Matt's Weather Rapport is written by Vermont-based journalist and weather reporter Matt Sutkoski. This blog has a nationwide and worldwide focus, with particular interest in Vermont and the Northeast. Look to Matt's Weather Rapport for expert analysis of weather events, news, the latest on climate change science, fun stuff, and wild photos and videos of big weather events. Also check for my frequent quick weather updates on Twitter, @mattalltradesb
Extreme warmth, relative to average, in Siberia was a big contributor to make May, 2020 the warmest on record for the globe. Eastern North America was one of the few coolish spots.
Last week, the numbers came out on how the world fared climate wise in May.
It's been a hot decade, too. Each of the seven warmest Mays have occured in the past seven year, according to NCEI.
Siberia basically pushed the world over the top in terms of May heat. Relative to average, that part of the world was off the charts warm.
The only relatively cool spots were eastern Canada, eastern United States, Australia and parts of eastern Europe.
If anything, the trend in global warming has accelerated in the past several year. Each of the past 12 months have either been the hottest or second hottest on record on a global basis.
"The year-to-date period January-May ranks as the second warmest such period on record, just 0.06 (degrees Celcius) behind the record set in 2016. According to NCEI's annual temperature outlook, the year 2020 has more than a 99.9 percent chance to rank among the five warmest years on record, and a 49 percent chance of being the warmest year on record. If so, calendar 2020 would mean each of the past seven years would be among the seven warmest on record."
As noted last month, global economic lockdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus will probably reduce carbon emissions by 5 to 8 percent from the record highs of 2019. Even with that reduction, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to grow.
Plus, the coronavirus crisis might only last another year or two. That's way too long for us humans, who hate to see these tragc deaths and illnesses from the virus. In the grand scheme of things, though, the coronovirus problems won't last long enough to cause any dent at all in atmospheric carbon concentrations.
According to USA Today, Kennth Gillingham, a climate economist at Yale University was pretty clear on this, saying, "The only reason emissions dropped is that we're all stuck at home....As soon as the lockdowns lift, they are likely to rise again."
For those of you keeping track, May, 2020 was the 425th consecutive month with above normal global temperatuires.
A St. Albans, Vermont daffodil shivers in the snow on May 9. By
the end of the month the same gardens were wilting in record heat
If you like changeable weather, May was surely your month here in Vermont.
The weather gave us a little bit of everything: Snow, record heat, subfreezing cold and severe weather. No locusts that I'm are of, though.
This was the only May on record in Burlington with both measurable snow and 90 degree heat. As reported last week, that 95 degree reading on the 27th was the hottest temperature on record for the month of May, besting the old record by two degrees.
If you take all the extremes we had this month, you end up with a May with near normal temperatures. Never mind that there were few actual days that were near normal. Combine near record cold with record heat and you get something lukewarm, I guess.
In Burlington, the mean temperature for May, 2020 was 57.9 degrees, or 1.6 degrees above normal. Most other weather stations in northern Vermont, including Montpelier, St Johnsbury and Morrisville, had a month that averaged out a little on the cool side.
If you ignore the Mother's Day weekend snows, the record heat near the end of the month and two severe weather outbreaks - which is a lot to ignore - the month overall was quite pleasant, with plenty of sunny days.
It was a dry May in Vermont, meaning garden irrigation got off
to an early start
The inevitable result of all those sunny days, of course, is a dearth of precipitation. All of Vermont was solidly on the dry side in May.
That ranged from just a bit below normal in St. Johnsbury to more than a half inch below normal in precipitation elsewhere.
Both Burlington and Montpelier were on the dry side by nearly an inch, and Springfield's May precipitation was nearly an inch and a half below normal.
When it did rain in May, it was sometimes accompanied by dangerous weather. One round of severe weather prompted a tornado warning in southwestern Vermont on May 15. Though no tornadoes touched down in Vermont, there were aeveral reports of wind damage in the southern half of the state.
Another round of severe weather caused scattered damage throughout Vermont, but especially in the southwestern part of the state again. I also saw some minor erosion damage around from torrential downpours. You can get that during dry months, even.
True to form, May closed with another wild shift in the weather with another cold shot. Snow was reported yesterday atop Mount Mansfield. Especially during light rain showers, mid-afternoon temperatures dipped into the 40s across northern Vermont at a time of day and year when it should have been around 70 degrees.
As June opened this morning, scattered frost iced up a few parts of Vermont and surrounding areas. It was 27 degrees in Saranac Lake, New York this morning and 32 degrees in Bennington. It was 39 degrees in Burlington, making it I believe the first time in several years that Burlington got under 40 degrees in June.
Tornado touching down in Iowa on Saturday. Despite this one, the count of May tornadoes in the United States is well below average, which is a rare bit of good weather news.
The United States has caught a break this month in one respect, anyway.
After a horrible March and April in which tornadoes killed no fewer than 53 people, and an April with a way above average 350 or so tornadoes, things have quieted down markedly.
May and to a certain extent June are the peak tornado months, but May so far has been rather tame in that department.
