As You Suspected, Vermont Had A Very Warm March

Daffodils in my garden in northwestern Vermont were getting ready
to bloom yesterday, March 31, among the earliest I can remember.

Up until this year, the past few Marches in Vermont have been pretty wintry, with big, sometimes immense snowstorms and subzero chilly periods.

This year certainly broke the pattern, didn't it?

The stats from Burlington are kind of impressive, actually. The average temperature for March was 37.3 degrees, which was 6.3 degrees on the toasty side.

That was good enough to make the month the ninth warmest March on record, out of the past 135 years or so.

The warmest March on record was the insanely summerlike March of 2012, which feature three days that topped 80 degrees!

The warmth was statewide, with most places running around four or five degrees warmer than average this March.

This March, the warmth wasn't nearly as extreme as 2012, but if anything, was more consistent than in 2012.  The coolest it ever got all month in Burlington was 11 degrees above zero. There have been a handful of Aprils with colder temperatures than that.  The only day all month that failed to rise above freezing was March 1.

The result is one of the earliest starts to spring I can remember, as far as what the Vermont landscape looks like. In my memory, only 2012 had a "greener" look at the end of March..

Yesterday, the final day of March in Vermont, lawns are greening up around me in and near St. Albans, up in the northwest corner of the state. Most of my perennials in my gardens are up, and some early daffodils have flower buds and are almost ready to bloom.  That usually doesn't happen until the middle or third week in April.

March, 2020 was also relatively gentle in Vermont in terms of storms, especially compared to what many Marches bring.  Precipitation across the state was near average, with snowfall at or below normal.

A mourning dove, lower left, checks out some very early season
green spring shoots in my St. Albans, Vermont garden on Tuesday.

No storms were particularly heavy, so the typical March ice jams and flooding during thaws never happened.

There were some early season thunderstorms in parts of the state on March 20 and especially on March 29, which is about a month before we Green Mountain boys and girls usually start seeing lightning an hearing thunder.

The March warmth this year was widespread, covering most of the nation, especially from the central Plains eastward.  Final numbers aren't in, but I know many cities in the East will list March 2020 as one of their top five warmest on record.

An exception is northern Maine, where Caribou still had around a couple feet of snow on the ground as of yesterday. It was snowing there this morning.

As always, who knows what this new month will bring in terms of weather.  The first couple of days will be coolish, but a milder trend is forecast to start Friday.  Which means our very early spring will continue on, at least for now.

Peak March In Vermont: Some Snow, Some Rain, Lots Of Clouds Coming

You didn't think you'd get rid of the National Weather Service snow
forecast map this early, did you? Click on it to make it bigger and
easier to see. Accumulating snow is most likely
Monday night in southern Vermont. 

Despite the burst of warmth we had on Friday, it is still very early in a Vermont spring, so you can't expect too much out of the weather just yet.

Sure enough, it's not going to be that great out for the next week or so.  At least there won't be anything extreme to make matters worse in these awful times. We don't need big new problems.

It's cold out there today, but nothing super out of the ordinary for the third week in March.

For instance, it got down to 18 degrees in Burlington overnight, which is a little cooler than the normal low of 24 degrees and far, far away from the record low of 1 above.

A few places in Vermont got down into the single digits overnight. It will only get into the 30s this afternoon, despite abundant sunshine.  Enjoy that sun, as you won't see too much of it over the next week.

The most immediate issue is a moderate-sized storm that will get going around Virginia and then move northeastward just off the coast of New England.

This will come close enough to brush us with rain and especially snow.  At this point, it doesn't look like it will amount to much in northwestern Vermont - perhaps an inch or so there.  As you get into southern Vermont, several inches seem likely, especially in the higher elevations.

A winter storm watch is up for the far two southern counties of Vermont, where six inches or more of wet snow could come down by early Tuesday morning. Parts of southern New Hampshire and western and central Massachusetts are also under this warning.

In the valleys, it will start as rain or a rain/snow mix Monday afternoon, and then change to snow overnight.  All this might impact road conditions, especially the further south you go in New England.

Of course, most of us are hunkered down due to the coronavirus pandemic, so I guess the effects on the Tuesday morning "rush" hour won't be that huge.

The usual caveats apply: If this storm tracks further north than expected, then more snow will fall on more of Vermont, including the northwest. If the storm is weaker and further south, most of us will be pretty much off the hook.

In any event, it'll get into the 40s Tuesday afternoon, so any snow that does fall will start to melt right away.

After this thing blows through, there are several other disturbances that will keep New England unsettled through the week.

Another modest storm Wednesday night will take a path similar to Monday night's storm, which would spread a little more rain and snow across the area, especially south. Then, several more little systems will come through, keeping us mostly cloudy with always a risk of some occasional light rain or mountain light snow through next weekend.

Blizzards, Severe Weather Coming To Central U.S.; Yo-Yo Weather Vermont

A little snow from last night melts amid raw winds on a brown, messy
lawn at my home in St. Albans, Vermont. Classic March scene, huh?
Also classic March: Very changeable weather coming

As we all hunker down to protect ourselves from Covid-19, the weather rolls on and there will be plenty of weather to talk about over the next couple of days.

Severe weather, including the risk of tornadoes, will strike parts of the South, while a blizzard rages in areas of the Northern Plains later this week.  

For Vermont, this all means the weather will be all over the place.  The yo-yo weather has begun in the Green Mountain State, and will continue all week. More on that after I set up the national picture.

A  southward dip in the jet stream over the Southwestern United States has resulted in stormy weather there in the past few days.  Local flooding and severe thunderstorms have rattled around parts of Arizona and California over the past couple of days, and feet of needed snow has been falling in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

One piece or a couple of pieces of energy did eject from that southwestern mess over the past couple of days, resulting in some snow and rain from Nebraska and South Dakota Saturday, moving eastward to northern New England today.

Another piece of stormy weather will come out of the Southwest today, causing a risk of severe weather in Texas and heavy rains in North Texas and Oklahoma.  That'll head east and cause some rain and snow once again from the Midwest to New England by Thursday.

At the same time, the main show will start to get going as a larger storm gets going over Colorado and begins to travel to the northeast, toward the Great Lakes.

