Roller Coaster May Was Near "Average" But Not Really

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.

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!

Every Kind Of Weather Possible Hit On Wednesday. Here's Why

After a sunny start, cold storm clouds loomed over Lake
Champlain in Alburgh on Wednesday. 

The old saying "If you don't like the weather in Vermont, just wait a minute and it will change," was probably never more true than in was Wednesday.

Especially in northern Vermont. One minute it was sunny and mild, the next featured black clouds looming, as if there was a summer thunderstorm approaching.

Then a tremendous gust of wind, then some rain, maybe some sleet, then a burst of snow, then back to sunny and nice, then rinse and repeat.

You always want to dress for the weather, but on Wednesday, you would have needed to take your entire wardrobe closet with  you to pull that off.

What the hell happened?

A chaotic sky over St. Albans, Vermont Wednesday produced a day
with almost every kind of weather imaginable. 

It turns out early April is the perfect time of year to get weather that will mess with your head, like it did yesterday.

The sun angle is about as high as it is around Labor Day. That's why the day started off so pleasantly. The sun was able to warm the atmosphere, and temperatures really sprung upward during the morning.

Meanwhile, a few thousand feet overhead, the atmosphere still thinks it's winter.  It was cold up there yesterday, especially with a cold front passing through and a chunk of chilly air from Canada coming in at us.

When there is a big contrast between the warm surface and cold air thousands of feet above us, towering clouds can form. These develop into showers and thunderstorms, which happened yesterday. (There wasn't much in the way of lightning strikes yesterday, just a few, but you get what I mean.)

On top of all that, winds aloft tend to be much stronger in the winter than in the summer. Remember, it's still pretty much winter way overhead, so it was a screaming gale up there.

One of those storm clouds yesterday set off this springtime snow
squall in St. Albans, Vermont late Wednesday afternoon.

The showers that formed, and the downdrafts created by the those showers, were able to grab some of that high level wind and bring it to the surface. That's why it would get so windy in those passing showers.

The air was relatively dry, and much of the precipitation evaporated on its way down. That evaporation also helped bring wind to the surface.

Some of those gusts yesterday were impressive. I was at an exposed location on the shore of Lake Champlain in Alburgh Wednesday when one of those storms came through.

Winds gusted to an estimated 55 to 60 mph, downing some tree limbs and taking a few shingles off a couple houses. Winds gusted to 52 mph in Burlington. Many places in Vermont had gusts in the 45 to 55 mph range.

The cold air brought to the surface during these showers was enough so that the entire column of air was chilly enough so that snow aloft stayed snow all the way to the ground. We had a couple brief gusty snow squalls here in Franklin County, Vermont yesterday.

A confused weather day created dark clouds, blue sky, light and
shadows Wednesday evening in St. Albans, Vermont

Between the showers of rain and snow, the warm April sun would come back out, raising temperatures again, only to see them crash when the next windy storm came through. I swear we packed 12 months of weather into one afternoon.

Today won't be so changeable. High pressure has moved in. The air is very dry throughout the entire height of the atmosphere, so there won't be any towering clouds to promote more showers of either rain or snow.

However, the air remains chilly, especially aloft. The April sun will roil the atmosphere, creating updrafts.

What goes up must come down, so these updrafts will grab more of that strong wind from up above and bring it to the surface. It's so dry there won't be much in the way of clouds, but there will be some pretty strong wind gusts today, probably as high as 40 mph in spots. Not as bad as Wednesday, but still.

In the Champlain Valley and in the lower Connecticut River valley, almost all the snow is gone.  Last year's vegetation is brown and bone dry.  Humidities will be quite low today amid those gusty winds. That means there's a risk that any brush fires could get out of control pretty quickly.

If you were planning on setting your brush pile alight or doing any outdoor burning today, think again. Find another day to do it. One that's wetter and calmer.

This is also true across all of southern New England.

Precipitation will move in Friday afternoon to wet things down somewhat. At least this next little weather disturbance, with its cold rain and mountain wet snow, won't be as dynamic as Wednesday's conditions were. It won't be a Heinz 57 weather kind of day.

Some video of one of the storms rolling through Alburgh Wednesday.   Click the big screen icon on the lower left of each one to see a wider version of these. F

A Nice Dash Of Spring Saturday; A Quick Slap Of Winter Next

This perennial bed on my St. Albans, Vermont property emerged
from underneath the snow for the first time since December. You
can see the brook in the background running muddy and
high from the thaw. A half hour after this photo was taken today,
snow once again began mixing with the rain.

