Cold Snap To Be A Geeky Experiment, Anyway

Look closely and you can see the snowflakes coming down on my
St. Albans, Vermont gardens this morning. These poor flowers are
in for more snow and freezes over the next couple of days. 

While the cold and snow hitting the Great Lakes and Northeast this weekend is undoubtedly a huge bummer, I guess you can look at a rather dim bright side.

It's an experiment in a way for weather and garden geeks.

On Thursday evening, you could literally see the middle and upper atmosphere cooling over Vermont, if you knew what to look for. The sun had heated the surface to a temperature of near 60 degrees, just a tad cool for this time of year.

As the upper atmosphere cooled, some billowing clouds appeared. Warm air rises, especially if the air above is really cold. That forms those billowing clouds.

The air was quite dry last evening, , so it was difficult to form showers. But eventually, some rain came from one good sized cloud over St. Albans, Vermont where I live.

The air was dry enough so that the rain evaporated on the way down, so there was no precipitation where I stood.  But that evaporated rain cooled the air and helped bring the increasingly chilly air to the surface. Suddenly west winds from this "storm" gusted to about 30 mph and the air suddenly got dramatically chillier.

Web cam from this morning shows some snow on the ground
in high elevation Buels Gore, Vermont, along Route 17.

The cold spell was on, and it would only intensify overnight, and really get going tonight and Saturday, as forecasts have consistently indicated.

It briefly snowed this morning at my place, and I've seen photos of a dusting to a little over an inch of new snow in some high spots in Vermont this morning.

Another interesting thing to watch among weather geeks is what happens when a storm tonight gets going near New York City and intensifies as it moves along the southern New England coast and into the Gulf of Maine.

How much snow will the storm throw to its north and west?   It's hard to accumulate snow in May, but since much of the precipitation will be at night, there's no sunlight coming through the clouds to warm things up just a little.

Forecasts for snow in the central New England highlands, like the Berkshires, Monadnocks of New Hampshire, the far southern Green Mountains and the Catskills of New York have been cut back a little. Most of those areas are expected to get two inches or less of snow.

That wouldn't make it a historic May snow, but still impressive. Also, there's still room for surprises. That is, if the snow comes down harder than expected. We'll see.

Here in Vermont, from the Green Mountains eastward, a lot of places could get two or three inches of snow, especially in elevations of 1,000 feet or more. It's impressive that the National Weather Service is still calling for light accumulations of less than an inch all the way down to the floor of the Champlain Valley.

The huge expanse of dark blue in the middle of the nation on the
National Weather Service map this morning are freeze warnings.
That's an immense area to be under risk. Lighter blues are
mostly frost advisories. Note the winter weather advisory
in northern Maine. 

Another geeky thing to watch is how the snow showers play out Saturday afternoon and early evening. The atmosphere several thousand feet up will be at record cold levels for May.  The sun this time of year is strong, so that's a recipe for some real atmospheric instability.

Will that yield some gusty rain and snow showers, maybe even briefly heavy?

Don't be surprised to find a few heavy snow squalls, with new, brief snow accumulations. If you get a snow squall, you'll get a dusting to an inch of snow, which will likely quickly melt after the squall passes.

With these snow squalls, temperatures could get interesting.  "High" temperatures Saturday will be within a few degrees of 40, but snow squalls will briefly bring frigid air to the surface.  You could momentarily see temperatures drop to near 32 degrees in snow squalls, even in the valleys.

Whether and how many snow squalls form depends at least partly on the amount of cloud cover and the amount of sun that can sneak between the clouds.  In any event it's going to be a windy, raw day, much like you'd expect in early March.

For people who are into stats and climatology, it will be fun to see how many record lows are broken. A few cities in the Great Lakes and Midwest, and perhaps the Northeast, might experience all time record lows for May.

During the day Saturday, some record low high temperatures are in jeopardy, too, all the way from Maine to Texas.

Finally, there's the plant life out there. Not just here but in an immense area affected by the cold snap from South Dakota to Georgia to New York and New England. All these areas are under freeze warnings, or at least frost advisories.

Unfortunately, this cold snap has the potential for being a multi-million dollar disaster for orchardists and farmers in a huge area of the nation, especially east of the Mississippi and from the Carolinas north.

Here in Vermont, it will remain much colder than  normal through Thursday morning.  From Sunday onward, it won't be as cold as Saturday will be, but still far chillier than average for May.

And there's the freeze issues.  I had a bit of ice on the ground at my house earlier this morning in St. Albans, Vermont, followed by a snow shower.  There's a good chance or likelihood of frosts and freezes nightly through this coming Thursday morning. Here in St. Albans and elsewhere in Vermont, we could end up with seven consecutive mornings with readings of 32 or lower. In May!