This will unleash a blizzard somewhere in the northern Plains, though the exact location of the worst of it is still unfolding. There are already blizzard warnings up southeastern Wyoming and western Nebraska for Thursday and Friday. Those might eventually be extended into part of the Dakotas.

Meanwhile severe storms will move into more of Texas on Thursday, and into the lower Mississippi Valley Friday.

Flooding is also possible in Oklahoma Thursday, and then extending into parts of the saturated mid-Mississippi Valley and parts of the Midwest later Thursday and Friday.

VERMONT EFFECTS

People in northern Vermont and the high elevations of southern parts of the state woke up this morning to a return to winter.  Here at my St. Albans, Vermont home, I returned from the Midwest last night to find bare ground. I woke up this morning to a little more than an inch of snow on the ground.

More scattered precipitation is likely the rest of the day, but it will be mostly rain in the valleys, and it won't be particularly heavy.  It'll be raw the rest of the day, especially in the Champlain Valley where winds are pretty gusty.

After a pleasant enough day on Wednesday with some sunshine and temperatures near 40. Then that next disturbance arrives for Thursday.  It'll be another raw day, with more rain and snow, with the snow especially prevalent in the mountains.

Again, this one won't bring a huge amount of precipitation, but it's certainly is worth watching, especially because of the risk of slippery roads in mid and high elevation snows.  Any precipitation will change to all rain as the day wears on Thursday.

Friday looks very interesting. As the large storm moves through the Great Lakes, it'll swing a warm front through New England.  The warm front will probably give us a good dousing of rain late Thursday night and Friday morning.

The warm front will bring a burst of warm, humid air all the way into northern New England.

Forecasters are currently expecting high temperatures Friday in Vermont to get into the 60s. Normal this time of year is around 40 degrees). I wouldn't be surprised if a 70 degree reading or two popped up if we get a period of sun between the showers.  As the storm's cold front approaches later on, we could get the first round of thunderstorms of the spring season. It all depends on the cold front's timing as it runs into the very mild air.

This cold front means business, and temperatures will really crash Friday night and go back below freezing.  That'll instantly freeze any lingering water on roads, so be careful Saturday morning.  It is only March, after all, so you can't expect springlike temperatures to last

We'll be left with an almost wintry weekend, with some sun, some flurries and light snow showers and high temperatures both days barely making it to the freezing point.

Whiplash, indeed!

Busier Weather Pattern Coming, Typical For March

Weather map showing the "Storm Of The Century on March 13, 1993.
We don't expect anything close to this extreme anytime soon in the
United States, but a stormier pattern is on its way, typical of March. 

Mid-March is typically a very busy time on the national weather maps.  There are frequently very big storms to contend with right around this time of year.

The past couple of days and today are the anniversaries of the Great Blizzard of 1888, which dumped up to 50 inches of snow on the Northeast with drifts to 40 feet. (!!!)

It's also the anniversary of the "Storm Of The Century" Superstorm  of 1993, which struck from the Gulf Coast to southeastern Canada (including Vermont).  It was the costliest non-tropical storm in U.S. history.

More recently, a bomb cyclone triggered record flooding in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota in mid-March last year. The Pi Day blizzard struck Vermont and surrounding areas in 2017 with more than two feet of snow in some areas.  

We don't expect anything like those storms in the coming days, but the weather pattern, already a bit active, looks like it will crank up a bit more.

An initial storm in the middle of the nation is no great shakes.  I'm out in Yankton, South Dakota at the moment and I awoke to an inch or two of snow on the ground here.  Down in Nebraska, there's up to six inches of snow. This small thing will gently slap Vermont with some rain showers on Tuesday.

The atmosphere is reloading, though.  California is in for a wet weekend, with lots of snow in the Sierra Nevada. That's actually a good thing. February was remarkably dry, so that rain is welcome. The several feet of snow expected in the highest elevations there will bring the snow pack there a little closer to normal.

That's important because California needs the melting snow from the mountains later this spring and summer to replenish reservoirs.

Eventually, a lot of this energy from California will emerge into the Plains states by the middle or end of the upcoming week.  It's way too soon to say exactly how this will evolve, but there's definitely a good chance of a northern or central Plains blizzard, and severe weather in the South.

I doubt this storm will reach the extremes I cited above, but it will probably cause trouble nonetheless.

We'll watch how this shakes out in the coming days.  I also have no idea at this point how or even if this storm will affect us in Vermont.

After that, more impulses will come in from the Pacific Ocean and cross the nation through the rest of the month.  They might not be gigantic storms, but it will keep the weather interesting through the rest of the month.

That's just another example of how busy March can be for weather forecasters.

Tornado Risk Escalates In Mid-South; Gusty Storm Due In Vermont, Too.

There is yet another risk of tornadoes today in parts of the Mid-South
The greatest risk, in the yellow cross hatch area, appares to be in
the western half of Kentucky, northwest Tennessee, southern Illinois
and the southeast corner of Missouri. 

Yesterday, I speculated about the rest of the tornado season in the United States, given the fact that we're off to a bad start.

It's looking like things escalated in that department are escalating today.  At least potentially.

There's a pretty good risk of tornadoes, some potentially strong, in much of Kentucky, and in southern Illinois and Indiana and northwestern Tennessee.

Tennessee, of course, is still reeling from a deadly March 3 tornado outbreak, so I'm sure this makes them nervous.  The Nashville area that was hit earlier this month is in the tornado risk zone, but not in the heart of it. Places north of Nashville are.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says thunderstorms should generate in Missouri later this morning and then get stronger by the time they get into western Kentucky by early afternoon.

Strong jet stream winds over the area, wind directions changing with height, plenty of moisture from the south and atmospheric instability should create conditions favorable for strong thunderstorms and tornadoes in the area I described above during the afternoon and evening.  A couple tornadoes could br quiet strong.  If that happens, let it be over rural areas instead of cities and suburbs like earlier in the month.

By tomorrow, there should be a much lower risk of tornadoes in the United States. But a new system might create a low,  but not zero chance of twisters in a small area of western Texas. That should not be a huge deal, however.

