Gorgeous Sunday Was A Classic Vermont April Day For Variety Of Cool Reasons

If you look closely, you can see plants beginning to emerge
in my perennial bed in the foreground amid warm sunshine
Sunday in St. Albans, Vermont 

I really hoped you enjoyed Sunday if you were in Vermont.

It was wall-to-wall sunshine. Most valley locations were in the 50s. Warm enough to enjoy, cool enough to get some outdoor work done effiiciently.

Today will be awesome, too, albeit warmer. Most of us will get over 60 degrees.

By many standards, Sunday was a classic Vermont April day. This is the time of year when you're most likely to get a cloudless sky, very low humidities, a cool breeze but warm sunshine.

Though I would note that April is fickle, as we've really been reminded about this year. We're still recovering from a long string of days with snow and cold rain. And we have another stretch of chilly rains to deal with. Though later in the week, the snow will be confined to the mountains, if it snows at all.

Dewpoints were remarkably low on Sunday in Vermont - mostly in the mid-teens. Essentially that meant temperatures would have had to drop into the mid-teens to create frost, or freezing fog around this neck of the woods. There was definitely no freezing fog to be had in Vermont on Sunday.

I'm sure nobody was complaining  about that fact.

Low dew points mean low relative humidities. Relative humidity represents the amount of water vapor in the air. It's the percentage of the maximum amount that the air could hold at a given temperature.

Basically that means the air on Sunday was nowhere near as wet as it potentially could have been

April is the season in Vermont where you do get quite a number of days like Sunday -- clear and super dry.

One big reason it can get so dry on certain days during a Vermont April is because there are no leaves on the trees yet.  Leaves emit a lot of water. Vermont is mostly forested. A very large oak tree can transpire 40,000 gallons of water per year. Imagine how much water vapor all those Vermont trees release into the atmosphere each summer. The air would have to be wetter than it is this time of year.

The dry air means daily temperatures swings are big between dawn and the afternoon. More humid air can hold heat longer, so after the sun sets, it doesn't cool off all that much after the sun sets.

Dry air, like we had yesterday and am having today means as the sun sets, it's easy for heat to radiate to outer space rather than hang around where we are. You might have noticed as the sun began to set last evening, it got very chilly very fast.

Yesterday in Burlington, we started out at 28 degrees and ended up with a high of 58 - a pretty big range. Today will have an even bigger temperature range. We started the day right around 32 degrees and the forecast high in Burlington today is 65 degrees.

The occasional very dry April days we get is one reason why we have occasional brush and grass fires this time of year. Last year's weeds and plants are all dead and dry. The arid April air dries them out further and there you go with the blazes.

It's been fairly wet this month, so the fire danger today isn't extreme. But I'd still postpone burning that brush pile until it gets a little wetter -- which will happen later this week.

You'll notice the early spring plant life does love these sunny, mild afternoons. The grass is noticeably greener than it was Friday, and I bet your early sprouts like daffodils and hyacinth are much taller than they were a couple days ago.

All bright and sunny weather must come to an end. Wednesday and Thursday definitely are looking rainy at this point.