At least it still looks like this won't last forever. Forecasts still call for a pattern change which would bring milder air in.  Definitely no promises on this one, but I did see one computer model with something interesting: Tomorrow, highs will be near 40 in Vermont. This forecast model calls for highs near 80 degrees exactly one week later.

I'm not buying that model, but it will be much better outside a week from now. I promise.

Winter In May: A Bone-Chilling Update

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.

Very Strange Wintry Blast Still On Its Way

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.

Another Big Interruption To Spring For Us Suffering Vermonters (And Many Others)

The sky looked summery and the trees were greening up in the warm
sunshine in St. Albans, Vermont on Sunday, but spring is about
to go into another chilly stall. 

It seemed like spring really, finally hit its stride the past few days in Vermont.

Sunshine and warmth over the weekend had the trees racing to green up. Flowers bloomed, lawns got their first mowing and people ventured out in shorts and t-shirts.

It made it all the way up to 76 degrees in Burlington on Sunday, making it the warmest day since last September 23.

There was even lightning visible to the north last night, a sign that summer would like to approach. And yet......    

Vermont weather always finds a way to disappoint, and the upcoming trends do look kind of bleak. Let's just say I hope you didn't get too overenthusiastic getting your garden plants in.

As has happened frequently since mid-April, the forces of winter want to make another push.  Hopefully, this will be winter's last stand.

It'll certainly be cooler this week, startind today.  This week's temperatures will be five to 10 degrees below average, which means highs in the 50s for the most part and lows in the 30s, with risks of frosts on a couple nights between now and Thursday.

Then it manages to get worse, as forecasts now indicate. An odd mass of Arctic air will plunge south, putting the northeastern third of the United States at least into some really cold temperatures.

We can blame something call cross-polar flow. The weather pattern is orienting itself so that a batch of cold air from northern Siberia is going and over the North Pole, then southward across eastern Canada into the United States.

Spring blooms enjoy some warm evening sunshine Sundau im
St. Albans, Vermont.  These same flowers will be shivering
in the cold over the next 10 days or so. 

This type of thing happens occasionally in the winter, giving us some of our deepest cold spells. But cross-polar flow is almost unheard of for May, so this is something.

On forecast maps, this looks like a giant blue and purple bowling ball of cold air hitting a strike on the Northeast.

As dire as that sounds, this probably won't be the worst May cold snap on record. But it will be uncomfortably chilly.

If you're a gardeners, you'll want to be on frost alert for the next ten days or so. Not every night will bring a freeze, but pay attention to forecasts daily, and protect those early plants.

It wont be just us that's affected.

With spring well under way, there's a widespread risk of damaging frost and freezes across the Great Lakes states and across the Northeast and all the way down into the South. I anticipate a lot of crop and fruit orchard damage in these areas by this time next week.

Since the worst of this is a good five days away, teasing out precisely how this will play out. We know it's going to be awfully cold for this time of year. But how cold? And will it snow?

Here in Vermont, we might have quite a few clouds, some wind and showers of rain and snow through most of this upcoming cold wave.  In a way, that would be good. If we get a night during the cold snap that's clear and calm, temperatures would really bottom out and the freeze would be all the more damaging.

That might happen during this, but the trends in the forecast so far favor clouds and wind.

There's the risk of late season snows, too, but at this point, it's not looking like much. (But that could change if a coastal storm really gets going. That's possible early next week, but no likely.

This will be a long lasting cold wave, too.  It won't start to warm up until the middle or end of next week.

Another concern I have is how dry it is out there, especially in the Champlain Valley. Drier conditions make it easier for temperatures to really bottom out at night.  Wet ground adds humidity to the air, and that helps keep temperatures up a little bit.

You don't want to put hoses, sprinklers and irrigation out yet, either. Freezing temperatures could damage all that. So watering gardens is difficult for the time being.

Even without the cold in the forecast, we could use some rain.  Deep soil moisture is still OK, but the surface is dusty as hell. No soaking rains are in the forecast for the next week or so.  Just scattered light rain and snow showers that won't amount to much.

As much as we all like spring sunshine, it would be nice if we got into a wetter and warmer pattern during the second half of this month. We have no way of knowing whether it will do that just yet, so for now, ugh, bundle up.

Brutal Cold To Ease Up, But Dry, Chilly Weather Continues; More Southern Tornado Drama

Bowed but unbroken? Daffodils once again sag after a brutally
cold, subfreezing night in St. Albans, Vermont but it still looks
like they have a shot at reviving when it warms up 

It looks like those Vermont daffodils have a shot of surviving after all.

Last night and this morning were certainly very cold for this time of year, but due to I think two factors, the chill didn't go quite as deep as it could have.

The core of the coldest air from Canada several thousand feet overhead was over northern New England during the day Wednesday. That's why, really amazingly for this time of year, temperatures never did get above freezing in much of the Northeast Kingdom, all day.

