Too Bad The Ski Areas Are Closed.......

Brookfield, Vermont yesterday

As the cool spring weather continues in Vermont, the snow periodically keeps coming. For  most of us, when it has snowed in the past couple of weeks, the snow cover has melted pretty fast.

For instance, you saw that snowy scene in yesterday's post from a web cam grab along Interstate 89 in Brookfield. As of early this morning, almost all that snow was gone, and the remainder will have disappeared by this afternoon, I'm sure.

I bet yesterday's snow winner in Vermont, a fairly high spot in Ludlow, with 4.8 inches of fresh, albeit wet powder, will lose the remaining snow today.

It's harder to melt the snow above say, 2,500 or 3,000 feet, so the high elevations are still pretty deep in winter.   If you look toward the Green Mountains and Adirondacks during today's sunshine, you'll see a lot of snow up there.

As of yesterday, the summit of Mount Mansfield still had 70 inches of snow on the ground. Spring is a long way off there.  Believe it or not, while that amount of snow at that 3,900 foot elevation measuring site is above normal, compared to the average of 53 inches, this is nowhere near a record depth for the end of April.

All this is according to a cool, useful, interactive site by Matthew Parilla. You can compare the current snow depth up there to this date in past years. (And other dates).  Probably the latest arrivin and worst spring up on Mount Mansfield was the notoriously wintry spring of 1971.  On this date that year, there was still 106 inches of snow near the Mount Mansfield summit, according to the data Parilla has.

Right about now is when the snow depth atop Mount Mansfield just begins to crash.  It normally falls very fast through May, and by early June, it's all gone .

And Brookfield, Vermont this morning. Doesn't take long for
snow to melt this time of year, except on the mountain peaks

True to form, the next good storm, coming at the end of this week, looks like it will be rain, even at the summits.  The relatively warm weather during this expected half inch to an inch of rain will melt high elevations snows, for sure. Not all of it, but a lot of it.

That's why the National Weather Service in South Burlington is keeping an eye out for some minor flooding possible Friday or Saturday.

They're saying there will be sharp rises in river levels in Vermont due to the rain and melting high elevation snow. At this point though, if there is any flooding, which is iffy, it will be pretty much minor, nuisance stuff.

Believe it or not, there could well be a period centered around May 12 and 13 in which the snow cover goes back up in Vermont's mountains.

Long range forecasts are notoriously dicey, but if these are to be believed, another near record spell of cold weather and snow could strike Vermont then.  I'm definitely NOT saying it will happen, but unfortunately, it's possible.  Ma Nature might just have it in for our gardens, huh?

Cool Weather Returns To Vermont, But Much Of World Has Had Hot Spring

Extreme warmth in the Arctic (dark red) more than offset
relative coolness in central North America, southern South
America and parts of Asia during March

Here in Vermont, after a relatively warm spell during the middle of this month, we're back into a cool regime.

High tempereratures this time of year should be around 60 degrees, give or take.

Highs over the past couple of days have been closer to 50 degrees or so, and that state of affairs should continue most of this week. 

Meanwhile, some other parts of the nation have been quite chilly, with two snowstorms having already affected part of the Plains and Midwest in the past few days. A third snowstorm is brewing in the Rockies and High Plains of Colorado and Wyoming over the next couple of days.

Vermont, or the Northern Plains, are not the entire world, of course. The world, it turns out, has been having a generally very warm spring, in keeping with trends over the past few years and even decades. Climate change is at least partly to blame for that warm trend.   (And yes, I'm fully aware it's autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Work with me here.)

We can start by looking at March. That month was a little chillier than average here and Vermont and it was quite cold compared to average out in the northern Plains and northeastern Rockies of the United States. Montana was especially chilly with mean temperatures as much as 10 degrees below normal.

But the world as a whole had its second warmest March on record, says NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.  March was also tied for fifth place in the list of all months with the greatest departure from normal on the hot side, so March was a pretty remarkable month globally.

March also seemed awfully extreme, with notable cold actually popping up, as noted in central North America and to a lesser extent around India.

This chill was more than offset by incredible warmth for the season in Alaska, northwestern Canada, most of Europe and northern Asia, especially Siberia, southern Africa and Australia.

April data isn't available yet, since we have a couple more days to go in the month. Still, there have been some pretty impressive pockets of early season heat.

Vietnam just in the past week recorded its hottest temperature on record - 110 degrees. It's normally in the 80s this time of year in the part of Vietnam that was so hot.

