We Had Springlike February So Of Course We Must Have Wintry March

Unfortunately, I  have to reprise this cold weather cartoon
as much of the Great Lakes and Northeast regions are up for
a January-like cold blast in the coming days. 

Last Saturday, a brutally cold day in Vermont, I encouraged people to look on the bright side: It would be the coldest day until next December.

The worst was behind us.

Maybe I was wrong.

It looks like an equally strong cold wave to last weekend's is heading into New England. This one will last longer, and probably involve more snow than the last one did.

No good weather goes unpunished. If you get some nice weather in New England, expect to be slammed any day by really bad weather.

That's what's happening.

The set up starting today is a series of cold fronts that are coming through now through Friday. The first went through this morning, with rain and mountain snow

The air does not chill off behind this first front. As the sun breaks out later this morning, it'll be mild. Kinda springlike, actually.

However, another cold front will approach today. It has a lot of energy, and will promote some scattered, but sometimes vigorous showers this afternoon across northern New York and New England.

There could even be some rumbles of thunder with some of these.

From there, more cold fronts will come through tonight and Thursday.

Tomorrow will be much colder than today, with highs barely making it into the 30s.

It'll get windy this afternoon and pretty much stay windy at least through Saturday.

Then the real cold arrives. With those expected continuing winds, it'll feel even colder than the actual temperatures.

Highs will only reach the teens to around 20 Friday, and might stay in the single numbers to low teens Saturday.

That would be similar to last Saturday, when some communities in Vermont and elsewhere in the Northeast set records for coldest daytime highs. 

Nighttimes Friday through Sunday will be a few degrees either side of zero, far, far below normal for this time of year.

Last weekends cold wave didn't last long, and temperatures began to moderate by Sunday afternoon.

Not this time. It's going to stay cold through Monday, with January-like weather continuing through then.

The cold fronts coming through today through Friday will deposit some snow, but it won't be extreme.

However, we're all watching a potential storm that could bring substantial snow on Tuesday. It's too soon to tell if this will actually happen, but it's definitely a possibility.

Temperatures will probably moderate somewhat by the middle of next week, but it will stay colder than normal.

This cold wave is going to hit a much larger section of the nation than the last one, too. It will affect much of the Midwest and East Coast. Especially from North Carolina on north.

I'm very concerned about crops and gardens in much of the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic states. It had been incredibly warm up until now in these regions.

Plants are blooming two to three weeks earlier than normal. Washington DC is rapidly headed toward a record-early peak cherry blossom blooming time in about a week.

The cold will be intense enough to kill blooms and plants in all of these regions this weekend.

To add insult to injury, it might snow as far south as North Carolina this weekend and/or early next week.

That will be a total bummer.