Although the air overhead remained incredibly chilly for late April, the coldest of the air had moved off to the northeast by late last night and this morning. That helped keep temperatures at the surface a wee bit milder than they would have.

More importantly, the wind kept going all night. It wasn't strong by any means. But to get the coldest possible temperatures on a clear night, you need light winds or no winds to get the best conditions to radiate heat to outer space.

That didn't happen last night. Temperatures did get into the upper teens in the coldest hollows, and most of us stayed in the 20s. Burlington, I think got down to 29 degrees. Montpelier was 25. Neither were record lows, and it was actually a tad warmer this morning than yesterday morning, which was the opposite of forecasts.

Many of the blooms outside our Vermont doors, because they're such early season specimens, will probably survive what we got last night.  Some things probably didn't make it, but overall, we will have spring after all.

Just not right away. Although it will turn "warmer" than yesterday - how could it possibly be any colder? -- temperatures will remain below normal into next week at least.

The good news is below normal ain't what it used to be.  Normal temperatures continue to rise fast this time of year.  Normal highs are in the mid 40s on April Fools Day and around 60 as the month ends.

Coming up over the next week, there will be a couple days here and there that get into the low and mid 50s. That's really not bad, but still a little on the cool side for late April.

HOW DRY I AM?

One thing I've noticed is, despite the rain showers and frequent unseasonable snows this month, it's a bit dry, particularly in northern Vermont. I noticed the gardens, when not frozen, are a bit dusty.

The dry conditions can raise the risk of brush fires this time of year. All that dead vegetation is dry out there. Sure, last year's leaves, weeds, twigs and such get wet whenever it rains or snows, but things dry out fast this time of year.

That's especially true in Aprils like this one in northern Vermont in which each precipitation event doesn't amount to much. It makes it easier to dry things out. It often get dry readily in Vermont anyway this time of year.   Here's why:

First of all, there's no leaves on the trees yet. That means the sun's heat can go down to the forest floor without being shaded by foliage. That allows things to dry out faster.

Also, when trees are leafed out, they add moisture to the air. There's no leaves yet.  If you make the air more humid, it makes it harder for fires to start and spread.

This time of year, pushes of air from Canada are particularly dry. These airmasses from the Great White North are cold, as we know from experience over the past couple of days.

The April sun is strong, though. That causes air pockets to warm and rise. Something has to replace that air that came up from near the surface, so really, really dry air from up above makes its way to the surface. These updrafts and downdrafts can create some erratic wind gusts, even when the overall weather pattern isn't that blustery.

Today will be a classic example. Temperatures will recover this afternoon well into the 40s.  That's still a good ten degrees cooler than normal, but it's better than yesterday, for sure. The air mass today is really dry, and will get drier as the afternoon sun mixes the air.

A great measure of how dry it is is by looking at the dewpoint temperature. Here's an example: If the actual air temperature is 45 degrees and the dew point is 25 degrees, that means it would have to cool down to 25 degrees to create fog or at least dew or frost on the grass.

The wider the spread between the actual temperature and the dew point, the drier the air is.  Today, a typical Vermont location will see afternoon temperatures of around 45 degrees with a dewpoint within a few degrees either side of zero.

That's super dry, and can easily create conditions to start brush fires. Luckily, we did have that bit of snow and rain yesterday and the day before, so that wetted things down just a little bit. Plus, although winds today might be erratic, they won't be particularly strong. That leaves us with some fire danger today, but not an extreme one.   The driest area seems to be the Champlain Valley.

So please, no outdoor burning today, or any other similarly dry days.  It can easily get out of hand and you don't want that.

It might turn a little wetter as we head into the weekend and next week, especially in southern Vermont, so that might help.

SOUTHERN TORNADO DRAMA

Screen shot of video by storm chaser Pecos Hank as a tornado rips through
the town of Madill, Oklahoma Wednesday.

More tornadoes ripped through the South again yesteraday and overnight.  Reports are that five people have died - three in Texas and two in Oklahoma.

A remarkable string of four tornadic supercell arranged themselves in a tight north to south line in southern Oklahoma during the afternoon and evening, producing some photogenic, but unfortunately destructive tornadoes.  

Click on this link to watch a very wild video by Pecos Hank as he sat pretty much in a tornado that rapidly developed in Madill, Oklahoma. You'll see it wrecking a steel wire plant there. The tornado then moves on, leaving wreckage and a beautiful, sunny late afternoon. (It was even sunny from Pecos Hank's position watching the tornado. Go figure.

An even more remarkable tornadic supercell formed near Austin, Texas and traveled nearly 450 miles to the Louisiana-Mississippi border Wednesday afternoon and evening. That is an incredibly long lasting, durable supercell, especially considering it kept dropping tornadoes along the way.

The worst one was in Unalaska, well north of Houston, where the supercell dropped a powerful tornado that led to three deaths and widespread destruction in town, according to television station KPRC in Houston.

Severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes continued overnight and into this morning in parts of Mississippi and Alabama.

Another round of storms and possible tornadoes are in the forecast for later today, especially in the southern halves of Alabama and Georgia.

Snow, Record Cold, Hail, Storms, Twisters: We Just Can't Have Nice Things

Springtime killed. Amid a dusting of snow, the sagging blooms and
the dark color leaves on these daffodils in my yard indicate
they might have been destroyed by the frigid temperatures. Photo was
taken while temperatures were still well below freezing. The
damage will probably be more apparent later. 

In the grand scheme of things, the losses and potential losses I found outside my house in St. Albans, Vermont this morning were pretty small.

But they were still disheartening.

I kind of expected it, but it was a shame to see the daffodils and other plants and flowers that had been coming up likely ruined by the intense cold from last night.

If any of them survived, they won't tonight as temperatures are likely to be in even colder tonight. I'll know at the end of the week what, if anything, survived. I have a feeling I won't even get to enjoy lilacs this year. Those buds could be damaged, too.  

Who knows? Maybe most of the plants will recover.  But I'm not optimistic at this point.

Amid everything that has been going on, it was nice to get some peace in my gardens from the early season blooms. Now those are gone, at least for now. So that was taken from me.  Everything had been coming up, so I don't know what kind of flowers and blooms I get later in the spring or summer.

Well, there's always next year.

As if to add insult to injury, as I started to write this, snow began to briefly fall pretty heavily. The sickening winter sound of a snow plow scraping by bothered me, too. There's not much snow, but it's blowing around and making the roads slick. It's not the usual April wet snow. It's powdery. Roads are frozen. Like January. Ugh.

At last check it was 18 degrees up in Saranac Lake, New York. The "warmest" parts of Vermont were in the upper 20s early this morning.  Snow covered the ground across most of northern Vermont, and I'm sure gardeners statewide found the same depressing sight out their doors that I did this morning.

Tonight, Vermont is in for record or near record cold. The record low tomorrow morning in Burlington is 23 degrees and in Montpelier it's 21 degrees. Those records are in jeopardy. Some areas of the Northeast Kingdom will probably be in the mid-teens tonight. A few places up there might not even get above freezing today.

Again, my "suffering" isn't that at all. Just a little disappointment. But you can't help but think the weather has gotten pretty mean-spirited.

I can't attribute today's weather to climate change.  It could be random, and you really can't take one weather event in one little spot on the globe and point at climate change.

However,  in a perverse way, it's consistent with it. We've been warned by scientist - as I recall since the late 1980s at least - we were heading toward a future that was generally warmer, but with a higher risk of sharp day to day jolts in temperatures and weather conditions. We were warned of warmer temperatures interrupted by sharp, damaging cold spells. That future is here.

Like what has been happening in lots of places, increasingly in recent years, things get going early in the spring due to oddly warm temperatures. Then an old fashioned quick freeze comes and ruins everything.

For me this year, it was just a bummer. For many agricultural interests in much of the eastern United States, this will be a disaster at a time they really don't need anothe disaster.

Freeze warnings are up for a broad area of the Middle Atlantic States, with temperatures likely to reach the 20s as far south as Virginia. Orchards and early crops in this region are in big trouble.

SEVERE STORMS

Gigantic hailstones came down overnight near
Devol, Oklahoma. Photo via Twitter/KOCO

And, as I've mentioned practically every day this month, severe storms keep rolling on.  Here's the latest update.

Those severe storms in the Middle Atlantic States certainly materialized.  Though tornadoes were not expected, one might have hit Toms River, on the Jersey shore. There's a lot of damage to trees and some houses, there, so the weather folks will probably investigate that today.

There was a tornado warning at one point for pretty intense rotation on the Bronx/Yonkers border yesterday afternoon, ut I don't know if anything actually touched down.

Yesterday, overnight and this morning, large hail, sometimes baseball sized, pelted parts of Oklahoma.

Tornadoes are in the forecast today for a broad area centered on where Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana meet. The tornado threat will spread into much of the rest of the Southeast tomorrow.

Back up here in Vermont, we're not expecting any severe weather. The frigid weather is enough, thank you. Although it will warm up somewhat starting tomorrow afternoon, it looks like it's going to stay colder than normal into early May.

If any of our garden plants can grow back, they'll have to wait awhile.

Two Gorgeous Days Before We Tap The Brakes On Spring

NOAA's 8 to 14 day outlook has cold weather in most of the
nation through at least around April 19, with the core
of the cold seeming to be over the Midwest. We will
be chilly here in Vermont, though. 

It's been relatively warm the past few days and spring plants and buds here in Vermont are well ahead of schedule.

Two mainly sunny and delightful days - today and tomorrow - will keep that early trend going, but we will get pretty much an interruption to spring later this week.