This tmight be temporary, but Arctic sea ice extent was the lowest on record for the season as of mid-April. Greenland was as much as 36 degrees warmer than normal earlier this month, and the summer melt season got underway too early for sure. Whether these worrisome trend continues into the summer depends upon weather patterns and cloud cover over the next few months in the Arctic.

Wildfires have started up in weird places for April, including moors in West Yorkshire, England during a record Easter heat wave. Those record and near-record Easter highs in Great Britain ncluded 74 degrees in Edinburgh, Scotland, 70 degrees in Northern Ireland and 76 degrees in London.

In northern and central India, intense heat has settled in and is expected to last into May.  While punishing heat waves always occur in this region before the seasonal monsoons set in, this year is similar to recent years in which the heat arrives earlier in the spring than what had long been considered normal.

As always, with or without climate change, there have been some cold patches, too.

While part of Australia had that record late season heat in mid-April, a sharp cold front from Antarctica brought very chilly air into western Australia and New Zealand earlier this month. Parts of southeastern Australia had its coolest morning in three decades for so early in their autumn season.

Of course, it remains to be seen where big heat waves next develop around the world. With summer fast approaching in the Northern Hemisphere, we run the risk, especially with climate change, of seeing frequent, intense, near record heat waves like we did in 2018.

In all depends upon the underlying weather patterns and cycles.

Quick Update: Brief New England Chill; Big Florence Menace

Deep blue skies over St. Albans, Vermont this morning, a hallmark of
a chilly September morning. 

As expected, it got cold early this Sunday morning in the North Country.

Saranac Lake, New York, as usual, seemed to be the cold spot with a low of 26 degrees. Several spots in northern Vermont dropped below freezing, and this wasn't just limited to the Northeast Kingdom frost hollows.

For instance, Morrisville got down to 31 degrees. ropped to or below freezing, so it was frosty in some places. Montpelier came close to freezing with a low of 35 degrees.

The 42 degrees at Burlington, Vermont this morning was the chilliest reading since May 21. All this isn't too unusual for second week of September. The record low for Burlington this morning was 37 degrees, so we weren't too far off. But this kind of thing happens from time to time.

We have two more days of cool weather to go, but no more frost pockets. Today will get into the 60s - similar to yesterday. You'll notice high clouds increasing during the day, too as a storm system that contains the remains of Tropical Storm Gordon moves towards us.

Monday will be breezy and raw, but it will be worth it as rains from that storm move in. High temperatures will only be in the 58 to 65 degree range for most of us. Again, not all that odd for September, but we're still not used to it.

That storm looks like it will drop perhaps 0,75 to 1.50 inches of rain on most of us. That rain is badly needed and we'll take what we can get. There will be a few locations that will lose out and get less rain, and other areas that will be big winners, with two or more inches of rain.

Starting Tuesday, we're in for a long period of warmer than normal temperatures, but it won't be the 0 degree heat and terrible humidity we had last week.

FLORENCE A BIG MENACE

Satellite image of Tropical Storm Florence early this morning
show a much better organized storm with a developing eye.
This photo likely represents the beginning stage of
a rapid intensification. 

Once a tropical storm gets into an environment where it can develop quickly, it often takes a day or so to get its act together.

Tropical Storm Florence, weakened and disorganized by strong upper level winds late last week, has spent the past 24 hours getting its act together before it could strengthen much.

Since yesterday, the storm has gotten more symmetrical, with dense clouds concentrated more toward its center. 

Which means it's now ready to explode into a monster. Satellite photos of the storm taken during Sunday morning indicate Florence is now beginning that rapid intensification.

The National Hurricane Center will very likely upgrade Florence back to a hurricane by late this morning.

Florence still appears to be a terrible threat to the southeastern United States by Friday. It looks like it will make landfall, possibly around North Carolina late Thursday or early Friday. This forecast could change, as hurricanes are unpredictable and Florence has been particularly so.

Current projects for the path of Florence. It's important to note this
is NOT a final forecast and its path could change

Of course, the strong winds of a major hurricane like Florence is expected to be are extremely destructive.  But the worst of such winds cover a relatively small area, perhaps a stripe that's 50 to 100 miles wide that goes inland for a few dozen miles.

Awful, yes. But this might not be the worst aspect of Florence.

Some computer models suggest might stall around North Carolina or Virginia for several days.