Saturday morning, I drove to work from St. Albans to Burlington, Vermont under cold, gray skies, a smattering of light sleet and cold rain clattering on the windshield.

When I got out of work in the late afternoon, it had turned much milder - it was the first 60 degree reading of the year in Burlington, and the first time it was that warm since October 20.

A crocus in a warm, sunny corner by the front of the building had popped into bloom.

On the way home, I noticed swamp maples budding in the low, marshy ground between Colchester and Milton. Overnight, the temperature hovered near 60 degrees.

If that's not spring, I don't know what is.

This is Vermont, of course, so spring comes in fits and starts, and winter always loves to try and reassert itself at every opportunity.

So it was with a cold front this morning. Here in St. Albans, the temperature fell from the upper 50s to the upper 30s within an hour as the cold front blustered through. As of 12:15 p.m., rain was turning to snow.

Unlike last Friday, this isn't turning out to be a blockbuster snow, but it's a reminder that spring is never easy in Vermont.

For the rest of the day, the cold front will keep moving east, erasing any remaining warmth from eastern parts of Vermont. The precipitation will taper off, but rain and snow showers will keep going in many areas, especially the mountains.

Another little band of moisture will reinvigorate the snow showers tonight. Northern mountains could pick up a few inches of snow. Many valley locations will have whitened ground again by morning. Monday will be windy and wintry and chilly, with highs in the 30s. Sigh.

Let's put it in perspective, though. A bit of snow on the ground and temperatures in the 30s are routine in Vermont on April Fools Day. Plus, spring is a worthy opponent of winter. It will win. The battle between the two seasons will go on for awhile, though.

By Tuesday, temperatures will be seasonably mild again. Another nor'easter has been scaring me just a tiny bit, though. Almost all the forecasts have it passing far enough to our east on Wednesday to not affect us, other than maybe throw some clouds our way.

I'm just gun-shy after last week, when a nor'easter that was expected to stay away clobbered us with a ton of late season snow. This upcoming one on Wednesday, though, looks more likely to stay completely away. Fingers crossed!

Thursday will be cooler behind a cold front, but not terrible - highs in the low 40s is not odd at all for early April. More storminess is possible next weekend. It's too soon to say how things will shake out, but preliminary forecasts look more wet than white. Again, fingers crossed!

In another encouraging note, temperatures just might run a bit above normal for the first half of April here in Vermont, at least if long range forecasts turn out to be accurate. (They aren't always that great, but I like to pin my hopes on positive news.)

By the way, there was quite a burst of snow melt with the warmth overnight and the briefly heavy showers this morning. No widespread flooding is expected in Vermont out of this, but there might be pockets of high water today and tonight, especially behind any ice jams that form in northern areas.

Not that big a deal, but something to watch out for. Don't drive through any flood waters, please.

Severe Weather Threat In Plains, Humid Soakers, Then Changes New England

Great clouds as viewed my airplane window as I made my way back home
from South Dakota to Vermont yesterday. This view was while we were
on approach to Chicago O'Hare. 

I arrived home to Vermont last night after my nearly two weeks at my temporary headquarters in Yankton, South Dakota.

Despite the season, I didn't see much in the way of strong thunderstorm activity out there, which to me is a bit of a disappointment. (Other than that, the trip was awesome. Thanks, Modereger clan!

Of course, today, I am missing a potential severe weather outbreak in the northern and central Plains, and Yankton is under that threat area. The principal worries out there today are big hail and strong, damaging straight line winds.

Which I hope does not damage the flowers I planted at the in-law's house.

A few tornadoes are also possible, too, especially in central North Dakota and central Nebraska.

Pretty large sections of the nation are also prone to localized flash flooding, too, especially in North Dakota, a fairly big area roughly centered on Kansas City, and it the soggy Middle Atlantic States and the Southeast.

Here in Vermont, you might have notice it's rather humid out there this morning. Feels like it's going to rain, doesn't it?

Indeed, most of us will get some rain today. There were already a few showers this morning. There is some partial clearing late this morning and early afternoon. That will help destabilize the atmosphere to produce showers and thunderstorms. Especially since a cold front is heading this way from the northwest.

Often, this type of set up gets us under the gun for quite a few severe thunderstorms, but the ingredients really aren't fully there this time. A few storms in and near Vermont this afternoon and evening could briefly become strong to marginally severe, with gusty winds and maybe small hail, but I don't expect anything anywhere nearly as bad as the May 4 severe outbreak in these parts.

The air is, as I said, humid, and the showers and storms today won't be moving very fast, so a few spots will get some very heavy rain out of this.  It's also possible a few places will get something called "backbuilding" thunderstorms.