As of May 19, there had been just 47 tornadoes, with one death reported. Since then, a few more tornadoes have spun up, but we are going to fall well short of the average of very roughly 300 May tornadoes.
Falling short in this regard is a good thing indeed!
The jet stream, which drives powerful parent storms that can spin off swarms of tornadoes this time of year, has retreated mostly north to near the U.S/Canadian border, robbing the Great Plains and Midwest of the proper conditions for a big outbreak.
Instead, there are regional outbreaks of rough weather caused by local conditions, such as a weak cold front interacting with humid air, or a clash of dry air and wet air in places like Texas.
One of the places that could conceivably get some severe weather is up her in northern New England late in the week, but even that prospect is quite iffy. Depending on the timing of a cold front which will push into some very warm, humid air that will be over us, some strong thunderstorms might develop.
But things will have to work out perfectly for that to happen, and in any event, a tornado is super unlikely with any strong storms we get toward the end of the week
Of course, tornadoes are not the only warm season weather hazard we need to worry about. Sluggish, slow moving storms that aren't favorable for tornadoes often dump boatloads of heavy rain, leading to flash flooding. We're still seeing plenty of that in various places, including Michigan, Florida and Nebraska, among others.
Like yesterday, more comparison photos. One of my frozen gardens in St. Albans, Vermont on May 9, this year.,.........
Kudos to WPTZ-TV meteorologist Tyler Jankoski, who alerted us to one of those weird potential records that fascinate us weather geeks.
This is Vermont, afte rall, so there's been measurable snow in Burlington during several Mays in the 128 years of weather records there.
There have also been several Mays with temperatures of 90 degrees or hotter. But those two things have not happened during the same May in this past century and quarter.
Until likely this year. Barely, though.
On May 9 this year, 0.1 inches of snow accumulated at the official National Weather Service site in South Burlington. Now, there's a decent possibility that temperatures in Burlington could reach 90 degrees Tuesday, and possibly Wednesday and Thursday. That would be a new one for May!
I've been comparing this month a lot to May, 1977, when basically the same thing happened. It snowed in most of New England that year on May 9 - the same day of the month it snowed this year. However, Burlington only received a trace of snow in May, 1977, so it wasn't measurable there.
Same garden this morning as we ramp up toward 90 degree heat later in the week.
By May 21-23, 1977, the temperature was in the low 90s. It was only one of two official May heat waves in Burlington. (It's officially a heat wave in these parts if the temperature is 90 degrees or warmer on three or more consecutive days).
And on May 23, 1977 the temperature reached 93, to establish an all-time high temperature for the month of May. That record was subsequently tied in 2017.
It's unclear whether we'll get three days in a row with 90 degree temperatures this upcoming week. It's even more doubtful we'll get to 93 degrees or past that, but you never know.
However, it's amazing how weather has repeated itself so precisely in May, 1977 and 2020.
I'm not sure I'm loving the idea of such hot weather already. Sure, I detested the snow earlier this month and have really enjoyed the sunny, warm, but not hot conditions over the past week. It will turn more humid during the upcoming hot spell as well, so it will be uncomfortable.
Fortunately, it looks like we'll continue the pattern of May, 1977 this year. That year, in 1977, high temperatures cooled to the 60s and 70s during most of the final days of that month. Longer range forecasts suggest the same will happen this year.
Not that history will keep repeating itself - it probably won't - but the subsequent summer of 1977 was for the most part coolish except for one week of exceptional heat in mid-July that year.
Vermont AOT traffic cam shows a midwinter scene in mid-May this morning along Route 9 in high elevation Woodford, Vermont.
Snow stayed on the ground all day for a second day at many elevations in Vermont above 1,000 feet Sunday as the May cold spell hung on.
My sister who lives in high elevation Shrewsbury said they got eight inches of snow by Saturday and only some of it had melted by Sunday evening.
At least things were better Sunday than they were Saturday. After some morning flurries, temperatures did rise into the 40s to around 50, which I guess was an improvement.
More wintry stuff is on way for the next couple of days, but the signals for hope at the end of the week keep getting stronger and stronger.
First we'll have to get through the next two or three days.
A reinforcing shot of cold air is on its way, but it still doesn't look as bad as Saturday's frigid weather. But it will be bad enough.
The introduction to this new blast of air is a storm system coming across from the Plains and through the Great Lakes. This little system already has a history of dropping snow from Chicago to Toronto. I guess we can take comfort in that it's not just us dealing with wintry weather in May.
Showers will break out today with that quick little storm scooting across central and southern New England. Far northern Vermont, especially the northwest, won't get much, if anything. Central and southern Vermont are in for afternoon rain, some thunderstorms, then, as the colder air works in, more snow in the mountains this evening and tonight.
The storm is small, but rambunctious enough to maybe produce some strong thunderstorms in southern New England today ahead of the colder air.
Here in Vermont, looks like snow accumulations will be lighter and less widespread this time than Saturday. Expect some places in the higher elevations to get a dusting to an inch, with a few spot two inch reports possible.