That scenario would dump a few FEET of rain on the area, and lead to the catastrophic flooding. This idea of Florence stalling is comparable to Hurricane Harvey last year, which stalled in Texas and giving that area some of its worst flooding in history.

This stall might or might not happen, but it's certainly something to watch.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Helene way out in the eastern Atlantic looks destined to stay well out to sea. Tropical Storm Isaac, however, is a potentially scary hurricane threat to the Caribbean.

As Expected, A Chilly Vermont Summer Morning, And Those Floods Just Keep Coming

A large rose bush enjoys wall to wall sunshine on the longest day
of the year, the Summer Solstice yesterday in Burlington, Vermont. 

It was great to have a Summer Solstice, as we did Thursday that was wall-to-wall clear skies and sunshine here in Vermont. That's certainly not something that happens every year.

And here's the weirder thing. I was out late working in the yard because visibility stayed great past 9 p.m. I finally went inside, not because it was too dark but because I was getting too cold. Ahh, summer in Vermont.

There were reports of readings of 33 and 34 degrees up in the Northeast Kingdom this morning. Similar readings were reported in northern New Hampshire. It was 30 degrees over in Saranac Lake, New York, so they had another June frost over there. They just had one last week, too.

It will warm up today, and after a showery, coolish weekend, and a somewhat cool start to the week, things will get warmer and more humid by the second half of the upcoming week. There are even some signs we could get a strong heat wave somewhere around the week of July 4.

Elsewhere in the nation, the floods I've been speaking of go on and on. They're never that widespread, but they are intense.

Flooding at the Richmond, Virginia airport
this morning. 

The latest victim was Richmond, Virginia, where more than seven inches of rain came down early this morning. A whopping 4.55 inches of that rain come in just one hour --- that's incredible. The rainfall rate at one point was five inches per hour.

As you might imagine, the flooding in and around Richmond is severe. The Richmond International Airport was closed this morning because swaths of the airfield, the parking lots and the roads leading to the airport were under water. Parts of Interstate 64 were also closed for a time.

Areas further north in Virginia, including Charlottesville and Fredericksburg, also had significant flooding. This is Charlottesville's second nasty flood within a month.

By the way, this will be the second consecutive month in Richmond with over ten inches of rain. That's also completely off the charts.

Meanwhile, coastal Texas is still trying to recover from flooding this week. Port Aransas, devastated by Hurricane Harvey last year, drowned under 15 inches of rain from the tropical downpours this week.

Flood warnings were widespread this morning in southeastern South Dakota, northwestern Iowa and southwestern Minnesota after three to eight inches of rain this week.

Today, further flash flooding is a fairly good bet from the Mid-Atlantic states to the Ohio Valley. The threat spreads back to parts of the Plains over the weekend.

We have more videos:

McAllen, Texas, ground zero for the national crisis over immigrant children separated from parents, is also dealing with very severe flooding:



Earlier this week, there was some destructive flooding in and near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Here's the scene in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania:

Fall Weather Arriving And This Time I Mean It

OK, this time it's real. Vermont and New England's never ending summer really is about to end.

Snow on autumn leaves last
October. It won't be cold enough
for snow in Vermont this weekend,
but you'll notice a definite shift to chill

Oh, sure, as advertised, there was a brief foray into seasonable weather last week, in which some of the cold mountain hollows of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire had a bit of frost.'

But the temperature quickly recovered back to mid summer levels, where they've stayed for the past several days. It'll be summery today, too, and kind of like that tomorrow, but then.....

It really is time to find the fleece.  

The timing of this upcoming cool spell is just right. Astronomical autumn starts on the East Coast at 10:21 a.m. tomorrow, and the cold front comes through the next day - Friday.

Unlike last week's cool spell, this one is going to stick around for awhile.

In northern New England, temperatures will hold in the 60s Friday as the cold front moves through. Some towns will stay in the 50s Saturday and Sunday in the cool northwest air flow. The warmer valleys will touch 60 over the weekend.

Also over the weekend, many places are at risk of frost in Vermont and surrounding northern areas.

The warm spots near Lake Champlain will probably avoid the frost, but gardeners in the rest of the region want to pay attention to later forecasts.

The cool weather is going to seem shockingly chilly after such a long stretch of warm weather - basically since May. I don't even know where I left some of my warmer shirts, fleece and flannel. I'd better check the closets pronto.

Still, the temperatures we're going to experience are not at all unusual for this time of year. It always happens. Every year.

It's just that it's been so warm, it'll seem like record cold, when in reality it'll just be average.