In Some Respects, Vermont's April Snow Shower Siege Has Been Pretty

Snow showers over the Northeast and southern Quebec created a very
pretty, tectured look to this visible satellite photo taken Thursday
afternoon. Vermont is somewhere in the middle of this photo. 

For two days now, us Vermonters have endured cold, windy weather, with scattered, unwelcome snow showers.

I haven't heard much enthusiasm for this snow, but in some respects, it's been pretty, if you look in the right places.

For example:

This strange patterned photo here  is a true color, visible satellite photo of the northeastern United States and far southeastern Canada. It's hard to pick out the geographic boundaries, but Vermont is roughly in the middle of the photo.

(You can click on the photo to make it bigger and easier to see).

The strong April sun worked with a pool of very chilly air aloft to form a whole bunch of snow showers. Each one was small in area, and mostly surrounded by narrow gaps of sunshine. They were pretty evenly spaced, so you get this beautiful pattern, as seen from space.

More to the south, down toward southern New England and New Jersey, where the dynamics weren't quite as good, you can see the size of these snow or rain showers was smaller.

Up here in Vermont, the brisk northwest flow meant that nobody was under any particular snow shower for very long. You'd get a burst of snow, or a flurry, then it would clear, and the process would start all over again.

One of the skinniest of the narrow snow shower clouds that erupted
over St. Albans, Vermont and much of the rest of the state Thursday.

This pattern created a very changeable day. If you were under a snow shower, cold air brought down from aloft would bring the temperature quickly into the low to mid 30s, making it feel like winter.

Then the sun would come out, and the temperature within minutes would poke up into the 40s. With the sun, it actually felt nice. Then, minutes later, it would be in the 30s and snowing again. Go figure.

Today will feature more of the same, but there likely won't be as many snow showers around as yesterday.

However, southern Vermont, along with parts of New York State and central New England, are in for a snowy treat tonight, let me tell ya!  

The southernmost two counties of Vermont - Bennington and Windham - can expect three to seven inches of snow tonight and Saturday morning. The heaviest snow will pile up in the mountains.

Snow will get as far north as central Vermont overnight, but won't amount to much. There might be an inch or two in and near Rutland and White River Junction, with perhaps a bit more than that on some mountains. Once you start approaching Middlebury and Montpelier, there will be little or no snow at all.

We'll be in a chilly pattern for another week or so, which means there will be an occasional chance of a little snow (or a little rain) through the middle of next week.

A "Fifth" Nor'easter Missed, But It's A Beauty

What would have been Nor'easter #5 this month spins
intensely well east of the New England coast yesterday.
Had it been a few hundred miles further west, it would
have caused more bigtime havoc.
Beautiful satellite photo, though. 

It seems I spent the entire month of March discussing nor'easters, since these storms were constantly either menancing us, hitting us, or we were digging out from them.

There was a grand total of four that hit at least parts of New England, so it was a busy month in that department.  

The overall weather pattern has shifted only a bit in the past week. The shift has been enough to put us in somewhat warmer air. The snow is beginning to melt now.

Still, a fifth nor'easter of sorts did manage to get going over the past couple of days. I'm not sure if you can officially call it a nor'easter, since it didn't hit the coast or come particularly near it.

But otherwise,  this fifth storm did pretty much what the previous four did: It emerged off the southeastern U.S. coast as a weak system, then blew up into a monster, huge storm. Only this time it was much further offshore than the ones that came before it.

You can see by the satellite picture of this storm that it was a beaut, way offshore.

Which is great, because this Nor'easter #5 is, or at least was, arguably the strongest of the bunch. It is generating sone big waves and dangerous surf up and down the East Coast, but nothing extreme. There are hazardous seas advisories for offshore waters of New England.

The good news is this Nor'easter #5, while moving erratically, It's now weakening and moving north, way off the coast. It looks like it will clip Newfoundland and harass Iceland, but leave us here in New England alone.

Of course, that doesn't mean another snowy nor'easter can't come along. We can get them in April, you know. And the weather pattern is potentially favorable for a nor'easter or even two sometime between April 4 and 12.  I don't know whether one will develop, but it's worth watching.