That might actually be a good thing. The plants and buds that are up now can withstand some freezing, and a cool spell will slow things down.  If things blossom too soon, they could be wiped out by a late April or May freeze.

As much as we need spring to soothe our frazzled nerves, we don't want too much of it. Yet, anyway.

If you can go outside today and tomorrow to get some exercise do it! As long as you keep your social distance, sunshine and mild temperatures well into the 50s each afternoon will do your body and mind some good.

After Tuesday, the weather will get unsettled and cooler, but a lot of the details still have to be worked out. It surely looks like the mountains at least will get some snow, but we don't know how much yet.

One system will slide by to our south Wednesday, forecasters think. It's unclear how far north the rain will get in Vermont that day, but the clouds will keep us cooler.

Then, a strong cold front will come through Thursday, ushering in the chilly air that will generally stick around - possibly for as long as two weeks. Which is a too long in my opinion. A string of chilly days is fine, but I don't want it to last all month. We'll see how that all works out.

A pretty good storm will get going near the Maine coast Thursday night, but the heaviest rain and snow will probably fall well to our east.  Still rain and snow showers look like a good bet in Vermont Friday and Saturday.

There might be a brief break in the chill Sunday or Monday, maybe. But then it looks like a potentially even colder push of air might spill in after that.  The deepest cold will mostly stay in the middle of the nation during the next week or two, but we will be pretty chilly, too.

The good news is that this is going to hit in mid-April, when temperatures in our region are on average going through a steep warming trend.  So if we do get snow, and we probably will during the next couple of weeks, anything that accumulates will melt pretty rapidly.

You take what you can get, right?

It's Not The "Polar Vortex" It's The Yo-Yo Extremes That Wow Me This Winter

Someone flash froze these pants in air that was 20s below
and left them outside to mark the occasion
Uof the worst cold snap in a generation. 

UPDATE: 2 p.m. EST Wednesday.

I'm seeing more reports of some pretty impressive new cold weather records today out in the Midwest.

It looks like there's a new all-time record low temperature for the entire state of Illinois. It reportedly got down to 38 below in Mt. Carroll, Illinois today.

They're going to inspect the Mt Carroll equipment to make sure it's accurate. If it is, that 38 below would break the previous statewide Illinois record low of 36 below in Congerville, set on January 5, 1999.

Moline, Illinois dropped down to 33 below. That broke the city's all-time record low by six degrees. It's very rare to break an all-time record low, but to exceed it by six degrees is absolutely incredible.

We have an update from Rockford, Illinois, which had an all-time record low of 31 below, not 30 below as previously reported. Cedar Rapids, Iowa was at 30 below, a new all-time record for them.

In Michigan, MLive reports some strange things going on inside houses there, and I'm sure this is happening elsewhere. People report frozen water in toilets, ice on indoor electrical outlets, curtains frozen to sliding glass doors and the interior of doors covered in frost.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Yes, yes, I know the cold snap in the Midwest is a memorable, record-breaking weather event.

But what's got me fascinated is not so much the cold wave but the one-extreme-to-another character of this winter. Which actually is a continuation of what we've increasingly seen in this nation and worldwide in recent years and decades.

I had to mention the "Polar Vortex" in the headline of this post because that's all everybody is talking about in relation to this cold snap.  To review, the polar vortex is a normal component of the Arctic winter.

Pieces of the polar vortex sometimes break off and head south. That's also completely normal. Occasionally, these pieces head south into the United States. That's what happened this time.
Again: Normal.

It's just that the particular piece that broke off in recent days and roared south from northern Canada  brought with it air that was even chillier than usual.

And since this piece of the polar vortex raced southward faster than usual, it didn't have time to warm up on its trip south.  That's why the Midwest is seeing record cold.  So there, I've got that out of the way.

The cold is impressive. Cotton, Minnesota reportedly got down to 56 below this morning, which is within four degrees of Minnesota's all time state record for cold. Rockford, Illinois was down to 30 below, that city's coldest reading in history.

Up in International Falls, Minnesota, it was 45 below this morning after a "high" temperature of 19 below on Tuesday.

The Midwest, and eventually us here in Vermont are about to see a spectacular warm up.  In some places, it is said it will warm up at a record pace, whatever that is.  Davenport, Iowa, which was at 27 below this morning, is expecting a high temperaure Sunday of 48 degrees, which is a 75 degree jump.

International Falls, Minnesota is expected to reach 26 degrees Sunday, 71 degrees hotter than it was this morning.

Here in Vermont, the change won't be as extreme. But subzero readings Friday morning will be replaced by highs in the 40s by early next week.

A heavy snow squall in St. Albans, Vermont Wednesday. The
squalls contributed to one of the snowiest Januaries on
record in Burlington, Vermont. 

Speaking of extremes, those snow squalls yesterday covered an amazingly wide area of the Northeast, stretching from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts and Maine.

