March Proved This Year Was Easy Winter, So Far Tough Spring In Vermont

Aftermath of the three foot deep
snowstorm in Richmond, Vermont
on March 14-15

Back on March 1, you thought you got away scot free with another easy winter, didn't you, my fellow Vermonters.

After all, on that day, temperatures reached record highs in the low 60s, just a few days after we had unprecedented readings at around 70 degrees at the end of February.

Ha!

As we well know now, we finally hit hard core winter in March, when we were supposed to be slowly recovering from a Vermont winter.

The statistics are now out to prove all this.

In Burlington, the snowfall for the month amounted to 36.8 inches, enough to be the third snowiest March on record. Burlington's records date back to the 1880s.

The bulk of that snow came on the "Pi-Day" storm on March 14-15, which proved to be the second largest snowstorm on record.

The previous winter, 2015-16 was among the least snowy on record. In fact, Burlington got more snow in the last 18 days of March than the entire winter of 2015-16. Quite an accomplishment.

As we also know, the snowy regime extended into April Fool's Day.

With Saturday's storm, the seasonal snow total in Burlington got just above 100 inches. That's only the twelth time since 1885 that Burlington has had more than 100 inches of snow during a single winter.

March, 2017 was colder than the rest of the winter. It's very rare that March is the coldest month of the year. It's almost always January, February or December. But this March was the colder than any month this winter.

The same was true down in Boston, making this the first time on record that March was the coldest month of the year there.

On the bright side of sorts, March, 2017 was wetter than normal. I say bright side, because there were some drought conditions holding over from last year.  Dry conditions have ended in northern Vermont and diminished in southern Vermont, says the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Virtually all of Vermont was abnormally dry or in drought three months ago, and only half the state is now, the Drought Monitor says. And forecasts call for more bouts of heavy rain in the coming days.

As always, I'm reluctant to hazard a guess as to what April will bring. The weather is always surprising in Vermont.