The parent storm that helping to produce today's tornado risk is actually just developing in the western Great Lakes. It'll move into Ontario and the western Quebec over the next few days. The storm's cold front will bring a bout of raw, windy weather to us Vermonters Friday.

There could be some mixed precipitation, especially east of the Green Mountains early Friday, which could affect the morning commute.  Gusty south and southeast winds are also expected in much of Vermont Friday, which could bring some isolated power outages.

It won't be a massive wind storm by any means, but a few favored places, especially along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, could see gusts as high as 50 mph Friday.

It'll rain area wide on Friday after any mixed precipitation ends, but it won't be enough to cause any flooding of note.  There has been a fair amount of snowmelt and the Friday rain will add to the runoff. But it won't be enough to make rivers overflow to any real extent.

This sounds to be like it'll be typical March ickiness.  On the bright side, there is a 0% chance of any tornadoes in Vermont this week. But you knew that already.

Vermont Spring Warmth Overperforms; No Super Cold Weather In Sight

Before I left town yesterday, I noticed some daffodil shoots in
my gardens were really coming up in the unseasonably
warm early March sunshine. 

Boy, was yesterday a hot one! At least for March 9 in Vermont.

Under a lot of sun and gentle south winds, temperatures got into the 60s for most of us, which was several degrees warmer than forecast.  Valley locations, at leas,t are really starting to see the snow disappear.  

Burlington reached 65 degrees, which wasn't a record high because it fell on the fourth anniversary of what is now the second earliest 70 degree day on record.  If we had that same 65 degrees today or Monday, it would have been a record high.

Temperatures followed the same pattern I thought they would, with snow-covered areas being slightly cooler than towns with bare ground.  But everyone was milder than forecast.  Places like Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Morrisville, where there is still snow cover, were in the low 60s.

That 65 degree reading in Burlington came with the ground just partly covered in snow. Springfield, with even less snow got to 68 and pretty much snow-free Bennington touched 70 degrees.

The early season warmth has prompted an early start to spring garden shoots coming up.  Little green sprouts of daffodil, day lily and sedum are apparent.  We even have reports of crocuses blooming in sunny corners across Vermont. It's a bit early for crocuses, but we'll take it.

There doesn't appear to be any really cold weather in the offing in Vermont, possibly for most of the rest of the month.  It's very mild today, but cooler than Tuesday due to clouds and rain.  A cold front coming through tonight will drop us down to near normal levels (30s to near 40 for highs) Wednesday and Thursday.

A stronger storm Friday looks like it will bring us wind and rain, but it's a little early to say how much. And some of Friday's precipitation could be snow in the mountains.  After a brief cool down during the weekend, it gets warmish again next week.

Much of the nation is experiencing odd March warmth.  Some trees are beginning to sprout leaves as far north as Philadelphia. Some of the early cherry trees are blooming in Washington DC.  Daffodils are already blooming in Boston.

I'm out in Yankton, South Dakota this week instead in Vermont. It was 71 degrees here on Sunday.  The forecast high on Wednesday in the southeastern corner of South Dakota is 62 degrees before much cooler, but not frigid weather arrives at the end of the week.

Warm March Vermont Day; Snowcover Will Be Influence

Visible satellite photo of New England and eastern New York from Sunday.
You can click on the image to make it bigger and easier to see. Areas
with bare ground, including most of southern New England, southern
New Hampshire and the deeper valleys of southwestern and southeastern
Vermont will absorb sun, helping high temperatures reach well
into the 60s.  Snow covered areas will be cooler. 

We know today will be a very springlike mild day here in Vermont.

Most of us will get into the 50s, a few of us will touch at least 60 degrees.  That's fairly impressive, given that normal high temperatures this time of year are in the mid 30s to around 40.

The interesting thing for us weather geeks to watch today will be how snow cover influences temperatures.  Snow is a natural refrigerator.

The sun's heat gets bounced back to space to an extent where there's a decent snow cover.  Those places wouldn't get as warm as those that have no snow cover because the snow doesn't absorb the sun's heat very well.

The darker surface of the ground in snow-free areas absorbs heat more efficiently, so temperatures would be warmer there.

Most of Vermont was still snow-covered as of this morning.  But parts of the state have bare ground, mostly in the low elevations of southwestern Vermont and the floor of the Connecticut River valley from about White River Junction south.

There, today's sun will help temperatures skyrocket.  I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some highs in mid to upper 60s pop up today in places like Bennington and Brattleboro.  Some areas of snow-free southern New England could easily reach 70 degrees today.

In most of the rest of Vermont, highs will probably hold in the 50s, due to the chilling effects of the snow cover.

One computer model's forecast highs for today.  The areas shaded in
yellow and orange, depicting expected high temperatures at
or above 60 degrees, mirrors the snow free areas in
the satellite photos above. Blue areas in Vermont show
forecast highs in the 50s over snow-covered ground. 

A bit of a wildcard is the central and northern Champlain Valley.  In the valley, many open areas have lost almost all of their snow, especially from about Milton south.

However, wooded areas still have some snow cover, with some bare spots.  It's a mixed bag. The areas of bare ground will help heat the atmosphere, but the snowy woods would temper the warmth some. Still, it could easily hit 60 degrees around Burlington.

Further north in the Champlain Valley where I live in St. Albans, there's still quite a bit of snow on the ground, though there are large snow-free areas on open fields. The woods still have a fair amount of snow on the ground, especially away from Lake Champlain.  My guess is we'll make it to the upper 50s here.  

Right near Lake Champlain, wind blowing off the ice and very cold open water in the middle of the lake means people on the shores of the lake will see cooler temperatures than the rest of the region.

Today's warmth, though quite unusual for early March, won't set records, at least in Burlington.  On this date in 2016, the temperature reached 70 degrees in Burlington.  It won't get that warm today in the Queen City.

That balmiess on March 9, 2016 was briefly the earliest in the season on record for a 70 degree reading.  However, the very next year, the temperature reached 72 degrees on February 25, for a new early season record.

It'll remain on the mild side through Tuesday. But the expected clouds and light rain will make the sun's effects less of a factor. Temperatures will trend down toward near seasonal levels by the end of the week.