Some of the squalls caused serious highway pileups in Pennsylvania and New York.  The snow squall that hit my place was one of the most intense I can remember, though, like most snow squalls it was very brief.

The snow squalls added another installment to the month's snow total in Burlington, Vermont. The city has had 41.3 inches of snow this month, making this the third snowiest January on record. You'd never know it, because repeated thaws in this yo-yo winter have cut back on the amount of snow on the ground.  

Caribou, Maine has had 59.8 inches of snow this month, its snowiest January on record.  Meanwhile, Boston, Massachusetts has had only 2.3 inches of snow this winter, which is 20.5 inches below normal.

When I tweeted out Burlington's snow total this morning, Tim Kelley, a meteorologist with NBC10 in Boston and NECN, responded with this very true reply which read in part:

"'Normal' weather does not exist. It's a balance of extremes. Always has been, always will be."

The contrast between snowfall in northern and southern New England is a great example of that. So are the monthly average temperatures in the Midwest for January. Despite the record cold, Minneapolis will have a January, 2019 that will be only about a degree cooler than average. They had a warm start to the month.

In other words, January temperatures in Minneapolis will be  close to "normal."

The sticky question arises when you question whether the extremes that lead to these "normals" are getting more extreme. Climate scientists say they are. To me, judging whether the climate is more extreme than it used to be is sometimes hard to do.

Yes, there are more record highs than record lows lately, even though this week in the United States is chilly. You can measure that. There's evidence that floods, droughts and such are getting worse.

But the causes of months like January in the United States are hard to tease out. How much was due to just the usual randomness of the atmosphere? Did climate change influence any of this, and if so, by how much?

I don't know. The climate scientists will keep studying this. Meanwhile, we just keep bracing ourselves for our roller coaster weather ride, and hope this roller coaster doesn't totally derail.

Arctic Siege Ends, Glorious Vermont "Warmth" But New Problems? Also California Deluge

As is my routine, I took the dogs out first thing when I got up before dawn this  morning. Saturday, when the wind chill was ridiculous, the dogs ran outside, did their business and raced back indoors. 

The shades of purple over the Northeast, including Vermont
indicate quite a bit of precipitation over the next seven days,
but will it be rain, snow, mix, other?

This morning, the temperature was a tropical 18 degrees above zero. The dogs luxuriously lingered outside and took plenty of time to play in the snow. I didn't mind. Eighteen degrees isn't exactly warm, but after what we've been through, it felt like a summer heat wave. 

Most weather stations in the Northeast, including Vermont had their coldest or second coldest two weeks centered around New Year's Day on record. 

Ten of the 12 days ending yesterday went below zero. The first week of January in Burlington, Vermont clocked in at a full 16 degrees colder than normal. 

That's all over. At least for now. We're going to have a warm week, but of course, there's complications to that. There always is around here in Vermont. Especially in the winter.  Not only are there complications and dangers here, but in California as well. The Golden State desperately needs rain. And they're going to get it. Except it will be too much too soon. More on California further down in this post. 

First, back to our home state of Vermont to take things day by day through the week. 

TODAY: It'll actually be rather snowy in the mid and high elevations of Vermont. Some places have already had a couple inches of new snow overnight, and those higher spots can expect another one to as much as five inches of fresh powder today. 

It looks like the Champlain Valley will largely miss out. Winds a few thousand feet overhead are screaming in from the southwest. That will encourage the Adirondack Mountains to block moisture, so places like Burlington and Middlebury might only get occasional light snow showers today. No biggie.

At least it'll be finally warm enough for salt to work on the roads. I figure mid to upper 20s will do it this afternoon. Which is blessedly normal for this time of year. 

TUESDAY: Pick of the week. Clouds and maybe some scattered morning snow showers giving way to some sun. Breezy but not that bad. Afternoon temperatures 25 to 32. It'll be your day to enjoy outdoor winter sports, as it'll be a perfect day for that. 

WEDNESDAY: Also pretty nice, but getting dicey at night. Increasing clouds, warmish, with highs of around 30 degrees. But an ugly mix of sleet, snow and freezing rain will move in overnight. It won't come down all  that hard, but enough to muck up the morning commute.

THURSDAY:  Major heat wave, compared to what we've seen. Temperatures will go way up into the 40s, and maybe touch 50 in the warmest spots in the afternoon. A bonafide January thaw. There will be some rain showers around, but beware: The ground is so cold after that Arctic siege that rain could still freeze on pavements. Roads might be slippery even after temperatures go well above freezing. Walking will be a chore on all this ice, too. 

So yeah, Thursday afternoon could be a full 70 degrees warmer than it was Sunday morning. Believe it or not, that's not the biggest temperature flip flop I've ever seen but it is impressive.  In January, 1994, Vermont had a spate in which record lows in the 28 to 40 below range were recorded, followed two days later by temperatures in the mid and upper 40s. 

