The First Real Vermont Spring Snow Melt Attempt Is This Week

As seen through my back deck railing, a flock of turkeys makes its way
Sunday across my very snowy back yard in St. Albans, Vermont. Me,
and the turkeys, will be dealing with a lot less snow around by
the end of the week as a real March thaw approaches. 

Pretty much on schedule, this will be the week in Vermont where the white winter landscape will start to transition to the mud season scenery of early spring.

The sun has gotten stronger, and you might have noticed the beginning of this change Friday and Saturday. Despite temperatures that barely made it to the freezing mark, the sun really began to chew up the snowbanks.

With warmer weather on the way this week, expect more of the snow to disappear, and more mud to appear.  Some of us might not welcome the mud, but many of us will enjoy the milder temperatures. The maple sugar industry will be happy with this.

Like all March thaws, this one will come with its share of setbacks and stalls. The first one came yesterday, when some areas - like my place in St. Albans, Vermont - failed to rise much above freezing. Light snow and sleet left us with a slightly thicker winter cover than the day before.

But it was already above freezing before dawn today, and yesterday's sleet is beginning to dissolve.

Today will be a typically moody March day. There will be plenty of clouds around, and some rain showers, mixed with a few snowflakes. In the valleys, temperatures will reach to near 40 degrees, so a bit more snow will disappear.

It's almost always colder in the mountains, and today the temperature drop with elevation is even steeper than usual. That means anything that fall in the higher elevations will add a bit to the snow pack up there.

Tonight, the snow showers will really crank up. However, during the first part of the night, it will be warm enough so that the the snow won't stick well in the valleys, but piles up in the mountains.

Eventually, late at night it will go below freezing, so we'll have another minor setback to the snow melt. Valleys will accumulate a minor dusting to two inches of new snow, will the mountains pick up one to four inches, with locally higher amounts.

Tuesday will be chilly, but not that bad. Temperatures will be about ten degrees cooler than normal. In January, that would have meant highs only in the upper teens, but now, in March, it means highs near 30. As the sun comes out in the afternoon, a few snowbanks will erode just a tiny bit more. Gusty winds will temper the sun's warmth. Again, moody March.

Then the warmth really starts. Wednesday afternoon looks like a beauty, with sunshine and highs near 40.  For skiers and other winter sports enthusiasts, it will be one more perfect outdoor day.

The temperatures will keep going up, so that it will be in the 50s by Thursday. There will be a couple of overnight thaws, too. With temperatures remaining in the low 50s on Friday with some rain showers, the snow pack will really diminish, especially in the valleys. Things will look a lot different at the end of the week than they do now.

There is the possibility of scattered lowland flooding and ice jam flooding due to the thaw at the end of the week.

This is Vermont, however, so there's nothing to prevent a big snowstorm from replacing the lost white cover.  It's too soon to know if or when that would happen, but one computer model suggests we could get a decent sized snowstorm around March 19. All the other computer models say no, we're safe from that. Time will tell who's right, but at this point, I wouldn't worry about it at all.

Winter's back will be broken this week, though, so any of the inevitable setbacks to our spring thaw will be temporary. Just think, within a month, some early green shoots will begin emerging from perennial gardens, meaning we survived another winter.