March In Vermont Seemed Bad, But It Was Only Because Of Long Winter

Scene in my yard this morning definitely felt like an April Fool!
After a snowy March, the snow cover had finally mostly disappeared
by yesterday, only to return overnight to greet me this morning.
After a chilly day today, seasonable temperatures the
rest of the week should get rid of this inch of snow cover.

It's April Fool's Day! Which means its time to assess Vermont's weather in March.

The statistics show, at least from my perspective, that it wasn't as bad as I thought. 

In Burlington, it was essentially a normal March. Temperatures were just a tad cooler than normal, with a mean temperature of 30.4 degrees.

It was actually about 0.6 degrees cooler than average in the Queen City, but that's essentially run of the mill normal.

Precipitation - rain and melted snow - was pretty much spot on average at around 2.3 inches.

The month's snowfall, 15.2 inches, was only a little more than an inch above normal. Remember, though, that many areas of the state had much more snow than that during March.

I would have guessed the March statistics would have come out worse than they did. But it was psychological. Vermont did not have a particularly harsh winter, though snowfall was definitely above average.

What made us weary by March was the fact that winter came in early, sudden and fast in mid-November and there were few if any breaks to the relatively cold weather and nearly constant snows.

In March, the Champlain Valley benefitted at times from southerly winds that warmed that region more than other parts of Vermont.  Also, most of the time, deeper snow cover means chillier nights, dragging down the average temperature for the month.  Snow cover was definitely thicker away from the Champlain Valley, and that refrigerated other parts of the state.

For instance, Montpelier's March is coming in around three degrees chillier than average. St. Johnsbury had a shivery month, coming in a little more than four degrees colder than normal.

Looking ahead into April, we can definitely say winter is over. I know that sounds like an April Fool's Day joke, given that there's a coating of fresh snow on the ground in many places across northern Vermont this morning. (We had nearly an inch of new snow at my place in St. Albans last night.)

It was so wintry during this opening dawn of April that Vermont State Police reported that a number of cars slid off icy Interstate 89 between Montpelier and Richmond this morning.

There will probably be some wintry reminders this month, for sure. For instance, normal April snowfall in Burlington is 4.1 inches.

Still, we can finally say goodbye to any extended periods of wintry weather.

Unlike last April, when we had to endure frequent bursts of snow, ice and chill during the first three weeks of the month, forecasts for the first half of April, 2019 seem OK.

There's still what will be an intense nor'easter to watch around Tuesday night and Wednesday that still looks promisingly like it will completely miss Vermont.  If it were to hug the coast, we'd probably get another fairly significant wet snowstorm.  But so far, all the guidance has it much too far to the east to do us any harm. By that I mean, no snow.

While wintry surprises can certainly happen, it's still looking like temperatures during at least the first half of April will be near or above normal, which is nice.  Again, though things can change, I also don't see any blockbuster storms in the near future, so major flooding is pretty much out of the question for now.

However, there's still a lot of snow left in the mountains yet to melt, so we'll need to keep an eye on that.

Time to watch the landscape slowly wake up and turn greener this month after a long, long winter.

Wintry Weather Continues. Cold, With New England Snow Threat Sunday/Monday?

Jackson the Weather Dog in his St. Albans, Vermont yard searches in vain
this morning for any sign of winter's end. He didn't find anything like that.
Something smelled interesting under the snow to his left, though. 

Last night's light snowfall played out exactly as expected. The expected a dusting near the Canadian border, and I got 0.3 inches in St. Albans, Vermont.  They expected around an inch around Burlington, and they got 1.1 inches.

Finally, the expectation was there'd be three to five inches of fluff by the time you got down to Rutland, and they got 4.2 inches. Way to go, National Weather Service in South Burlington.

Those meteorologists shouldn't rest on their laurels. They have a few days of challenging forecasts to get through, including the risk of a pretty good size snowstorm come Monday.

Before you get all panicky, it's still not clear whether it will even snow Sunday night and Monday, nevermind how much. It is looking likely that some snow will fall, but a lot of things have to come together before we get a big dump.

Before that potential storm hits, it'll stay kind of cold. Today will barely make it to around 20 degrees, despite quite a bit of sunshine. Remember, the sun at the end of February feels a lot nicer than it does in late December so if you have outdoor winter sports plans today, go for it!

It'll be a few degrees either side of zero tonight, and then get vaguely milder Friday, with highs flirting with 30 degrees.

It looks like a small storm will come through Saturday night. Best guess is a lot of us will get one to three inches of snow.

Then comes Sunday night and Monday.  One thing working against the idea of a huge snowstorm is whatever comes up along the coast will be a fast mover. There will be nothing in its way, such as a blocking, cold high pressure system to its north. It'll be a Carol Burnett Show closing song type of storm, you know, "Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say so long."

The bigger question marks is how close this storm comes to the coast. Dependin upon where the storm goes, it could range from a decent statewide snowfall in Vermont to a whiff, with just light snow across southern sections. The computer models on this aren't in agreement yet. Such an argumentative bunch!

Early guesses are southern Vermont will get more than the north, but time will tell. Again, even though we don't know exactly what will happen with this potential storm, it will NOT be anything  like a over-hyped Blizzard Of The Century or whatever.

What's more certain is the winter cold will continue. Temperatures most of next week will be far below normal. Afternoon temperatures during the first week in March are usually in the 30s.

Instead, there will be two or three days next week when highs only reach the upper single numbers and teens.   Clearly, maple sugar makers are going to have to wait longer.

Wild March In Vermont Comes Out "Normal" Here's How

Tonks the Weather Dog warily watches a heavy layer of snow slide
off our roof amid deep snows in mid-March, St. Albans, Vermont.
To anyone out in Vermont weather this March the weather
seemed abnormal. But average out the extremes, and the month
turned out about normal in the weather department. 

March was consistently warm. It was consistently cold. There was a lot of snow. Lots of storms. Nor'easters.

So the climate summary for the month in Vermont will have off the charts weird stats, right?  

Wrong.

The only weather statistic of note I could find was that Burlington, Vermont had its sixth snowiest March, with 30.1 inches of snow.