That's when a thunderstorm moves into an area. The storm then seems to be beginning to pass by to the east, but new thunderstorms develop on the back edge of the original storm. The end result is one spot gets stuck under a thunderstorm for a prolonged period of time, since new downpours keep forming in the same spot.

This can lead to flash flooding. The threat of flash flooding is low in Vermont today, since it hasn't been particularly wet this month. (unlike most of the rest of the eastern United States.) But, it's still possible there could be water problems in one or two spots in Vermont this afternoon.

This will all clear out tonight, and we're in for a pleasant weekend here in northern New England. The humidity will crash down to really comfortable levels, and daytime temperatures will be in the low to mid 70s, with quite a bit of sunshine.

Enjoy it while you can. Much of next week looks like it will be quite cool and showery, with not much sun. It'll be typical early May weather, not early June. But that happens from time to time before summer gets into full swing. So we'll deal with it.

VERY Different Weather Every Day This Week As Weather Pattern Gets Confused

Daffodil shoots continue to get bigger and taller in my
St. Albans, Vermont garden, but will they get nipped
badly when midwinter cold briefly returns next Sunday?  

I hope you enjoyed your Easter Sunday in Vermont as it was gorgeous. Sunshine, with temperatutes around 60 degrees,-- what could be better in late March?

I found myself doing yard work in shorts and a t-shirt here at my weather geek headquarters up in St. Albans, which was nice.

When I took the dogs out to do their business before dawn, the sky was moonlit and it was mild and breezy, quite nice.

Don't get used to it. Although there might be a brief break of nice weather midweek, the weather is going to change dramatically day to day.

There's something for everyone in this forecast. Plus, there's something ominious next weekend for any early season spring plants that might have sprun up.

 Let's go day to day.

TODAY: That early morning moonlight is a thing of the past as clouds quickly covered the sky this morning as a storm approaches from the south and west. Rain will cover the state during the day, but luckily it won't come down particularly hard. Winds could get gusty from the south at times, especially in the Champlain Valley.

Temperatures today will be mostly in the mid to upper 40s -- chillier than on Easter but still not bad for late March.

TUESDAY: An unpleasant, interesting day. That storm bringing today's rain will be departing toward Maritime Canada and strengthening. Meanwhile, high pressure will be approaching from the Great Lakes.

The two systems will be squeezing up against each other forming what us weather geeks call a tight pressure gradient. Basically, the air pressure will be increasing sharply from northeast to southwest across our area.

For all the non-weather geeks, all this means is there's going to be a strong northwest wind on Tuesday. Winds will probably gust to 40 mph in many areas, and 50 mph along and east of the Green Mountains.

Also, snow. Did I say snow? That northwest wind will have a fair amount of moisture with it. And cold air, since it's coming from the northwest and all. Valleys, especially across the northern half of Vermont will probably get a slushing coating to a wet two inches

Higher elevations are in for two to five inches. The snow showers will tend to wane during the afternoon, tapering off last along the western slopes of the Green Mountains -- probably not until evening there.

WEDNESDAY: Probably the nicest day of the week. That high pressure I mentioned coming in from the west will be nearly overhead by Wednesday. After a cold start with lows in the upper teens to mid 20s, temperatures will get up to around 50 degrees.  That pressure gradient will be gone, so winds will be kinda on the light side.

THURSDAY: Warm and increasingly wet. A squirt of mild, damp air is coming up from the south ahead of the next storm system. Temperatures could easily reach 60 degrees Thursday as clouds increase and showers break out during the day.

Thursday night looks wet but very mild for this time of year, with temperatures not dropping below 50 degrees. (Normal HIGH temperatures this time of year are at or a little below 50. )

FRIDAY:  Still mild and showery, but looking like it might turn cooler later in the day. Temperatures before the cool weather arrives will be well into the 50s

SATURDAY: A transition day as we temporarily head back toward mid-winter, believe it or not. Hard to say this far out, but it looks like there will be some rain, then snow showers around. Best guess is highs might reach the 40s, but falling later.

SUNDAY: Welcome back to winter as a February style blast of Arctic air slams us. Temperatures probably won't even get above freezing Sunday, and I imagine there will probably be snow showers around. Sunday night could even feature near record cold.

I'm not sure yet, but it's possible we could get near record lows in the single numbers Sunday night. A couple below zero readings in the cold spots aren't out of the question.

BEYOND SUNDAY: It'll begin to warm up, as it will be April after all. Details on how much of a warm up, when, and whether rain or snow will accompany the milder trend are all question marks.