We'll have to watch for more freezes over the next few nights.
Tonight is tricky, with the best chances of a damaging freeze or frost being the further west you go. That's because clearing will take place later tonight from west to east across the region. The more nighttime hours that stay clear, the lower the temperature will go.
Breezes overnight will keep temperatures from bottoming even lower.
Tuesday will be another cold, blustery day. Highs will only reach the 40s, which is close to 20 degrees below normal - way cold for May. Gusty northwest winds will make it seem even colder.
Frost and freezes appear inevitable Tuesday night for most of us. I'm just hoping places that are starting to leaf out and bloom stay above 28 degrees. That's the threshold for apple orchard damage if trees are blooming. Also, newly leafed out trees risk ugly freezer burn if it gets much colder than that.
The welcome warming trend starts Wedneday. Under sunny skies, temperatures should get into the 50s. That's still on the cool side for May, but an improvement.
After another chilly, possibly frosty Thursday morning, it's all over. A new weather regime by then will take hold, one that's pretty much west to east across the nation, prett much coast to coast.
That means mostly near normal or even occasionally above normal temperatures starting Thursday afternoon and continuing quite possibly through the month. It's safe to say, at least I hope, that after the next day or two, we're done with snow until next autumn.
There probably will be a few brief cool spells thrown in, with minor intrusions of chill or back door cold fronts during the rest of the month. These, however, will be absolutely nothing dramatic and won't interfere with your outdoor gardening plans so much. Assuming there's anything left of your garden after this week.
Overall, the warmth will win.
The new weather pattern might mean it will be somewhat wetter, too, which is actually a good thing in dry northwestern Vermont. (Southern Vermont seems to have had adequate precipitation lately).
The west to east pattern means little storms will swing by every couple or three days. If any of these can capture some moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, we can get some decent rains out of some of them.
Maybe it'll be May flowers that bring June flowers and everything is just a little backed up?
A wintry looking evening in St. Albans, Vermont Saturday as snow showers loom over Lake Champlain to the west.
On those very rare occasions when there is a May snowfall, it usually happens at night. The strong May sun during the day will change the snow to rain, or at least prevent any accumulation.
The extreme cold of the atmospheric blast of frigid air that roared down from the Arctic this weekend was so strong, that it snowed during the day as far south as New Jersey. That is what impresses me most about this unreal spring cold snap.
True, most of the heaviest accumulations of snow came Friday night and before dawn Saturday. But dustings of snow briefly covered the ground in places like Connecticut, Massachusetts and the lower Hudson Valley of New York. Those little instant snowstorms were created by snow squalls.
The cold was so intense, but the May sun is so strong, it all created towering clouds. Normally those towering clouds would create intermittent downpours of rain this time of year. But the atmosphere up above was record cold for this time of year. So it snowed. A couple videos are at the bottom of this post.
Islip, Long Island reported a latest on record trace of snow. That is actually more snow there than fell in February, when it didn't snow at all in Islip.
Before the snow squalls, the main accumulation of snow came as a storm passed near southern New England and off the coast.
These types of storms sometimes form something called a "deformation band" to the northwest of the storm center. These cause narrow bands of heavy snow accumulations during storms in the middle of winter. But not in May, in my experience.
Except this time. One such "deformation band" set up in southwestern Vermont and adjacent New York, mostly near and east of Glens Falls and Saratoga.
A spot at a 1,300 foot elevation in Cambridge, New York, less than 10 miles from the Vermont border, received a whopping 12 inches of snow. Nearby Shaftsbury, Vermont had 10.5 inches. Arlington, Vermont clocked in with 8.8 inches and high elevation Woodford, east of Bennington, reported 8.5 inches.
In northern Vermont, snowfall was a little lighter, but still impressive in spots. Concord, in the Northeast Kingdom reported 7 inches and Cabot received 6.5 inches.
Wide areas of the nation experienced almost unprecedented May cold on Saturday. According to The Weather Channel, Van Wert, Ohio, plunged to 18 degrees, the only time it's been under 20 degrees there in May, with 127 years of records.
Fort Wayne, Indiana got down to 23 degrees. Until Saturday, the latest in the year it had gotten that cold in Fort Waye was April 20, in 1897 and 1904, says The Weather Channel. Binghamton, New York set its all time record low for May with 24 degrees. Indianapolis, Indiana did the same with their reading of 27 degrees.
Wild looking snow squall over Staten Island, New York on Saturday. Photo by Collin Gross, @CollinGrosswx
Daytime temperatures were impressive as well. At 4 p.m. Saturday - remember, this was May 9 - temperature in Montpelier was 29 degrees.
Last night here in Vermont, the wind kept blowing and the core of the very coldest of the air passed by to the northeast, so temperatures in Vermont didn't bottom out as low as they could have. Montpelier actually rose into the low 30s after dark and stayed that way through dawn, for instance.
The air overhead with this cold blast is still frigid, and will stay that way for a few more days. There's even a reinforcing shot of cold air coming, but it won't be quite as bad as Saturday.