FRIDAY: The thaw continues with more rain. At this point, I'd start to worry about ice jam flooding on some rivers. The thick early season ice could start to break up and cause problems. Street flooding in urban areas could be an issue, too, as snowbanks could block storm drains. Temperatures well into the 40s again. 

SATURDAY: Lots of uncertainties here, but it could be a very, very troublesome day. There are definite signs that a strong storm will go through with lots and lots of moisture with it. That would mean heavy precipitation. The question is, what kind? Either way, we're kind of screwed.

If the storm goes by to the west, up the St. Lawrence Valley, that means heavy rain and possibly flooding. Some computer models give us that scenario. Other models take the storm further east, giving us Vermotners a lot of mixed precipitation or snow, or something. It could get ugly.

SUNDAY: Turning colder again. There are signs that this will be the start of another Arctic blast, but this one very likely won't be as intense or nearly as long lasting as the one that just ended..

CALIFORNIA CAN'T CATCH A BREAK:

Californians, especially in the southern part of the state, have spent the winter so far just begging, begging for rain. As we've noted, wildfires lasted past Christmas during a winter season that should be rainy, rainy, rainy and damp. 

Heavy rains forecast in southern California today
and tomorrow could easily cause mud slides and debris
flows below hillsides that had recent large wildfires.
They could end up with damage like in this photo. 

Finally, the rains are starting in California today. What the state needs is a steady, light, soaking rain, maybe a quarter to a half inch a day every day for a few weeks at least.

Instead, what southern California is in for is a deluge. No doubt, this heavy rain will help the water situation. But remember, there were all those fires. There's huge burn scars. Vegetation is burned away. 

Southern California can expect two to four inches of rain in the lowlands, with up to seven inches of rain in the foothills and the mountains through Tuesday. That's more than enough to cause debris flows and mudslides as the rains wash over burned out areas.

Since the burn scars are huge, these debris and mud flows could be huge, too. Homeowners who barely managed to have their homes saved from wildfires over the past few months now face the prospect of having them destroyed by mudslides and debris flows Ugh. Stay tuned on this one 

Worst Cold Wave Yet In Frigid Spell Due Friday

Forecast map depicting the strong storm over the Canadian
Maritimes. Frigid air and strong winds from this over
us in Vermont will make conditions totally brutal.

Once again, it was insanely cold this Tuesday morning, the second of January here in Vermont with ta few "warm" spots in the teens below zero, but most of us in the 20s below. 

Before dawn some spots were ridiculous, and these weren't even the absolute bottom low temperatures for the day. They probably went down a couple degrees.

 But here ya go. At 5 a.m. or so, it was 35 below in Island Pond, Vermont,  31 below in Gallup Mills, Vermont, 30 below in Whitefield, New Hampshire and 27 below in Morrisville, Vermont.

And despite a semi-break in the cold coming up in the next couple of days, believe it or not, we still think the worst is yet to come.

Let's get to the semi-break in the cold first. Temperatures in many areas will rise above zero today and stay above zero until Thursday evening. It'll still be a little cooler than normal through the period, with highs today in the single numbers today and near 20 Wednesday and Thursday, but it won't feel all that bad.

Then the bottom will drop out and it's back to the extreme cold. I still believe this next shot of Arctic air will be worse than what we've experienced so far.

Computer forecasting models have been consistent for days that a storm is about to get going around the Bahamas and become a super intense, vast nor'easter as it moves north well off the coast.

Incredibly, since the storm is forming so far south and the Arctic air is plunging so far south, there is actually a winter storm watch for coastal North Carolina all the way into northern Florida! Places like Lake City, Florida, home of palm trees and relatively balmy weather, might get a nasty ice storm out of this, plus maybe some snow.

In fact, flurries were reported last night as far south as central Florida, including around the city of Titusville.

There has been picky details of how close this monster will come to the coast, which would dictate how much snow and wind the East Coast, particularly New England gets on Thursday.

It continues to look like eastern New England will get a decent snowfall out of this. Here in Vermont, we'll get perhaps an inch or two west with up to five inches in the Northeast Kingdom. The biggest bust potential in this forecast is the amount of snow expected. We'll be on the western edge of the storm's precipitation shield. If it moves a little west, we'll get more snow. I little east, we'll get less.

But the real story here is the wind and the intense cold. This incredible storm will pull down pure Arctic air from Canada as it gets toward Nova Scotia and beyond.

Nova Scotia and other areas of Canada's Maritime Provinces are screwed with this storm. Environment Canada is already alerting residents there to the likelihood of 75 mph winds, storm surge flooding and heavy snow and coastal rain. I would say parts of coastal New England are also at risk for storm surges and damaging winds with this.

Since the storm will be so strong, and the Arctic high pressure to the west will also be very strong, we're going to get high winds along with the intense cold. Temperatures will fall below zero Thursday night or early Friday, and stay there until Sunday afternoon.

