Warm March Vermont Day; Snowcover Will Be Influence

Visible satellite photo of New England and eastern New York from Sunday.
You can click on the image to make it bigger and easier to see. Areas
with bare ground, including most of southern New England, southern
New Hampshire and the deeper valleys of southwestern and southeastern
Vermont will absorb sun, helping high temperatures reach well
into the 60s.  Snow covered areas will be cooler. 

We know today will be a very springlike mild day here in Vermont.

Most of us will get into the 50s, a few of us will touch at least 60 degrees.  That's fairly impressive, given that normal high temperatures this time of year are in the mid 30s to around 40.

The interesting thing for us weather geeks to watch today will be how snow cover influences temperatures.  Snow is a natural refrigerator.

The sun's heat gets bounced back to space to an extent where there's a decent snow cover.  Those places wouldn't get as warm as those that have no snow cover because the snow doesn't absorb the sun's heat very well.

The darker surface of the ground in snow-free areas absorbs heat more efficiently, so temperatures would be warmer there.

Most of Vermont was still snow-covered as of this morning.  But parts of the state have bare ground, mostly in the low elevations of southwestern Vermont and the floor of the Connecticut River valley from about White River Junction south.

There, today's sun will help temperatures skyrocket.  I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some highs in mid to upper 60s pop up today in places like Bennington and Brattleboro.  Some areas of snow-free southern New England could easily reach 70 degrees today.

In most of the rest of Vermont, highs will probably hold in the 50s, due to the chilling effects of the snow cover.

One computer model's forecast highs for today.  The areas shaded in
yellow and orange, depicting expected high temperatures at
or above 60 degrees, mirrors the snow free areas in
the satellite photos above. Blue areas in Vermont show
forecast highs in the 50s over snow-covered ground. 

A bit of a wildcard is the central and northern Champlain Valley.  In the valley, many open areas have lost almost all of their snow, especially from about Milton south.

However, wooded areas still have some snow cover, with some bare spots.  It's a mixed bag. The areas of bare ground will help heat the atmosphere, but the snowy woods would temper the warmth some. Still, it could easily hit 60 degrees around Burlington.

Further north in the Champlain Valley where I live in St. Albans, there's still quite a bit of snow on the ground, though there are large snow-free areas on open fields. The woods still have a fair amount of snow on the ground, especially away from Lake Champlain.  My guess is we'll make it to the upper 50s here.  

Right near Lake Champlain, wind blowing off the ice and very cold open water in the middle of the lake means people on the shores of the lake will see cooler temperatures than the rest of the region.

Today's warmth, though quite unusual for early March, won't set records, at least in Burlington.  On this date in 2016, the temperature reached 70 degrees in Burlington.  It won't get that warm today in the Queen City.

That balmiess on March 9, 2016 was briefly the earliest in the season on record for a 70 degree reading.  However, the very next year, the temperature reached 72 degrees on February 25, for a new early season record.

It'll remain on the mild side through Tuesday. But the expected clouds and light rain will make the sun's effects less of a factor. Temperatures will trend down toward near seasonal levels by the end of the week.

Flood Update And Those Weird Temperatures In Vermont On Saturday

Water from Lake Champlain began to creep over this walkway
at Perkins Pier in Burlington, Vermont Saturday as the
lake approached its 100-foot flood stage.

Water is receding this Sunday morning in most of Vermont, with the notable exception of Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River as the weather has taken a dramatic turn for the better, especially in northwestern parts of the state.

As expected, most of the flooding was minor, except in parts of the Northeast Kingdom where the heavy rains Friday and Saturday fell on melting snow.

High water around St. Johnsbury and Lyndonville rivaled the damaging floods of April, 2014, May, 2011 and July, 1973.  Homes and businesses in some parts of Lyndonville and St. Johnsbury likely suffered flood damage.

USGA data indicated Lake Champlain reached its 100 flood stage at around mid-morning today. and it will continue rising for at least a day or two as the rest of the runoff from that weekend rain and snowmelt makes its way to the lake.

The risk of damage from the lake flooding will come if we get any high winds over the next couple of weeks that could cause battering waves and erosion. Spring can be a windy time of year, so that's something to be watched.

It could get a breezy on Wednesday, but there are no big wind storms in the forecast for at least the next week. So that's good.

The other flood problem is along the Connecticut River from about Fairlee north.  Waterways were particularly high in northeastern Vermont and northern New Hampshire because there was more snow to melt there than elsewhere. That and the rain sent a LOT of water headed toward the Connecticut River.

At Wells River, Vermont, the Connecticut River could be close to two feet above flood stage, with possible further rises after that.  Low water crossings will be underwater for days, as will many hundreds of acres of farmland.