But that was nowhere near the snowiest March, in 2011, when there was 47.6 inches of snow.

Other than that, the month seems
like a yawner on paper, even the weather was anything but boring in March.

East of the Green Mountains, Vermont's snowfall in March, 2018 was heavy, but not record breaking. Except perhaps in the far southern Green Mountains.

The mean temperature in Burlington in March, 2018 was 31.3, just 0.3 degrees "warmer" than normal. But we can really call temperatures for the month normal, since it was so close to average.

However, temperatures got "stuck" in various ways during the month. Typically, you get a couple, few days of warmer than average temperatures, folllowed by one, two, or three days that are on the cool side, back to warm, etc.

Not this month. Each of the first 15 days of March in Burlington were warmer than normal. That was followed by 12 consecutive days of colder than average weather. (The last four days we a bit on the warm side.)

Average the two long temperatures out, and you see how we came close to "normal" for the month, though it didn't feel normal.

Interestingly, the hottest day of March, 2018 was much cooler than February's hottest day. In February, Burlington had its second warmest February temperature on record --- 69 degrees. The warmest day we could muster in March, 2018 was just 54 degrees. It was the coolest "high" for March in years.

Also, the coldest temperature of the month in both February and March was minus 2.

Elsewhere in Vermont, March turned out just a wee bit cooler than normal, but not by much. Essentially, it was normal.

Rain and melted snow amounts for March, 2018 turned out to be very close to normal, too. Burlington had 2.63 inches of precipitation, which was a little less than half an inch above normal. Monpelier and St. Johnsbury were pretty much on the money for precipitation during the month.

As I always say, I don't know what the next month has in store for us. I have a feeling that April as a whole will be cooler than normal here in Vermont. I base that on projections indicating the first two weeks of the month will be chilly. And some days during that period will be much colder than normal.

Long range projections are never that good, and right now, they're not at all helpful at predicting what the second half of April will be like. It will be warm unless it's cold, and wet unless it's dry. That doesn't tell you much, does it?

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.

Violent, Far-Ranging Storm Was Extreme Example Of "March Winds"

A tree knocked down by high winds in Michigan this week
smushed this car. 

The nearly coast-to-coast wind storm I talked about yesterday, the one that caused all those wildfires in the Plains and damage around the Great Lakes and the Northeast, was an extreme example of that "March Winds" cliche.

The folklore is that March is the windiest month.  As the viral video at the bottom of this post shows, most people learn about this early spring gustiness at an early age. And not always pleasantly.

March isn't necessarily the windiest month of the year in many parts of the country. However,  in March, early spring, you are often more apt than most times of year to get gusty winds.

Here's why:

In the winter, upper level winds are often quite strong. This state of affairs usually continues well into March, sometimes April, as winter-like storms cross the country.

But the sun is stronger in March than it was earlier in the winter. The sun heats the ground, which causes pockets of rising air.

What goes up, must come down. The rising air bumps up against that fast-moving air above, displaces it, and sends pieces and gusts of that strong wind down to the surface. That's a large reason why you got the destructive sharp wind gusts in many parts of the country this week.

That fast-moving upper level air is cranking earlier in the winter, too, but the sun that time of year is weaker, and is less prone to causing those updrafts that trigger these gusts.

Later in the spring and summer, the sun is much stronger than in March, but by then, the upper level winds are much weaker. So you're less likely to get that very gusty weather.

As of Friday morning, some areas of Michigan and western New York were still without power as crews cleaned up the mess left by winds gusting to over 70 mph Wednesday

Though March winds are common, this was an extreme version of it. The upper level winds, normally strong over the northern tier of the United States this time of year, were really, really screaming this week.

Winds are still gusty across the North Country today as we get more invasions of wintry Arctic air. This means wind chill alerts are up for parts of the Northeast as the temperatures plunge.

It's March. Bundle up and hang onto your hat.

Here's a video of a little girl in Ohio having a bad time of the strong winds Wednesday. The four-year old got caught in a big gust of wind when she tried to open her front door. She wasn't hurt. Watch:

Next Up: Climate March On Washington

There's a huge climate march planned on April 29 to
protest the Trump administration's expected inaction
on climate change. I'm sure there will be other marches
in other cities, including one near you. 

Big demonstrations against President Donald Trump's policies are all the rage already, just two weeks into his term.

The big Women's March, huge in Washington and all around the United States, hit just one day after Trump was inaugurated.

Over the weekend, big demonstrations blossomed nationwide as Trump invoked an executive order banning many immigrants and travelers from certain Muslim countries.

I'm sure there will be many more marches and protests, and one potential biggie that is formulating is a march on climate change.

That demonstration still seems to be in its developmental stages, so I'm not sure on the particulars yet.  I'm guessing, though, that it's going to be pretty big, and take place in many cities across the United States and the world, not just in Washington DC.

I've seen planned dates for this demonstration to be on April 29.  It would make sense to have the big protest then, since it's close to Earth Day.

350.org, the big climate activist group, has scheduled April 29 as the big march dates, so that's why I'm 99 percent sure it will be then.

Here's what the 350.org web site has to say about this:

"That's  the date of the People's Climate Mobilization, a major march in Washington DC when we will come together with hundreds of thousands of people to reject Trump's attack on our communities and climate, amd push forward with our vision of a clean energy economy that works for all."

As I said, I'm sure there will be marches in other cities on that date for people who can't make it to Washington.

Meanwhile, there's also going to be a March For Science on Earth Day, April 22. This one isn't limited to climate change issues but certainly involves the subject. It's meant to demonstrate facts, science and peer review are much more important and reliable than made up facts meant to fulfill a political narrative.

It'll be interesting to see how many people turn out for these climate and science marches on April 22 and 29. There's no doubt climate change is a real biggie on the importance scale.

Yet there's so many competing issues people are outraged about in the here and now. Refugees, freedoms, the economy, you name it.

Of course climate change is happening this very second and the longer we dawdle the worse the problems will be in the future. However, human nature, being what it is, tends not to look at the hazard that is perceived to be down the road. They look at what the see right in front of their noses.