Today will be "warmer" than Saturday, with highs in Vermont in the 40s to around 50. That's still close to 20 degrees colder than normal.
A small storm will cross New England Monday. This time, it will be mostly rain, but some mid and high elevation snow is possible in southern and central Vermont. It just can't stop, can it? Unfortunately, it looks like most or all of the precipitation will miss bone-dry northwestern Vermont.
A reinforcing shot of cold air will come in Monday night and Tuesday, so we'll need to watch for more hard frosts and freezes Monday, Tuesday and maybe Wednesday nights. Highs Tuesdays will again be frigid for this time of year, with readings staying at or below 50 degrees during the afternoon.
After that, a real, gradual warmup will begin.
There's another really intense ball of frigid air setting up for next week near Hudson Bay, but definitely don't let that scare you. Unlike the one that came down on us Saturday, this next one will sit and spin for a few days up there, then get shunted almost due east into far northeastern Canada. It'll be a sure miss for us. Thank Gawd!
The only reason I mention that next ball of cold air is there's a good chance it could send a "back door" cold front down on New England, which would temporarily limit the amount of warming we get a week from now. But again, don't, if we get that cold front, it will only be somewhat cool for May, not scarily cold.
For the rest of the month, it does look like squirts of warm air will keep trying to punch into the northeast, including northern New England, which will help make this frigid spell just a bad memory.
Videos:
Jon M. woke up to this snowy scene in the green, or at least formerly spring green lower Hudson Valley of New York.
A guy named Mitch, a meteorologist and snow enthusiast who goes by @VermonsterWx on Twitter - great to follow by the way, filmed this at his high elevation home in Readsboro, Vermont. The snow was actually dry and powdery, like winter.
And here's some clown mowing his lawn in the May snow. I think it's in Pennsylvania, but I'm not sure:
It's incredibly late into the spring to be looking at a National Weather Service snow forecast map, but here we go. Darker shades of blue represent two or three inches of expected snow this weekend. Lighter blues indicate a dusting.
Get ready folks, winter arrives, once again, Friday night.
Yes, that is hyperbole, but not by much. When the National Weather Service in South Burlington puts out its snow forecast map this time of year, you just want to throw up your hands
That piece of the polar vortex that broke off and is heading this way is really something. In the upper atmosphere, several thousand feet up and higher, the air will be colder than it usually is in January.
The very high sun angle, despite the clouds and wind, will of course prevent temperatures from being truly winterlike down here on the ground Saturday. But it will feel wintry enough.
As the bitter cold settles in Friday night, a storm that's been widely forecast will move off the New England coast. Somewhere in New England, this will be a nor'easter that drops several inches of snow. Like the start of an Arctic outbreak in January would behave.
Believe it or not, it's possible the most snow will fall mostly south and east of most of Vermont. Yeah, it's May, and we're too far north to get the heaviest snow.
However, for perspective, it IS May, and nobody is going to get feet of snow. But higher elevations could see up to half a foot, maybe.
It'll snow pretty much everywhere in Vermont with this cold blast. Even if the storm at the start of this spell entirely misses the Green Mountain State Friday night and early Saturday, the cold pool aloft will be enough to make it snow.
The high May sun will quickly create rising air currents and showers. The cold is so deep that most of those showers will come down as snow.
In general, the NWS in South Burlington is forecast snow totals to amount to an inch or less in the valleys, two to four inches at elevations of between 1,000 and 2,000 feet, and areas above 2,000 feet collecting four to six inches of snow, maybe more on the mountain peaks.
That's the forecast as of this morning. It is subject to change.
During the day Saturday, the snow showers will go on, temperatures will stay near 40 at best, with some areas in the north remaining just barely above freezing. As that departing storm blows up over the Canadian Maritimes, it'll drive wind gusts into the 40 mph range.
This is obviously absolutely ugly for May. This won't be the biggest May snowstorm on record for May, but it will be a shock to the system. The snow should mostly end Saturday night, but the northwest winds will continue howling through Sunday.
I like to turn to David Ludlum's "Vermont Weather Book" to prove that it could always we worse. We have certainly endured worst winter storms in May than what's currently in the forecast.
At least it's not May, 1834. That year, Burlington and Rutland had a foot of snow on May 15. Two feet of snow blanketed Marshfield during that storm. Yikes!
In June, yes, June 1842, there was a dusting of snow in Burlington on the 11th that year, nad up to six inches in the high elevations. I think global warming will have prevented anything like that from happening again.
Speaking of warming, Saturday will surely be Vermont's coldest day until November, or maybe late October.
It can't really get any colder than Saturday this time of year, so starting Sunday, we have nowhere to go but up. It will be a slow process, though, and temperatures will stay well below normal into the middle of next week.
Sunday should make it into the 40s during the day. A few low 50s might pop up Monday and Tuesday. But we need to be alert for the risk of frosts and freezes every night Saturday night through Tuesday night at least. Tender outdoor plants and possibly orchards could have a tough time with this.