As the crest goes downstream, people should monitor the Connecticut River from along the central Vermont/New Hampshire border to Long Island Sound in Connecticut. Flooding is a possibility all the way down to the mouth of the river.

Other than the Connecticut River and Lake Champlain, I don't see much in the way of new flooding threats for the rest of the week at least. We'll certainly get our share of off and on April showers during the week and into next weekend, but there are no drenching storms in the forecast

ODD TEMPERATURES

A temperature inversion kept Burlington, Vermont chilly and
foggy last evening, while elsewhere in Vermont, it
was a very mild evening with temperatures in the 60s.

Can we talk about how weird the weather was on Saturday? Yes, it was a typically rainy April day, but those temperatures were all over the place.

One of the reasons why there was so much flooding is in many cases, the mountains were warmer than valleys, at least the valleys in western Vermont.

An inversion kept a layer of warm air overhead, with chily air in the deeper valleys of northwestern Vermont.

The top of Mount Mansfield had temperatures in the 50s all day Saturday, with rapid snowmelt contributing to the flooding. The snow depth there went from 107 to 90 inches in two days.

Meanwhile, in Burlington, temperatures were in the low 40s all day, as low level cold air drained down the valley from the north.

To the east, on the other side of a stalled cold front, in places like St. Johnsbury and White River Junction, temperatures Saturday were well up into the 60s.

South winds were blowing just one to two thousand feet overhead, so it was warmer up above. The cold waters of Lake Champlain also helped to form a lid of cold air over the Champlain Valley, which did not allow those warm winds above us to mix down to the surface. Thick fog formed beneath this lid keeping the warm air above out.

This lid began to break up overnight, leading to strange temperature changes. Rutland was just north of the stalled front during the day Saturday. Temperatures in Rutland abruptly went from the 60s to the 40s just before midnight Friday as the cold front came through. The front stalled a few miles south of Rutland, keeping readings there in the 40s most of the day.

That front jogged north and the inversion broke in Rutland a little before 6 p.m., and the temperature immediately rocketed upward into the upper 60s. Very strange.

In Burlington, the temperarture abruptly rose about nine degrees just before midnight as the south wind finally broke through, and that 54 degrees at midnight was the high temperature for the day.

Things are taking a much more normal arc today. Lows in the 50s this morning will rise to the 60s or maybe around 70 this afternoon. Readings will slowly fall this evening, which is the way things are supposed to work.

So, How Did February And The Whole Winter Stack Up Here In Vermont

Heavy snow falls on St. Albans, Vermont on January 20, during
the biggest snowstorm of the winter.

Welcome to meterological spring, when climatologists, just for ease of record keeping, say spring starts. They deem it to begin today, March 1, so there you go.

Which give us the opportunity to look back and see how February stacked up in Vermont, and also, winter as a whole.

First, let's tackle February. Around Burlington, despite a lot of ups and downs, the mean temperature for the month came out close to average. It averaged out at 22.2, which is just 0.7 degrees above normal.

Elsewhere in Vermont, in places like Montpelier and St. Johnsbury, the month came out at about a degree cooler than normal. Which is essentially typical for February.

When it did get cold in February, 2019, it was never that cold. Burlington got to zero or below on five mornings, but the chilliest one was only minus 5, which is well within what we'd expect in the winter. The hottest day was February 5, which reached 53 degrees - good enough to be a record high for the date.

The month was on the wet side. Burlington had 2.34 inches of precipitation, which was a little more than a half inch soggier than average.

Freezing rain glazes trees in Burlington, Vermont on February 6. There
was a lot of mixed precipitation during the winter of 2018-19,
so there was a lot of ice underfoot. 

For the winter as a whole, taking in meteorological winter from December 1 to February 28, temperatures bounced all over the place but landed just about normal if you average it all out.

Burlingon was a whopping one tenth of one degree warmer than average for the winter. Essentially spot on normal.

It was a wet winter. Burlington had 8.46 inches of rain over the three months, which is 2.26 inches above normal. Although we had plenty of snow, there was a lot of rain, too. That kept snow cover modest, at least in the Champlain Valley.

There was briefly 18 inches of snow on the ground in mid-January, but only ten days out of the entire winter had at least 10 inches of snow covering the Queen City's lawns and parks.

Snow cover is much healthier in the Northeast Kingdom, and in mid and high elevations. As of yesterday, there was 39 inches of snow on the ground in Granby and 37 inches in Sutton, both up in the NEK. Averill had 34 inches of snow on the ground Corinth had 32 inches. The summit of Mount Mansfield was up above 100 inches.