That's not to discourage the climate march. I hope LOTS of people attend and make their voices heard. Let's break some crowd records with this one.

Less Vermont Snow Than Forecast, But That Expected Cold Air Sure Is Rushing In

Web cam image from 9 a.m. this morning looking west
from the University of Vermont in Burlington showed
breaks in the clouds as this morning's storm departs.
Cold air was flooding in as photo was taken.  

Kind of a bust forecast, at least at my place in St. Albans, Vermont.

I fully expected to wake up to two or three inches of snow topped by a thin layer of sleet and freezing rain, but that didn't happen.

Instead, across Champlain Valley and much of the rest of northern Vermont, the storm turned out to be mostly sleet, freezing rain and rain, with just a little snow.

A few places did get an inch or two of snow. The most I've seen so far is 2.4 inches in Elmore.

The forecast for northern areas had called for two to four inches of snow before the mixed precipitation arrived.

But warm air streaming in several thousand feet above the surface flowed in faster than expected, and the storm went a little further to the north and west than predicted, hence the lack of snow.

The National Weather Service in Burlington and most other area meteorologists had seen this trend starting yesterday afternoon and adjusted snowfall predictions downward. (Originally up to 6 inches was predicted in northwestern Vermont, but the NWS said yesterday afternoon there would be less snow than that.)

Roads were terrible across much of Vermont during the predawn hours and during parts of this morning's commute because of the sleet and freezing rain that came down after midnight.

Most of the precipitation is over and now, a part of the forecast from yesterday that was spot-on is now happening.

As of 9 a.m. today, a great gush of cold air was flooding into Vermont behind the storm. Temperatures were falling below freezing at this point, so any water left on roads will freeze, so you still want to be careful if you're out driving.

There might be some snow showers around as this cold air floods in, but it won't amount to much.

Unlike the storm prediction from this morning, I'm extremely confident that we are now starting a midwinter style cold wave that will last into the weekend.

This won't be extreme, but it will definitely be winter the next few days. In Vermont, it'll get down to a few degrees either side of zero tonight, tomorrow night, and maybe Friday night, too.

High temperatures Thursday will only get into the teens, and in the 20s Friday. Again, definitely cold for March, but not even close to record breaking cold.

It does appear like a strong nor'easter will get going well off the coast of New England Friday. At this point, it looks like it will way too far south and east to affect Vermont, but it might clip Cape Cod with some snow.

Then, as I noted yesterday, a warm up will start. Look for highs in the upper 20s to upper 30s Sunday, upper 30s and low 40s Monday. By Tuesday, readings could break 50 degrees once again.

I'm also sticking my neck out here, but except for the cold spots in the Northeast Kingdom which might get below zero later this month, the next few days will probably be the last chance of subzero cold in Vermont this winter.

March Arrives In Vermont Like A Lion, But A Mediocre One

Here's the National Weather Service office
in Burlington's projection for amounts of
snow we'll get with the storm late tonight
and Wednesday. Click on the image to make
it bigger and easier to read.  

5 p.m. TUESDAY UPDATE:

Storm seems to be trending a little north and west, which means a little more warm air creeping into the region.

That means somewhat less snow and more mix and rain across Vermont and northern New York.

The storm could still surprise us, but it looks like an inital burst of snow will drop 2 to 4 inches north and west, with less south and east.

There will probably be a tenth of an inch of ice or less.

The snow will start late tonight, and the changeover to ice and rain will begin before dawn for most of us.

I still expect a nasty commute into work tomorrow.

Rest of the forecast is unchanged. Temperatures will peak tomorrow morning and fall off in the afternoon. Any mixed precipitation will turn to snow and snow showers in the afternoon with not all that much accumulation.

Cold wave is still expected Thursday and Friday.


PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

We in Vermont ended the warmest meteorological winter on record yesterday with a record-tying 50 degree Leap Day high in Burlington, but the beginning of March has much more wintry plans for us.

I'll have more on the record hot winter in a subsequent post later today.

Yeah, March is coming in like the cliche lion, but on the bright side, it won't be the most ferocious animal we've ever seen.

You probably heard winter's last minute stab at an attack last night as a cold front arrived with nasty gusts of wind. It reached 59 mph near Warren and up to 58 mph at Bolton late last night.

Those gusty winds cut power to about 18,000 homes and businesses in Vermont, according to Green Mountain Power. Most areas have had power restored by late morning.

The wind has calmed down, but it's cold out.  It's only around 10 degrees this morning and will only make it into the 20s this afternoon. That's a good ten degrees colder than average for this time of year.

Also it's pretty clear and sunny. Which means you have no weather excuse to blow off Town Meeting Day today. Grab your coats and go!!!

The real nasty weather comes in late tonight, well after the polls close.

Yet another fairly strong storm is coming and the center of it looks as if it will go right over Vermont.

That means, once again, we'll have an ugly mix of weather. Since the storm is going overhead and not to our west, we won't get as much plain rain out of this but more snow and ice, especially the further north and west you go.

Up in New York's St. Lawrence Valley, it'll stay mostly snow, so they'll get a good six to 10 inches out of this, as it looks now

Forecasting amounts of snow and ice is always tricky when you're right in the transition zone between snow, ice and rain, so there's a big bust potential.

Just know that it will be snowy and icy and slushy and icky by the time you get up Wednesday morning. You'll need extra time to get to work. A winter weather advisory is definitely in effect late tonight and Wednesday.

At this point, the National Weather Service is going with four to six inches of snow, plus some ice, north and west of a line roughly from Burlington to Newport.

Yeah, it's going to snow in Vermont, but it won't be
nearly as bad as this scene in high elevation
Crissolo, Italy this week.  

A broad southwest to northeast zone in central Vermont can expect two to four inches of snow, some ice, and a brief interval of plain rain in the middle of the storm Wedneday afternoon.

The southeastern third of Vermont will probably get only one to three inches of snow and slush out of this and a fair amount of rain.

By the way, we'll continue with our out of sync temperature trends. It'll gradually get warmer overnight, with temperatures peaking Wednesday morning. Then during the afternoon it will turn colder again, as the storm begins to pull away to the Northeast.