The warming trend seems destined to continue nicely late next week and into the following weekend. We can probably at least expect some near normal daytime temperatures in the 60s by then.]
We do often get back door cold fronts from eastern Canada this time of year, and that could temper the eventual warmup somewhat. But after this cold spell wanes in about five days, I'm pretty sure we're done with snow until next fall.
That purple bullseye over the Northeast is that chunk of the polar vortex that broke off. .It will bring an exceedingly cold Mother's Day weekend to us.
The long anticipated, strange wintry blast still hasn't officially hit the Northeast and Great Lakes yet, but we here in Vermont and the rest of the North Country have already gotten a foretaste of it.
A dusting of snow on the ground greeted some people in the Northeast Kingdom when they awoke Tuesday morning.
It stayed chilly all day, too, especially up in the Kingdom. I noticed Lyndonville was only 39 degrees at 3 p.m. Tuesday. It was down to 19 degrees (brrr!) in Saranac Lake, New York this morning.
It will warm up, kinda, sorta, today and Thursday, but temperatures will still be below normal. Daytime highs both days will be in the 50s, with maybe a spot 60 degree reading here and there. That's still a few degrees on the chilly side for this time of year.
But that weird, big cold snap is lurking on our doorstep. By Saturday, it will seem like early March, not early May out there.
In the winter, the now infamous polar vortex spins up in the Arctic. Pieces of it occasionally break off, plunge southward and cause intense, subzero cold waves. That didn't really happen in our neck of the woods this past winter.
By May, the polar vortex up there in the Arctic is very much weakened by the strong spring sun. If a piece of it manages to break off, that cold chunk usually gets swiftly shunted eastward across Canada and out into the Atlantic.
Here in northern New England, when that happens, we get a bit of a cool snap and maybe a little frost in some spots.
This time, this will be a classic winter polar vortex thing. A sizeable chunk of it has broken off and is plunging southward through eastern Canada and will crash into the Great Lakes and New England, just like the worst ones do in, say, January.
I'm not sure anyone has ever seen anything like this in May. It could have happened in the past, but it's incredibly rare.
The upshot is a real return to winter on Mother's Day weekend. Of course, temperatures won't go below zero like in a winter during a brush with a chunk of the polar vortex. But it will be incredibly, weirdly cold for May. With some snow to add to the misery.
You'll really start to notice in Friday as temperatures stay in the 40s and a few rain and snow showers filter down.
Saturday is when it really hits. That chunk of frigid air will spin up a storm off the East Coast. Luckily, it will be far enough offshore, as it looks now, to mostly avoid giving us a lot of precipitation. That's a good thing in this case, because the air would be cold enough to support a big late season snowstorm. Kind of like a frigid January nor'easter.
Some forecast models bring the storm closer, but for now, we'll say it's a miss.
So, we will probably avoid a full-fledged snowstorm, but we'll still get snow. The storm will blow up into a powerful one as it heads toward the Canadian Maritimes. That means a lot of wind for us in the form of cold, northwest gusts exceeding 30 mph at times. Moisture will wrap around that storm and come down over New England.
That moisture will spit out frequent snow and rain showers here in Vermont later Friday night, Saturday and into Saturday night. Really, it will be mostly snow showers, believe it or not, except maybe in the warmest valleys.
Warm is a relative term for this weekend, that's for sure. On Saturday, when normal high temperatures this time of year are in the low 60s, it will barely get above freezing up in the Northeast Kingdom. In the Champlain Valley banana belt, it would actually get above 40 degrees for a brief time Saturday afternoon.
That's pretty incredible and rare for this time of year. Since precipitation will be light, snowfall accumulations also won't amount to much. Still, I can't believe I just wrote that sentence with a straight face in May.
Higher and middle elevations could get an inch or two out of this, and there might even be a little coating in the valleys.
Wind and clouds will keep temperatures from really crashing Friday and Saturday nights. It will get down to between 30 and 35 degrees both nights, which is not really cold enough to kill all the ew leaves on the trees.
We will have to watch for the risk of plant killing cold nights early next week. Temperatures will "warm" into the 40s Sunday afternoon, which is still 20 degrees colder than normal. Highs will only be in the upper 40s Monday and Tuesday. If skies clear and winds die down on any nights Sunday through Wednesday we could get leaf-shriveling lows in the upper teens and 20s,
That remains to be seen. We'll have to wait for updated forecasts.
The cold spell isn't just affecting us, obviously. Damaging frosts are a risk with this thing as far south as Tennessee and the Carolinas.
If you want a glimmer of hope through this cold spell, it does look like temperatures will start to climb to near normal levels toward the end of next week.
Green areas are parts of the nation that were wetter than normal in May. The darker the green the greater departure from nornal rainfall.
It seems as if every day, floods capture the attention in weather news.
Yesterday, it wasLouisiana and the Oklahoma City metro area that suffered through damaging, dangerous floods. It's just been a continuous drumbeat for it seems like a couple years at least now.
As if to prove that point, NOAA's National Centers for Climate Informationreleased their summary for the month of May, which showed the month was the second wettest on record for the United States.