Is U.S. Having A Cold Winter? Not Really, Despite "Polar Vortex" Hype

Moments like this - heavy snow falling amid subzero termperatures
in St. Albans, Vermont on January 20, might make us think
this winter has been particularly harsh. In the grand scheme
of things locally and nationwide, it hasn't been super bad

Remember all that hype about the "polar vortex" in January? That the United States was having a brutal winter?

In large part, it was hype. It's true that a few cities in the Midwest hit all-time record lows during that brief, sharp Arctic snap in late January.

But the first month of the year as a whole was the 29th warmest January on record or the United States. That's out of 125 years of record.

Which means we didn't exactly skip winter in January, but it was nothing historic, either.

Interestingly, in the rankings, right here in Vermont had the second coldest January, 2019 compared to rankings in all the other states during the month.  Vermont had its 57th chilliest January out of the past 125. That's still pretty close to normal, so it's no great shakes. Only Michigan, which had its 50th coldest January, was worse than Vermont.

No state in January was really uch colder than normal. Most of the west was warm, and California had its 10th warmest January on record.

Four cities in the United States did break or tie their all-time record low temperatures on January 31, writes Bob Henson in this Category 6 blog post. 

Henson cited weather records expert Maximiliano Herrera when he added this factoid to the blog post regarding the all-time record lows in the handful of U.S. cities on January 31:

"We've never gone so deep into January without an all-time cold record being set since global record-keeping began,' says Herrera. In contrast, in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summer, January, 2019 saw two nations or territories and 47 stations set their all-time heat records."

Which means we shouldn't believe anyone who says global warming isn't happening because it was cold in Illinois in late January.

I think what made January seem harsh in the United States was that it was stormy. The United States as a whole had its 37th wettest January. Again, Vermont was a standout. The Green Mountain State and Rhode Island each had their eight wettest Januaries on record. No other state in the U.S. scored in the top 10 wettest.

Northern Maine was very snowy, Caribou had its snowiest January on record.

So far, February has been particularly chilly in most of the western half of the nation, so that will add an overall chill to the nation's winter as a whole. Places like Montana are particularly brutal. So far, temperatures in much of that state are running more than 25 degrees colder than normal, which is just beyond belief.

The West Coast is very chilly this month as well. Seattle is running 9 degrees colder than normal so far this month. Sacramento, California is nearly five degrees on the cold side.

However, any thought that this is a particularly brutal winter for the United States is hogwash.

Follow The Bouncing Temperatures: It's Spring After All

Spring continues to progress nicely, despite
the usual swings in temperatures

Up here in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast, spring always means that temperatures almost always, well, spring from one extreme to the other. 

We saw that over the weekend, and we're seeing that for the rest of the week. Skies are certainly changeable, too. 

This past Saturday and Sunday sure had two personalities, didn't they?

Saturday was damp and chilly, the kind of day you curl up on the couch with a hot chocolate, and maybe a nice purring cat or happy dog.

Sunday was glorious, as temperatures soared into the 60s under sunshine and blue skies. If you didn't get outside Sunday, you missed out.

I do know the daffodils in my yard loved Sunday's weather and went into bloom mode accordingly.

Now we're into the work week. And we're still going to be following the bouncing temperatures.

Today's weather depend upon which part of the state you're in. In northern Vermont, today started pretty cloudy and chilly.

The clouds will gradually melt away this morning, but it won't be nearly as warm as Sunday. Low to mid 50s should do it.

This is all due to a weak cold front that settled south through the region early this morning. In southern Vermont and southern New England, the cold front will have even less oomph, so look for more 60 degree readings down there today.

Tomorrow will have the opposite regime, with temperatures turning cooler the more south and east you go, with somewhat warmer temperatures north and west.

A coastal storm is gathering over the southeastern United States. It's being boosted by this weird storminess that by my reading actually has some tropical characteristics. It was off the Florida coast this morning, and will combine with the coastal storm somewhere near North Carolina tonight.

As an aside, it's awfully early to keep getting these tropical storm wannabes this early in the season. We had Tropical Storm Arlene in the North Atlantic last week, and now this.

I sincerely doubt today's system will turn into a tropical storm, but it is weird.

In any event, this storm will dump quite a lot of rain in the mid-Atlantic states today. Flood watches and warnings are already up for the Carolinas and parts of Virginia.

There has already been quite of flooding in downtown Charleston, South Carolina this morning. Flooding has also been reported in eastern Tennessee.

Up here in New England, the storm will create a raw east wind. Water temperatures are normally the lowest of the season off the Northeast coast, so east winds this time of year create chilly weather, fog, drizzle and rain. Especially the closer to the coast you get.