I said this is a fairly strong storm, but it's nothing like last week's powerhouse that brought record amounts of precipitation and flooding. This one will be fairly impressive, but not extreme.

Still the storm will be strong enough to produce some severe thunderstorms and maybe a tornado or two along the Gulf Coast and Tennessee Valley areas, but the dangerous weather won't be nearly as widespread as last week. Also, unlike last week, there won't be any severe thunderstorms in the Northeast, and I highly doubt there will be any thunder and lightning in Vermont.

Winter isn't done with us yet after the storm pulls away. We're in for what by March standards is a pretty impressive cold wave on Thursday and Friday. Nighttime temperatures will get below zero in  many places in Vermont, and daytime highs will struggle into the teens.

That's very cold for early March, but not record setting. We've seen worse.

For those who don't like winter, despite the fact we didn't really  have one this year, there's hope. A gradual warming trend will start Saturday, and by Monday, afternoon temperatures will be well into the 30s. That's about normal for this time of year.

And while I don't entirely trust long range forecasts, most signs point toward warmer than normal Vermont March weather starting by the middle of next week and possibly lasting well into the middle of the month.

Global Heat Records, Data Coming Fast And Furious

NOAA says the globe had its warmest
March in modern record this year. The only
major cold spot was the northeast U.S. and
eastern Canada.  

While I continued to shiver in winter cold up here in northern New England during March, the world as a whole had yet another record warm month, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. 

On a global basis, March averaged 0.85 degrees above the 20th century average for the month. But if you take the whole world into account, it's impossible to get a month that is several degrees warmer or colder than normal.

That 0.85 degree departure from normal in March is the third greatest of any month since the NCDC has kept track of such things.

The only notable cold area on Earth in March was the northeastern United States and eastern Canada.

This is the latest in what has seemingly become a constant string of new heat records across the globe.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center said Arctic sea ice reached its lowest extent on record for the month of March.

As Dr. Jeff Masters noted in a recent blog post, five nations or territories have already recorded their hottest temperatures on record so far in 2015, and the year is still young. The year with the most nations or territories with new all time heat records was 2010 with 21 such records, but two of those records have since been broken.

The fingerprints of human-induced global warming are all over this latest barrage of hot climate data,   but it's not the only hand in the mix.

A developing El Nino is very likely helping to boost the nearly worldwide heat.  When this periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean hits, global temperatures tend to spike upward, no matter what humans might be doing to the planet.

The combination of global warming and El Nino means there's a good chance 2015 will be the hottest year in modern records for the Earth as a whole. Right now, 2014 stands as the hottest times man has experienced since well before the 1880s, when record keeping got a whole lot more detailed.

Very likely, there might be some years, maybe 2017, or 2018, that are "cooler" than 2014 or 2015, because El Nino, if it develops, will have probably ended by then. This could bring on a very subtle, very temporary global cooling for a couple years, maybe.

When we get a year or two that's not a new worldwide heat record, we'll hear the inevitable, "See, the world is cooling." from those who would oppose any efforts to combat global warming.

But those are just political talking points. Because of the myriad factors and cycles that affect climate, some years will be warmer than others, even as the general trend line goes up and up and up.

That's what you need to follow, the general trend line. And certainly not a random cold spell in which some U.S. Senator can declare global warming a non-issue because he went outside and made a snowball during the winter.

Bill Maher, that very blunt political comedian, had a blistering segment on climate change during his show this week. You might agree with the guy, you might not on all kinds of subjects he touches upon, but you have to admit, Maher cuts to the chase.  

Bill Maher mocking Ted Cruz for when Cruz
compared himself to Galileo while saying
he doubted climate change exists.  

Like him or not, Maher goes for the kill.

In his climate rant, he mocked politicians who continue to say they don't know enough about global warming because they're not scientists.

Kind of like saying legislators can't appropriate funding for a new road because they are not dump trucks.

Maher said many GOPers' public stance on climate denial isn't for the general population. He says it's for the corporate donors who keep them in office..

Or as Mahar crudely put it: "It's not why politicians suck more than ever, it's who they're sucking more than ever.

The whole video is worth watching, if only for the bitter laughs. So go ahead:

Trying Desperately To Find Signs Of Spring In A Reluctant New England March

Billowing clouds over St. Albans, Vermont
Sunday were similar to summer thunderheads
but they dropped snow squalls,  not rain showers.  

I got up early this Monday morning here in St. Albans, Vermont to an inch of fresh snow on top of what we've already got, and it was still snowing as I wrote this.

Here in New England, after a particularly harsh winter, I now find myself resigned to a very reluctant spring.

Oh sure, there are signs that warmer weather is on its way, but it's not coming fast enough. Most of the time March is like this in New England -- one step forward, two steps back, three steps forward, two back, etc.

But we're more impatient for spring this year, and March appears to be shaping up as a more reluctant spring month than usual.

It was way below zero last Friday. In record territory in fact. It was 12 below at my "tropical" spot in the lowlands of Vermont's Champlain Valley, as low as 34 below in Canaan, Vermont, and in the 20s below in a lot of towns.  

It sort of got warmer Sunday, and for awhile, the sun came out and there were signs a tiny bit of the deep snow cover was trying to melt. Then, during the afternoon,  it started snowing.

Lightly at first, then hard. By the time the snow squall was done, we had a little over an inch of new snow, more than making up for what was lost under the March sun during the late morning.

In situations like this, you try to console yourself by finding signs of spring amid the ruins of another round of snow.

When the snow squalls began to clear out and the sun poked through, the clouds had a billowy tall appearance, very much like summer thunderheads.

The snow squalls were convective. To get past the gobbledygook, that means the squalls were very much like summer thunderstorms, only without the lightning.

That, despite the brief bout of blinding snow, is a sign of spring. The sun is now strong enough on some days to heat the ground, cause some rising air currents to create scattered showers. This wasn't the drab overcast snow of winter, but a spring shower disguised as a snow squall.

The disguise was pretty damn good, because it felt wintry to me and everybody else, but you grab at any straw you can.  

Sundah's snow squalls dropped a little over an inch
of snow on St. Albans, Vermont Sunday. But the sun's increasing
warmth prevented the snow from accumulating
on areas that had already been cleared of snow.  