If you average it out. 4.41 inches of precipitation fell across the nation. Only May, 2015 was wetter and just barely - that month four years ago had 0.03 inches more rain than May, 2019.
The only dry areas of the nation during May, 2019 were in parts of the Southeast, western Washington and along the immediate Canadian border in Idaho, Montana and North Dakota.
Three states - Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri - had their wettest Mays on record. Twelve other states had one of their top 10 wettest Mays. (Here in Vermont it was the 18th wettest May out of the past 125 years, so pretty soggy, but not record breaking.)
Also, the 12 month period ending on May 31 was the wettest such stretch on record. The period ending April 30, 2019 (this year) was the previous wet record holder for a 12-month period. Records go back 125 years.
During that 12 month period, an average of 37.68 inches of precipitation fell across the nation, which is a whopping 7.73 inches above average.
This wetness is consistent with climate change. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor that cooler air. That added water vapor in the toastier air leaves the potential for heavier downpours.
That said, month to month precipitation in the United States is highly variable. With or without climate change, a given month for the nation can be very wet, very dry, or just average.
But the overall trend has for wetter months overall, especially in the eastern half of the United States.
It's hard to say whether the rest of the year will be wet, but the first half of June is not proving to be particularly encouraging.
Long range forecasts into the third week of June suggest that larger areas of the United States will be wetter than normal compared to those that will be drier than normal. (For the record, Vermont is forecast to be overall cooler and wetter than normal into the third week of June, despite an expected warm, dry weekend coming up.)
Flash flooding in Tulsa, OK Thursday. Photo via Twitter by Jonathan Torrio
This next part will get confusing, but bear with me. The overall temperature for the nation as a whole was a little cooler than average during May.
This, after I just got done explaining that a warmer atmosphere holds more water, so that might help explain why we had such a wet national month.
Storms are at least in part a clash between warm and cold air. Although final numbers aren't in yet, May, 2019 was almost certainly in the top 10 warmest for the world as a whole. Warmer air feeding into the storms that affected the nation might have increased rainfall somewhat. Some of this warm air came from outside the nation.
And note the heaviest precipitation was in the middle of country. The Southeast was warmer than average in May, and that's where much of the humid air was coming from to feed the precipitation in those Midwest storms.
However, parts of the United States was on the cool side, bucking a worldwide trend in May, because the weather patterns during the month favored cool air flowing into the middle of the nation.
It's true that this May in Vermont has been cool, damp, cloudy and
rainy, but the weather has definitely been worse in other Vermont Mays
After yet another round of rain Friday morning, the sun came out in Vermont's Champlain Valley during the afternoon. The temperature in Burlington sneaked up to 77 degrees, the warmest reading so far this year.
The nice weather was welcome, as lots of people have been grumbling about the cool, damp, cloudy nature of May, 2019.
I've had a few people ask if this is the worst May for weather in memory. I can't speak for the rest of the cloudy Northeast, but we've had much, much, MUCH worse weather in Vermont this time of year.
On May 15, 1834, for instance. snow fell at a rate of one inch every 10 minutes for two hours in Newbury, Vermont, reaching a depth of three feet(!!) In low elevation Rutland, a foot of snow accumulated.
May, 1966 was probably the worst modern May on record. On May 3 that year, it reached 24 degrees in Burlington, which is still the coldest May temperature on record in the Queen City. It was 18 degrees that morning in Bloomfield and Chelsea.
Then, on May 8-10, 1966, Vermont had three consecutive days of snow. It accumulated to 3.5 inches in Burlington, 5.2 inches in Newport and 11 inches in Peru, Vermont.
My subjective vote for the worst May weather in my lifetime was in 1997. It wasn't the coldest May on record, but it was quite chilly, and constantly cloudy. Snowflakes made it all the way down into the Champlain Valley on May 7. It was 27 degrees on May 5, so anything that was trying to grow early got zapped by frost.
Under the persistent overcast, the temperature never made it above 70 degrees until May 28 in 1997, and the trees didn't leaf out until the end of the month. Ugh.
The first half of May, 1996 was at least as bad, with a general snowfall hitting most of the state, including the Champlain Valley on May 12 that year. Even Burlington got 0.3 inches of snow, which I think is the last time measureable snow fell in Burlington during May. (The weather got much better during the second half of May, 1996.)
This May surely won't be among the wettest on record, even as rainfall has been running above average. It does seem as though most recent Mays have been wet. The soggiest Mays on record in Burlington are 2013 (8.74 inches); 2011 (8.67 inches) and May 2006 (7.10 inches). Those three wet Mays were not chilly, however. They were all warmer than average.
Looking ahead, the weather pattern looks like it will stay active, but maybe not as persistently overcast as it has been. Temperatures will bounce around a fair amount, but overall it won't be too far from average for this time of year.
Mother's Day was not a lovely day for a drive along the Mass Pike
in a high spot in the Berkshires. Photo via Twitter @hockeymomct
Yesterday, I talked about the prospect of snow in Vermont and New England, and it now looks like some high elevations spots will get lots of snow, and even some valleys could get some relatively rare mid-May flakes.
