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| A spring snowstorm in Burlington, Vermont back on April 27, 2010. See? This kind of thing HAS happened before. |
But yep, much of Vermont is under a winter weather advisory.
It's a tricky forecast, so I'm anticipating some of the forecasted amounts of rain and snow with this system are going to off in some areas.
But I guarantee snow in at least part of Vermont and some flakes will probably make it down to valley floors in many locations, even perhaps the "tropical" Champlain Valley.
For snow die hards, some of the highest peaks, especially in central Vermont, could get buried. What I said yesterday about Killlington Peak probably managing a foot of new snow out of this still holds.
In lower elevations where most of us live, it won't be that bad. But still, a late April forecast that features a few to several inches of snow, the risk of slick roads and a few power outages, is not exactly encouraging.
The majority of Vermonters, I would say, live at elevations below 1,000 feet. In those spots, if any snow accumulates tonight, it'll be a slushy coating to an inch, which will melt on Monday despite continued chilly temperatures.
There is one interesting thing, tbough that the National Weather Service in South Burlington has picked up on. Some high resolution computer models have a particularly heavy band of precipitation setting up across central Vermont tonight.
Heavier precipitaiton will more likely be snow, so it's possible a narrow band in central or north central Vermont could pick up as much as half a foot or even more of snow. This is uncertain, but something to watch.
The higher you go above 1,000 feet, the more snow you'll get, especially in the southeastern ntwo thirds of Vermont. I'm guessing perhaps two to six inches will pile up in some areas above 1,500 feet in elevation.
The winter weather advisory (I'm sick of those three words at this point) cover all of Vermont except the Champlain Valley, lower elevations of Rutland county and the Connecticut River Valley from about Springfield south.
TRICKY FORECAST
There are a lot of complication to this forecast, as I mentioned above. The air to start this morning was very dry. Temperatures were able to get up to the low 50s by mid morning as a little sun was easily able to heat that dry air. Those will be the high temperatures for the day.
This sounds odd, but a warm front will create most of our snow risk. The warm front, well to our south this morning, will strengthen as it moves north, but it won't ever quite make it through.
Precipitation will start to fall from the thickening clouds overhead early this afternoon. At first, rain will evaporate on the way down as it encounters the dry air.
Eventually, as the air moistens, the rain will make it to the ground, and the temperature will fall as the rain continues. Eventually, tonight, it will cool off enough to change the rain to snow, starting at the highest elevations then working downhill. When precipitation starts to fall especially heavily, that would pull more cold air down to the surface, encourage snowflakes to reach valleys, and create quick hits of one inch snow accumulation rates up high.
Another tricky thing is a dry high pressure system to the north. As the moisture comes in, the dry air to the north will battle it, possibly causing bits and pieces of that dry air to get mixed in with the flow of air north of the warm front. That could cause the rain and snow to be spottier and more intermittant at times, especially along and north of Route 2.
The heaviest rain and snow will have passed by Vermont by early Monday morning. This storm is a slow mover, though, which is typical of spring storms. (The snow is unusual for this time of year, but the forward speed of the storm is not).
That means cold rain showers and high elevation snow showers will continue all day Monday, Monday night and into Tuesday. The rain and snow won't come down hard, and be mostly focused on the mountains, but the start of the week will be nasty for the closing days of April.
High temperatures both days will only be in the 40s, compared to normal temperatures near 60 degrees. On the vaguely bright side, nighttimes won't be nearly as cold in the coming days as that wintry blast we had last week.
Instead of teens and 20s for lows, temperatures will stay in the low to mid 30s tonight, Monday night and Tuesday night, though there will probably be some upper 20s showing up in colder spots Tuesday night.
OUTLOOK AND HISTORY
We get another brief break on Wednesday before the next storm lumbers in on Thursday and hangs around for a few days after that. It still looks like that next storm will be mostly or exclusively a rainy one. There is the potential for a lot of rain with that one. We'll have to wait and see.
The weather pattern continues to look on the cool side at least into the second week of May. There will probably be a few warm or warm-ish days thrown in, too. And remember, normal temperatures keep rising, so the cool spells will keep getting less and less cool.
For the moment, at least, I'm not seeing signs of any more snowstorms after this one. I'm hoping we're done until about Thanksgiving. Then it can snow again.
History doesn't always repeat itself, but I'll give a grain of hope for those longing for some hot summertime weather.
On May 9, 1977, a record late snowstorm struck New England, including much of Vermont. Up to 20 inches of snow fell on central Massachusetts, felling lots of trees that were already in full bloom. Parts of Vermont got more than six inches of snow.
Just eight days later, on May 17th that year, it was up to 90 degrees, and a few days after that, Burlington set its all time record high temperature for May of 93 degrees. (The record has since been tied).
In 2010, five to 12 inches of snow fell on parts of the Champlain Valley and northern Vermont on April 27-28. Five days later, temperatures were in the mid-80s.
That won't happen this year, but it is a sign that spring and summer will get here eventually.
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