted, northern areas should escape the worst of  the weather because they will be furthest away from the storm. Also,  dry air will feed down from Canada, making the precipitation a little lighter and spottier. There will only be probably a quarter inch of rain or melted snow north of Route 2, which isn't so bad. And that northern snow wil only accumulated above 1,500 feet in elevation, and amount to only an inch.

Unfortunately, there are few signs of a big warmup anytime soon, NOAA's extended outlooks call for mostly below normal temperatures in all of New England through at least May 9. Grr..

The storm from Sunday will meander off the coast until later on Tuesday, which will keep cold, light rain showers and a little bit of higher elevation snows going at least into Monday night.

The next good sized storm looks like it will arrive Thursday. I'm hoping and thinking that one will be a little warmer, so it would produce almost exclusively just rain

If you think the current weather pattern and forecast is bad, let's take a trip down memory lane. Just to prove it could be much, much worse.

Let's take the spring of 1971 for instance.  In Burlington, Vermont's banana belt, there was 33 inches of new snow in March and there was at least a foot of snow on the ground every day through March 30.

In April that year, there was at least some snow on the ground every day in April until the 22nd. Six nights that month got down into the teens, and only ten days cracked the 50 degree mark. Note it was colder and snowier, as usual, back then, outside the Champlain Valley. But we survived.

So yeah, mentioning snow in a Vermont weather forecast this time of year is a little disheartening. But we get through it. Everything does.

Remember the other day I was lamenting the likely loss of my early season flowers because of the sharp cold wave earlier this week? Well, as I said, everything copes. I would say 90 percent of the blooms and buds survived.  A little sunshine yesterday sprouted more blossoms and I expect more in today's sunshine.  Hope springs eternal. Literally.