Most of the eastern half of New England will stay in the 40s Tuesday. That includes the southeastern half of Vermont.

Northwestern Vermont will be further away from the coast, so it will be a bit milder -- 50s should do it.

It will probably rain region wide Tuesday, but the steadiest rain will be toward the southeast. Rain to the northwest will be lighter and more showery.

Next, we follow the bouncing temperatures again, this time upward. The coastal storm will depart, and we'll get an air flow from the southwest starting Wednesday and continuing Thursday.

By Thursday afternoon, temperatures will get well into the 70s. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a few spots near 80 degrees.

Friday, a cold front comes in, so temperatures will start to dip toward the weekend, but it won't get all that cold.

Vermont's Temperatures Have Been Breaking All The Rules

A rainy, warm Leap Day commute to work this morning in
St. Albans, Vermont, following a chilly, wintry
Sunday afternoon --backwards weather  

The temperatures in Vermont have totally backwards and weird in Vermont the past couple of days.

We've been having high temperatures for the days in the early mornings, low temperatures in the afternoon, and situations where, if you drive a few miles in the Green Mountain State, you go from deep winter to spring.

Yeah, I'm confused, too.

As all of us know, the coolest temperature of the day almost always comes in the early morning, because the sun has been gone all night, and heat was lost to outer space.

And the day's highest temperature pretty much always comes in the afternoon, after the sun has heated the atmosphere for hours.

Sometimes, especially in the winter, storms and weather fronts can overrule this regime, and that's happening in Vermont, big time.

We'll use Burlington to demonstrate how this is playing out. For instance on Sunday, Burlington had its high temperature of the day of 38 degrees early in the morning, when it's normally coolest.

Then the temperature fell for the rest of the day, reaching the low 20s by early evening. Overnight, temperatures rocketed upward, reaching a record high tying 50 degrees by early afternoon. During the day the temperature will start to fall again rather than rise as it normally should.

All this happened because a cold front slipped southward across the Champlain Valley Sunday morning. It ended up stalling a little north of Rutland. Then it came back north as a warm front overnight, passing over Burlington early this morning and putting the Queen City back into the toasty air.

A cold front will come through later today, making temperatures go in reverse again late this morning and early afternoon.

This wavering weather front has really caused some wacky temperature differences in Vermont, too. At mid afternoon Sunday, temperatures in Vermont ranged from  about 20 near the Canadian border to the mid-50s around Bennington.

At the same time, Burlington was in the mid 20s and Montpelier, just 38 miles away, was in the mid 40s.

It got even more extreme this morning. At 5 a.m. at my St. Albans house, with a stiff south wind blowing, it was 48 degrees. Just 10 miles away in Highgate, at a lower elevation protected from the south wind, and in a place where the warm front still hadn't quite made it through, it was still 28 degrees

Quite an incredible difference.

There might be more weird temperature gyrations coming.

 Another storm is coming Tuesday night and Wednesday, which at this point looks like will sock us with a mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain. Looking for winter storm watches or winter weather advisories to be issued for late Tuesday and Wednesday.

As it looks now, it appears temperatures might rise overnight Tuesday, then fall back down Wednesday afternoon. Our backwards weather looks like it wants to continue.

October Weather Was More Or Less Normal In Vermont, Believe It Or Not

Some foliage managed to cling to trees on a Richmond,
Vermont hillside despite the fact we've gotten to November.  

November is getting off to a mild start in Vermont this year, with highs forecast in the 60s, possibly touching 70 in the warm spots midweek.

So we catch a break.

Many of us are saying that really IS a break, since October seemed a bit wintry.

After all, lots of gorgeous "snoliage" photos circulated, which showed peak autumn foliage across much of the state dusted with snow at midmonth.  

The reason October felt so cold and wet and stormy is because it was so warm and dry heading into the month, so anything felt wintry

The weather stats coming back for Vermont in October show a month that was just a bit cooler, and a bit drier than normal.

At Burlington, October was just a third of a degree cooler than normal - basically a rounding error. Other parts of Vermont were chillier, with Montpelier coming in at 2 degrees cooler than normal and St. Johnsbury 1.7 degrees on the nippy side.

A snow squall dusts some fall
foliage in St. Albans, Vermont
on Oct. 18 2015. Despite
this wintry weather, October
was only slightly cooler than normal. 

Those kinds of departures from normal are not incredible, for sure.

Precipitation was pretty unremarkable in October as well. Burlington was a little less than half an inch on the dry side. (There's normally roughly 3.6 inches or rain during October).

Other locations in Vermont clocked in at about an inch below normal. Kinda dry, yes, but not exactly an extreme drought.