Speaking of straw, that inch of snow accumulated atop existing snow and ice, but not at all on a patch of grass that I had cleared at the edge of the driveway to help us turn around our vehicles between the snowbanks.

The sun is strong enough to get through the clouds now. It can heat darker patches of earth, so some warmth collected on the bare ground, enough to preven the snow from really sticking.

Now if we can only get rid of the snow covering 99.9 percent of my property so future snows melt more quickly, that would be a bonus.

Despite this morning's snows, some thawing is coming to Vermont and the rest of winter-bound New England, but we're not going to get rid of all the snow on the ground.

We're going to get some seasonably "warm" weather through Wednesday, with highs near 40 today and in the 40s for most of northern New York, and in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. A few places in southern New England could flirt with 50 degrees.

That's enough to get the sap flowing in the sugarbushes, and settle a little bit of the snow away.

As is always the case it seems this year, New England is getting the short end of the stick. While it gets somewhat more bearable here, a nice blast of spring weather will embrace the middle of the country. Temperatures over the next couple of days will rise to the low 60s in what was recently Arctic Chicago, and into the 70s as far north as South Dakota.

For us in New England, another cold front comes Thursday, dropping temperatures back below normal again. Again, desperate for good news, the cold wave coming at the end of the week will only feature temperatures about 5 to 10 degrees below normal, not 20 to 30 degrees below normal like last week.

Another storm is coming next weekend, but it's uncertain how much snow we will get, and if the snow will mix with rain.

After some seasonable weather early next week, that awful weather pattern that plagued us all winter will be back. The end of March looks very cold.

Still digging for some good news (I'm really desperate here), the late March cold won't be as bad as that in February, only becuase 20 degrees colder than normal at the end of March is still better than 20 degrees colder than normal in the middle of winter.

Long range forecasts for April don't  look so hot either, with signs pointing to chilly weather, then, too. But we can always lean on the fact that long range forecasts weeks down the road can be pretty unreliable.

Maybe those long range forecasts for April are wrong, and we will get repeated bursts of warm, sunny weather up here in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast.

We certainly deserve something like that. We can only hope the weather gods agree with me.

World Kept On Heating Up In March

The National Climatic Data Center released their March global analysis this week, and determined that on a worldwide scale, March, 2014 was the fourth warmest on record.  

Most of the world was warm in March, 2014.
In much of North America, not so much.  

That might come as shocking news to people living here in Vermont, which endured its coldest March on record.

The northeastern United States and southeastern Canada with Vermont as the bullseye, was really the only place on earth that was much colder than normal.

Overall the first quarter of the year on earth, January through March, was the 7th warmest such period on record. That's almost a little surprising, since February was only the 21st warmest on record.

But January and March scored in the top five warmest this year, bringing up the average.

There are signs the heat could really turn on across the globe as we go through the rest of 2014. There are increasing signs that a strong El Nino is developing, one that could possibly be as strong as the epic 1998 El Nino. That one is considered the benchmark for biggest, warmest El Ninos.

An El Nino is a periodic warming of the sea surface in the eastern Pacific Ocean. El Ninos tend to disrupt weather patterns, and also jack up the worldwide average temperature.  If this El Nino is as strong as predicted, some months later this year might be the warmest ever recorded.

El Ninos can also be bad because they can make extreme storms develop in parts of the world. On the bright side, strong El Ninos often suppress hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, which would make the East Coast of the U.S. somewhat less likely to get blasted by one of those hurricanes come this fall.

March Was Officially Vermont's Coldest On Record

The National Climate Data Center came out today with their monthly analysis of the nation's weather in the previous month.

Lake Street in St. Albans, Vermont
looked like something out
of the Arctic on March 13, 2014.
March was the coldest on
record in Vermont, according
to the National Climate Data Center  

The data showed that Vermont had its coldest March on record, with a mean temperature of 18.3, or 8.9 degrees below normal.

Individual towns in Vermont might not have had the coldest March on record, (Burlington was only fourth coldest), but if you take the state as a whole, it was the coldest.

What with the planet heating up, it's become quite rare for a state to record its coldest month. It's still rare for states to record their hottest month, but not as rare as the coldest.

The problem with March was a persistent flow of air from the northwest wouldn't quit all during the month.

And Vermont seemed to be always in the path of the coldest core of the frigid air from the North Pole that kept flooding the eastern half of the nation.

Maine and New Hampshire had their second coldest March on record.

For the nation as a whole, it was the coldest March since 2002, so irt wasn't anything horribly extreme.

For Vermonters pining for spring, at least March's frigid trend ended as April came along. The month is average a little warmer than normal so far, and the state was treated to temperatures in the 70s to low 80s yesterday.

True, it's going to snow in Vermont later today and tonight, but this cold wave won't last long like the one in March did. By Friday and the weekend, near normal temperatures in the 50s are forecast.

I, for one, don't want to see another record cold month in Vermont. I think we've all had enough.

Yep, It Was Just About The Coldest March On Record In Vermont

You knew March was cold, and you were right.

No April Fool. This is a perennial bed between my deck
and driveway in a photo taken this morning, April 1 in
St. Albans, Vermont. Often, at this time of year
a few tentative daffodil leaves are starting to
poke up here. Not this year.  

The news out of St. Johnsbury, Vermont this morning is they had the coldest March on record, in data that goes back 120 years.

The mean temperature for the month in St. Johnsbury was 18.9 degrees, decisively colder than the previous record chilly March, in 1900.

In Burlington, Vermont, it wasn't quite a record. The mean temperature in March, 2014 there was 22.1 degrees, which was almost nine degrees colder than normal.

This makes the month that just ended the fourth coldest March on record in Burlington.

I'm sure we'll get reports later today of other cities reporting their coldest March on record in 2014, or at least something close

In northern New England, temperatures will continue below normal for the first week of April, but not nearly as far below normal as it was in March.  At least it doesn't look like we're on pace for a record cold April.

And a thaw has set it, the maple sap is running, and the next storm, due Friday night, looks as if it will be mostly rain, at least in the valleys.

We'll take any improvement we can get.