Still Wowed By May Cold, Snow, Some More Still On The Way

A wintry looking evening in St. Albans, Vermont Saturday as snow showers
loom over Lake Champlain to the west. 

On those very rare occasions when there is a May snowfall,  it usually happens at night. The strong May sun during the day will change the snow to rain, or at least prevent any accumulation.

The extreme cold of the atmospheric blast of frigid air that roared down from the Arctic this weekend was so strong, that it snowed during the day as far south as New Jersey. That is what impresses me most about this unreal spring cold snap.

True, most of the heaviest accumulations of snow came Friday night and before dawn Saturday.  But dustings of snow briefly covered the ground in places like Connecticut, Massachusetts and the lower Hudson Valley of New York.  Those little instant snowstorms were created by snow squalls.

The cold was so intense, but the May sun is so strong, it all created towering clouds. Normally those towering clouds would create intermittent downpours of rain this time of year. But the atmosphere up above was record cold for this time of year. So it snowed.  A couple videos are at the bottom of this post.

Islip, Long Island reported a latest on record trace of snow.  That is actually more snow there than fell in February, when it didn't snow at all in Islip.

Before the snow squalls, the main accumulation of snow came as a storm passed near southern New England and off the coast.

These types of storms sometimes form something called a "deformation band" to the northwest of the storm center. These cause narrow bands of heavy snow accumulations during storms in the middle of winter. But not in May, in my experience.

Except this time. One such "deformation band" set up in southwestern Vermont and adjacent New York, mostly near and east of Glens Falls and Saratoga.

A spot at a 1,300 foot elevation in Cambridge, New York,  less than 10 miles from the Vermont border, received a whopping 12 inches of snow.  Nearby Shaftsbury, Vermont had 10.5 inches. Arlington, Vermont clocked in with 8.8 inches and high elevation Woodford, east of Bennington, reported 8.5 inches.

In northern Vermont, snowfall was a little lighter, but still impressive in spots. Concord, in the Northeast Kingdom reported 7 inches and Cabot received 6.5 inches.

Wide areas of the nation experienced almost unprecedented May cold on Saturday. According to The Weather Channel, Van Wert, Ohio, plunged to 18 degrees, the only time it's been under 20 degrees there in May, with 127 years of records.

Fort Wayne, Indiana got down to 23 degrees. Until Saturday, the latest in the year it had gotten that cold in Fort Waye was April 20, in 1897 and 1904, says The Weather Channel. Binghamton, New York set its all time record low for May with 24 degrees. Indianapolis, Indiana did the same with their reading of 27 degrees.

Wild looking snow squall over Staten Island, New York on
Saturday. Photo by Collin Gross, @CollinGrosswx

Daytime temperatures were impressive as well. At 4 p.m. Saturday - remember, this was May 9 - temperature in Montpelier was 29 degrees.

Last night here in Vermont, the wind kept blowing and the core of the very coldest of the air passed by to the northeast, so temperatures in Vermont didn't bottom out as low as they could have.  Montpelier actually rose into the low 30s after dark and stayed that way through dawn, for instance.

The air overhead with this cold blast is still frigid, and will stay that way for a few more days.  There's even a reinforcing shot of cold air coming, but it won't be quite as bad as Saturday.

Today will be "warmer" than Saturday, with highs in Vermont in the 40s to around 50.  That's still close to 20 degrees colder than normal.

A small storm will cross New England Monday. This time, it will be mostly rain, but some mid and high elevation snow is possible in southern and central Vermont.  It just can't stop, can it? Unfortunately, it looks like most or all of the precipitation will miss bone-dry northwestern Vermont.

A reinforcing shot of cold air will come in Monday night and Tuesday, so we'll need to watch for more hard frosts and freezes Monday, Tuesday and maybe Wednesday nights.   Highs Tuesdays will again be frigid for this time of year, with readings staying at or below 50 degrees during the afternoon.

After that, a real, gradual warmup will begin.

There's another really intense ball of frigid air setting up for next week near Hudson Bay, but definitely don't let that scare you.  Unlike the one that came down on us Saturday, this next one will sit and spin for a few days up there, then get shunted almost due east into far northeastern Canada. It'll be a sure miss for us. Thank Gawd!

The only reason I mention that next ball of cold air is there's a good chance it could send a "back door" cold front down on New England, which would temporarily limit the amount of warming we get a week from now. But again, don't, if we get that cold front, it will only be somewhat cool for May, not scarily cold.

For the rest of the month, it does look like squirts of warm air will keep trying to punch into the northeast, including northern New England, which will help make this frigid spell just a bad memory.

Videos:

Jon M. woke up to this snowy scene in the green, or at least formerly spring green lower Hudson Valley of New York.




A guy named Mitch, a meteorologist and snow enthusiast who goes by @VermonsterWx on Twitter - great to follow by the way, filmed this at his high elevation home in Readsboro, Vermont. The snow was actually dry and powdery, like winter.



And here's some clown mowing his lawn in the May snow. I think it's in Pennsylvania, but I'm not sure: