Midwinter Snow Conditions In Vermont Finally About To Melt Away

Still looked like mid-winter in my St. Albans, Vermont
yard yesterday, March 26, but a lot of this snow will
disappear this week. Which is good, because there's
a perennial bed under the snow in the foreground. 

For skiers and riders in Vermont, March is a wildcard. In some years, like the torrid 2012, record warmth ends the season way too early for some enthuisasts.

Other years, like this one, are glory days for skiers and riders. The mountains pretty much had nice midwinter conditions almost all month, without the slush and puddles and melting snow like many Marches.

The snow was deep, the temperatures were comfortable, what was not to love? Us valley dwellers who aren't as into winter sports were complaining, but oh, well.

Those happy days of winter sports will start to diminish today, as the first significant spell of seasonable warm weather arrives in the North Country.

Don't worry, some ski areas will surely continue will into spring. A few likely past Mother's Day. But the thaw is commencing.

Yesterday and today, I'm betting the sap was, and is, flowing like gangbusters from the sugar maples. Good news for the maple industry. It ain't over yet, as the general weather pattern forecast favors temperatures that won't premature end the sugaring season.

Still, we've got several days of warm-ish temperatures and periods of rain to get through. In places like the Champlain Valley, most of the snow will disappear, so you'll have to put those cross-country skis away.

The first round of rain, tonight, will come down lightly. And actually change to snow for a time in the mountains. But accumulations will be light, and the warmth will resume tomorow.

Temperatures will range in the upper 30s and 40s in the mountains daily through Friday with 50s in many valleys. Another, somewhat bigger round of rain is likely to come in Thursday afternoon and night to wash more snow away. It won't be an extreme storm, but it also won't snow.

Thawing can mean flooding, but in this case, it doesn't look very worrisome. The warmth isn't extreme - it can get into the 70s this time of year, but this time it won't anywhere close to that. And the rain later this week won't be heavy. Most of us will get less than half an inch.

Rivers will rise around Vermont and the rest of the North, but any flooding looks like it will be minor.

As far as you skiers and riders go, we might be finished with powder days, but don't worry, your season is not over. There will be quite a lot of snow left over in the mountains after this thaw. And it looks at this point like the first ten days or so of April will generally be colder and wetter than normal in the Northeast

That almost certainly means additional snowfalls, especially in the mountains during the first half of April. And the remaining mountain snowpack during the opening days of April likely won't diminish much more.