Welcome to March in May. Tuesday's high temperatures are almost sure to break records for the lowest high temperatures for May 14.
More on this in a moment, but first I'll recap Sunday's snowy foretaste of our May winter storm that parts of southern Vermont and western Massachusetts.
While people along the Canadian border in Vermont enjoyed a little sun and not-bad temperatures near 60 degrees, it was a completely different story down south.
Bennington, normally a warm spot in Vermont, stayed in the low 40s all day under rainy, drizzly skies. Go uphill a bit from Bennington, and you encountered snow. Accumulations only amounted to a half inch or a little more.
Still, that was enough to make the Mass Pike slick in a high spot in the Berkshires, leading to several crashes and traffic jams as motorists were probably unprepared for snow on Mother's Day. Which is reasonable. You normally don't build snowmen in the middle of May.
The snow tonight and Tuesday will be much more widespread than Sunday's. It will especially affect the high elevations across central and northern New England. If you are a diehard winter sports fan, the summits will be the place to go, as they will get hammered.
The peaks of the Green Mountains and possibly the Adirondacks could get up to 10 inches of snow. The summits of the White Mountains of New Hampshire are in for at least a foot.
Snow levels could go down to 2,000 feet or even lower by Tuesday morning in Vermont. The National Weather Service in South Burlington isn't predicting much in the way of accumulation. Still, I imagine grassy surfaces and such will see some light, slushy accumulation.
Especially if you've taken your snow tires off, I'd reconsider driving through the higher elevations late tonight and tomorrow.
I'm guessing some wet snowflakes could make it all the way down to some colder valley floors Tuesday morning.
Nevertheless, it will be, as noted, a miserable March day in May across the region Tuesday. Where it doesn't snow, a cold rain will fall. High temperatures across Vermont Tuesday will range from the 30s in the higher elevations to the low or mid 40s on valley floors.
These will be record cold high temperatures. The record "low high" for Burlington Tuesday is 51 degrees. The current "record low highs" are in the mid and upper 40s for most other weather stations in Vermont. Normal high temperatures this time of year are in the mid-60s. So this is a pretty impressive cold snap for May.
Luckily, all the clouds and precipitation and breezes will keep nighttime temperatures this week near and above freezing, so no hard frosts will wreck any plants and flowers growing outdoors.
After tomorrow, it will slowly warm up during the rest of the week, and we'll be back to near normal readings in the 60s in the afternoons by the upcoming weekend.
A thunderstorm erupts in the distance as viewed from Yankton, South Dakota amid record heat last week. It was 98 degrees in Yankton and 101 in nearby Sioux City, Iowa. May in the region was among the hottest on record.
May, 2018 is in the running for the hottest May on record for the Lower 48 states. If it doesn't turn out to be the hottest, it will come close.
The hottest May on record for the nation as a whole was in the Dust Bowl year of 1934, which turned out to be one of the hottest summers in history, especially in the Great Plains.
That this May was hot doesn't mean this summer will be, but we'll wait and see on that.
I will add the caveat that long range forecasts like this aren't all that reliable. It has a pretty good bust potential.
The hot May comes after a generally cold April in the United States. The contrast between the two months is incredible in an area centered around Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. Many cities in and around these states had their coldest April on record.
Then May hit, and in those same spots, the month was in the Top 5 list of hottest Mays on record.
In Minneapolis, May was 30.2 degees warmer than April, which was one of the biggest contrasts between two consecutive months on record.
Here in Vermont, the mean temperature for the month of May in Burlington was 62.2 or 5.9 degrees warmer than average. That made the month the fourth warmest May on record. (The hottest May was in 2015 with a mean temperature of 63.6.
In the very short term, expect a pretty nasty cool wave over the next few days here in Vermont. It was cool this morning for sure. Island Pond, Vermont managed to get down to 32 degrees this morning.
Monday and Tuesday will feature rain with high temperatures only in the nippy 50s, as opposed to the normal highs in the 70s this time of year. (It could be warmer Monday if we get a few brief peeks of sun between showers, and a couple places in the Northeast Kingdom might not get out of the 40s.)
It'll sort of warm up later in the week, reaching the low 70s by the end of the week.
The Intervale in Burlington, Vermont is greening up very fast under
sunny skies and warm termperatures.
You've surely noticed here in Vermont we're in the middle of a spell of sunny, gorgeous spring weather.
All the plants and trees are falling over themselves to turn green in the sunshine, as if they were just chomping at the bit to put on their annual spring show. We love it.
The sun and the warmth and our newly lush green surroundings are making us forget what a gloomy, wet April we had.
It was, at least in my opinion, one of the worst Vermont Aprils in the weather department I can remember. And to think we didn't have it so bad -- it was even worse in the Upper Midwest. They seemed to have constant snow and bitter cold. We here in the Northeast just endured constant clouds, rain and wet snow.
The snow that seemed to fall so frequently in April got most of the attention, but the almost constant precipitation, clouds and gloom really told the tale.
