Another Week Of Winter For U.S., Then Some "Relief" * Results May Vary.

Tree down on a house in Hamburg, New York after Wedneday's storm.

Boy, as anticipated, we're in the midsts of one of the most active, and most wintry early Aprils I can remember.  I'm not just talking here in Vermont, which has so far missed the worst of it.

There has been some incredibly unseasonable cold and snows in weird places for this time of year, and it's only going to continue.

I'd say a good chunk of the nation still has a week of winter in April to go. After that, I think temperatures will moderate to springlike levels in most, but not all areas. But the weather pattern will remain active and stormy and at times and in places, dangerous, though most of the rest of the month.

First, we should review our very Windy Wednesday

WIND DAMAGE GALORE

As expected, the Northeast and southeastern Canada got whipped by a super nasty windstorm on Wednesday. The worst of it was concentrated in western New York and parts of Ontario and Quebec. We here in Vermont got in on the action, too. More on that in a second.

At least 80,000 people lost power in Ontario, mostly in the Toronto metro area amid winds gusting well over 60 mph in some areas.

A crane in Mississauga, Ontario collapsed in the wind, the brick wall of a townhouse was torn off by the gales, and some windows popped out of Toronto area highrises.

In Quebec, at least 55,000 homes and businesses lost electricity in Wednesday's windstorm.

New York was hard hit. In northwestern New York, a 36-year-old man was killed when the winds collapsed a sugar shack where he was making syrup. A 15 year old boy in the shack escaped.

More than 80,000 New York residents lost power. Gusts flipped some tractor trailers on the New York State Thruway. Winds gusted to 65 mph in Rochester amid snow squalls.

Here in Vermont, winds last evening gusted as high as 63 mph on Burton Island and 56 mph in Enosburg Falls.  

I live in St. Albans, not far from Enosburg, and I would estimate gusts as high as 50 to 55 mph on my high, west-facing property that is exposed to strong west winds.

Video here shows the wind beginning to crank in my yard last evening. The willow tree to the left ended up losing a few branches.

Winds gusted as high as 113 mph on top of Mount Mansfield.

Green Mountain Power said more than 22,000 homes and businesses lost power in last night's storm. More than 18,000 outages were still ongoing in Vermont as of 9:30 a.m. today, and it might take a few days to get everybody's juice back.

The wind has since died down, but of course the wild weather pattern has not. Next, we have at least hree snowstorms that will cross the country. Some will affect us here in Vermont, some will not. Details interspersed below:

SNOW #1

An Alberta Clipper type storm is crossing the Great Lakes today and will head across New England tomorrow. Many people from Michigan to Maine will get a dusting to as much as five inches of snow.

That includes us here in Vermont. Temperatures are going to be tricky, so it's hard to determine whether and how much rain will mix in. On the one hand, the precipitation won'st start until late morning or early afternoon in most areas, so the temperature will have risen above freezing by then. That would favor some rain, at least in the valleys.

However, the air will be initially dry. The precipitation moving in will tend to evaporate at first, cooling the air, setting us up for snow. Right now the thinking is a slushy coating in places like the Champlain Valley and up to four inches in the mountains. But remember, there is a high bust potential with this one. We could end up surprised.

SNOW #2

This one might end up being the weirdest one of the bunch, at least in terms of some of the areas it's expected to hit.

This one starts in the northern Rocky Mountains today, where April snow isn't so unusual. Then the snow will move southeasterward Friday across Nebraska, and maybe into northern Kansas and as far south as Kansas City, where snow is odd for this time of year.

Friday night, mixed precipitation could make it as far south as Nashville, Tennessee. Even if things stay as rain down there, a widespread and damaging frost and freeze is likely in the Mid-South Saturday night.

With these repeated snowstorms, and more on the way across the
nation this April, this image probably matches lots of peoples' emotions.

On Saturday, it's possible places like Washington, DC, in the throes of its annual cherry blossom beauty, could get hit by a snowstorm, which would make it among the latest on record there. (It's kind of iffy if Washington will get snow, sleet, rain or a mix.)

But considering how daytime temperatures are normally in the low to mid 60s this time of year in the Capital, the spectre of snow this time of year is bizarre.

This storm will go out to sea too far south to affect Vermont, except to reinforce the chilly air that will already by over us.

SNOW #3

By Sunday, the third snowstorm will be diving southward through North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and into Illinois, areas that were hit by a late snowstorm and record cold last Sunday.  Since this one is further out in the future, details on what it will do are kind of hazy.

But as this last one heads east, it could consolidate into another nor'easter. It has the potential to give us here in Vermont a late season snowstorm. It all depends upon how close to the coast this comes during the middle of next week, and whether temperatures will remain cold enough for snow. Of the three, this one bears the most watching for us in Vermont.

STAYS RECORD COLD

There's been some remarkable cold the past few days, especially in the Northern Plains and parts of the Midwest that had snowcover. Lincoln, Illinois, hit by snow Sunday, got down to a remarkable minus 1 Monday morning, by far the coldest April temperature on record there.

Elsewhere, Aberdeen, South Dakota got down to six below (!!) on Wednesday,  also its coldest temperature on record for any day in April. Pierre, South Dakota got down to an even zero, also it's all time coldest April temperature.

Grand Forks, North Dakota has been continuously at or below freezing since March 28, and it's not expected to (barely) rise above freezing again there until next Tuesday. That's 13 consecutive days of subfreezing air during a time of year when daytime readings should be in the mid-40s in that part of the world.

Minneapolis is expected to reach an afternoon high temperature of just 21 degrees Friday, which would make the coldest "high" temperature on record there for the month of April. If it gets down to the expected low of 5 above in Minneapolis Saturday night, that would be the second coldest April reading on record for them.

Then, after nine inches of snow the other day, Minneapolis, as mentioned above, is in line for another possible snowstorm Sunday. This time of year, normal highs are in the low 50s and normal lows are in the lower 30s in Minneapolis. They're being driven nuts by winter in spring in the Twin Cities, that's for sure!

This truly is easily among the most intense stretches of April cold on record in parts of the United States. It's especially remarkable because it's an exception from the general warming trend we've seen in recent decades.


The cold is just bad luck for our neck of the woods, because other parts of the world are experiencing record heat. Parts of the Arctic are 30 degrees or more warmer than average now. Areas of Asia including Iran and Pakistan just experienced record heat. 

STORMY SPRING

As noted, the cold will start to relax, but it will stay stormy for a week or more after that. This raises the risk of tornado outbreaks and flooding in parts of the southern Plains, Midwest and South. It's too soon to pick apart details on these potential storms but they're something to keep an eye on.

There are preliminary, uncertain signs that things might finally start to calm down in the nation during the final week of April.