That wintry precipitation that brought our snoliage photos wasn't abnormal, either. Valley locations in Vermont typically get a dusting of snow in October, and the mountains usually get a few inches.

If it seemed stormy, maybe it was because of the wind. The last 15 days of the month featured eight days in Burlington with gusts over 30 mph.

Still, as November opened Sunday, there was a surprising amount of lingering foliage left in the Champlain Valley. Definitely well past peak, but still more colorful than the stick season totally bare branches that normally greet us as November opens.

That's because September was so warm that foliage season definitely ran late. November, as I noted, is off to a remarkably warm start too, so if any flowers survived the frosts of October in your garden, they might hang on for just a bit longer. Enjoy!

In Vermont, September Was Dry, And Wore Two Temperature Faces

On the last day of September, fall foliage
in Richmond, Vermont.  

If you thought September was nice in Vermont, you're right. We had lots and lots of sunny, dry days and not much rain.

Which of course could be a problem.  Yes, I can find the dark side even in pleasant weather.

Much of Vermont had about half, or even less than half of its normal precipitation in September.

For instance, Burlington clocked in with a month's total of 1.63 inches, which was a good two inches below normal.

In case you haven't noticed, it's getting rather dusty out there.  We really could use the rain.

True, it's definitely no crisis yet. Only parts of Vermont and New England are "slightly dry" according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, and part of southeastern New England has fallen into "moderate drought."

A few good nor'easters in October and November will take care of the dry problem, but we do need the nor'easters. Or some type of good, repeated soaking rains.

Temperatures for September in Vermont were close to average, but the month really wore two faces. At the beginning and end of the month, it was like August. The middle was like October. We didn't have much in the way of normal September temperatures.

For the record, from the National Weather Service, Burlington's mean temperature for September was 1.6 degrees above normal. However, Montpelier was one degree chillier than normal and St. Johnsbury was almost two degrees on the cool side. Morrisville and Springfield were less than a degree warmer than normal.

The temperature got into the 80s seven times during the month in Burlington, which is more than we usually get. A record high for the date of 83 degrees was set on Sunday.

On the other hand, the temperature dropped to a record tying 32 degrees in Burlington on September 19. That was the earliest freeze there since 1964.

As always, who knows what the next month will bring. I'm sure something interesting will happen in the weather department. It always does.

A Break From Winter, And Amusing Video For Those Who Don't Like The Season

The first few days of January in Vermont were extremely cold, running close to 30 degrees below normal.

 A winter reversal: Snow melts amid rain, fog and warmth
in my St. Albans yard Tuesday. The bright side:
Much of the ice from the December ice storm is gone. The
negative side: Not great for winter sports.  

It almost seemed as if we were setting the stage for one of the coldest Januaries on record.

Not so fast.

As pretty much everyone has noticed, it's been incredibly warm the past few days in Vermont and surrounding states.

In Burlington, as of Monday, the warm weather had cancelled the early cold, and the average temperature so far in January was running right around normal.

Milder than average weather until the weekend will put us above normal for the month, at least temporarily.  There's no telling how warm or cold the later half of the month will turn out.

But it will inevitably turn colder. That's good news for the winter sports enthusiasts, and winter sports resorts, that have been suffering through the warm weather, the lack of snow and the lingering ice.

However, some people are no fans of winter, and would be happy if it stayed warm. To that crowd, I offer this video, so you can suffer through the pain of winter just like the people in this video compilation:

Roller Coaster Vermont Weather Brings Record Lows, Highs

As of 7 a.m. this Monday morning, it was 20 degrees in Burlington, Vermont, breaking the old record low for the date of 21, set in 1964.

These flowers in St. Albans, Vermont finally
bit the dust as we've now had two spells'
of very chilly weather in the past 10 days.  

The record isn't all that impressive because the 20 degrees this morning is still the "warmest" daily record low in the month of November. Most record lows this time of year are in the teens.

Still it's damn cold out. I noticed it was a mid-winter like 7 degrees in Saranac Lake, N.Y. this morning.

Montpelier, Vermont was at 16 degrees as of 7 a.m., breaking their record low for the date. It was 19 degrees on Nov. 4, 2002 in Montpelier.

Burlington's record low on Monday comes just three days after a record high of 71 degrees was tied.

And the roller coaster is set to continue. It'll stay cold Monday and Tuesday, but warm way up to near 60 degrees Thursday amid rain showers. A storm will be going by to our west by then, bringing in warm air.

Then a cold front comes through, and we'll get another day on Friday or Saturday with highs only in the chilly 30s.

I wonder if this bipolar pattern is one we'll endure for the entire winter.