It was among the wettest Aprils in Vermont weather history. Burlington was a relative "dry" spot with 4.84 inches of rain and melted snow. That made if the 6th wettest April on record.
Other communities in Vermont were even wetter. Montpelier had 5.61 inches of precipitation, St Johnsbury had 5.03 inches.
These weren't short, sharp bursts of rain that caused this. Which is probably a good thing, in that the slow, steady drizzles and snows that seemed to last all month meant that there was little flooding. Everything stayed soggy, but there were not big blasts of water coming off the mountains to flood lowlands.
The steady rains were enough to help bring Lake Champlain to flood stage. At last report, it was just above the 100 foot level that signifies flooding. A flood warning is up along the lake until the water goes back down. That could be soon, if it stays dry.
The April gloom was tedious. Burlington had 19 days with measurable precipitation during April. I counted only four or five days during the month that could be characterized as sunny.
The next chance for any rain in Vermont is on Thursday, mostly in the afternoon and night as a cold front approaches and passes. I don't think there will be a huge amount of rain with this one. More rain is likely Saturday and Sunday. The weekend, which sucks. But I don't think it will rain the entire weekend. We'll probably just have to keep dodging showers.
For the fifth consecutive morning, the daffodils attempting to grow in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens are shivering in the snow.
For the fifth consecutive day, frozen precipitation is falling outside my window this morning in St. Albans, Vermont.
And it's going to snow tomorrow. And Friday. Make it stop!
It probably will.
I'm not going to promise anything, but there's a decent chance that the snow that falls in Vermont through the rest of the week will be the last of it for the season. At least in the lower elevations.
I'm pretty sure it will snow in the mountains in May. It almost always does.
Once we get into late April, it should be hard to get snow in the valleys. Certainly not impossible, but definitely more difficult. Normal daytime temperatures are approaching 60 degrees by the last week of the month, and normal lows are above freezing.
Signs are getting stronger that the weather pattern is changing, and next week should be warmer, which would pre-empt any snow. I'm guessing that by the time we get any new cool spell sometimes in May, that cool weather would still be too mild to support snow.
Again, that's not a promise. It can certainly snow in Vermont's valleys in May. Sometimes quite heavily.
The worst example of a May snowstorm, according to David Ludlum's trusty "Vermont Weather Book." was on May 15, 1834, when the storm total came in at three feet deep in the hills above Newbury. It snowed at a rate of one inch every 10 minutes, which is an incredible rate for a mid-winter storm, never mind May. In that snowstorm low elevation Randolph and Rutland got a foot.
In more modern times, we've gotten May snowstorms. In May, 1966, it snowed for three days in a row up in Newport. Burlington got 3.5 inches of snow on May 9. 1966. That was the latest in the season Burlington has ever gotten so much snow.
For the record, the average date of the last one inch snowfall in Burlington during the spring is April 5. That 1966 storm is the record for the latest one inch.
The average date for the last snow flurry in Burlington, just a trace of snow, is April 15, so we're already passed that, too. Though I think Burlington will get at least a trace of snow Thursday and/or Friday.
The latest trace of snow on record in Burlington came on May 31, 1945. So yeah, it can happen.
But just for laughs and giggles, let's just hope that this week's snow is the last of it for the season. A man can dream, can't he?
Despite a cool April and beginning of May, flowers reliably bloomed in my St. Albans, Vermont garden. The heat blasted in during the second half of May
By the middle of May this year, it had snowed twice during the month and temperatures were running a good two degrees below normal.
Certainly a switch from May, 2015, which was the hottest on record in Vermont.
The coolest day of the month in Burlington got down to 33 degrees on the 10th, which means the last freeze of the season there (April 29) was a little earlier than average.
However, much of Vermont had a number of frosty mornings during the first half of May.
But, as things often do around here, thinks reversed course dramatically.
The end of the month was very warm, making May 2016 more than three degrees warmer than average at Burlington.
Each of the last nine days of the month got up to 80 or above, which is a very remarkable stretch for May. Two of those days were in the 90s.
Summer is here, I guess. At least maybe. More on that in a moment.
Worryingly, though, May continued a dry trend that's really been going on since last fall in Vermont. Sure, we've had our wet periods. February was rainy, for example. But it's getting drier and drier.
June is getting off to a warmish and definitely dry start, too, but there are signs that starting this weekend, we'll temporarily get into a cool, wetter pattern, at least off and on, through the middle of June
Both the ocean and land temperatures across the globe set new record highs in May, 2014, according to the report, released today.
So far, 2014 is the fifth warmest on record, based on data from the first five months of the year.
An El Nino pattern, which brings warm water to the eastern Pacific Ocean and tends to boost worldwide temperatures, seems to be getting started.
El Nino, combined with the effects of global warming, might be responsible for the record setting global heat in May.
Four of the five warmest Mays have occured in the past five years, according to the NOAA report.
The last time the world experienced a cooler than normal month was 29 years ago in February, 1985. The last cooler than normal May was in 1976, according to the report.