Those horrible winds, possibly gusting to 40 mph here in Vermont and elsewhere in New England, will cause terrible, terrible wind chills Friday through Saturday. By Friday evening and night, the actual tempertures will reach the teens below zero, and those relentless winds could bring wind chills to as low as 50 below. Off and on light snow, and blowing snow will complete the misery Friday into early Friday night.

Yep, we're talking Arctic wasteland here in Vermont and it will be dangerous. I worry about frozen pipes from the winds sifting into cracks in our houses. I would definitely postpone outdoor plans for Friday through early Sunday morning. It's just totally not worth it.

I'm glad that this big storm likely won't come closer to us. If it did, the wind would be even stronger, which would lead to power failures. Imagine how dangerous that would be in this intense cold.

The coldest actual temperatures will be late Saturday night into early Sunday, with widepread lows across the region in the 20s below, with several areas probably reaching 30 below.

As far as a ray of  hope goes, here goes: By Sunday afternoon, temperatures should rise above zero, and moderate dramatically to get well into the 20s by next Monday afternoon, although there will be a chance of snow.

There are signs of another brief Arctic blast during the middle of next week, but it won't be as intense as the one coming up, or the one we've experienced the past couple of days. The middle of the month won't necessarily be super warm here in Vermont, but at least it doesn't look like it will be much worse than we usually get in January.

So Cold There Might Be Funnel Clouds On Lake Champlain

In this map of how far above or below normal temperatures
were across the globe yesterday, note the cold in much
of North America, but the warmth in most of the rest of
the world. (Click on the map to make it bigger
and easier to read.)

In case you haven't noticed, the core of the cold arrived  here in Vermont and it's not going to go away anytime soon.

Most of us were in the teens below zero this morning. Over in New York State, Watertown, deep in lake effect snow from Lake Ontario, dropped to a remarkable 33 below zero as skies cleared there early this morning. That broke a record for the date of -23, set in 1993.

As I mentioned yesterday, the cold is widespread across the northern tier of the United States, and that will continue.

And it's a strong cold wave compared to many in recent years. Flint, Michigan dropped to 17 below, their all-time record low for any dates, though records only go back to 1921 in Flint. It might have been colder there before 1921.

Here in Vermont today, the air will grow slighly more unstable, and the wind will shift subtlely so that it will move generally north to south down most of the length of Lake Champlain. That sets the stage for some light lake effect snow, mostly south of Burlington.

More interestingly, it also sets the stage for cold air funnels and even brief waterspouts on Lake Champlain. This sometimes happens when the lake water is relatively warm and the air is super cold. These waterspouts aren't dangerous, and don't come on shore.

But if you dress warmly and you can stand it, find a view along the southern reaches of Lake Champlain (Charlotte would be good) and see if you can spot any funnels.

As mentioned yesterday, North America is the world's cold spot for now. Nowhere else in the world is nearly this far below normal. Central and southern Canada, and the northeastern half of the United States are the only real super cold spots in the world right now, at least compared to average.

To even things out, central Asia, parts of eastern Europe, parts of Siberia, southern Australia and northern Alaska right now are super warm compared to average for this time of year.

This frigid pattern still looks like it will last through at least the first week of January. Temperatures in Vermont and elsewhere will wax and wane a bit through the period, but generally stay at least 20 degrees below normal for most of the time.

Unfortunately, one of the more intense periods of cold looks like it will come on New Year's Eve. Remember how we were talking about the possibility of a nor'easter this weekend? Ain't going to happen. But a storm will form way off the New England coast and head northeastward away from the region while strengthening in the open waters of the Atlantic.

Warm thoughts on a cold day. As temperatures
 fell into the minus teens around my house in
St. Albans, Vermont, the Johnny's Seeds
catalog came in the mail to provide warm thoughts

That set up will increase northerly winds over the region Sunday, and also tug down another shot of pure North Pole air for New Year's Eve.

So if you're going to First Night or anything else on New Year's Eve, expect actual air temperatures to drop below zero by around sunset or even before. The winds will stay up all night, so wind chills could easily be in the 20s and 30s below zero.

You'll want to dress very warmly and be extremely careful New Year's Eve. I totally don't mean to be a Carrie Nation type scold, but remember, too, that alcohol makes you more susceptible to the cold, and impairs your judgement, so you might not go inside to get warm soon enough. Just keep that in mind.

A couple of other tips: Keep the gas tank full in your car. That increases the chances that it will actually start in these frigid mornings. Also, don't leave the dogs outside for that long.

Yeah, they're furry, but the pups still get dangerously cold quickly in this weather. Sure let 'em out to do their business and run around for a few minutes, but they can't take long periods of time outdoors.

There are hints it might briefly turn "warmer" for a day or two around next Wednesday when afternoon temperatures could, ahem, soar into the upper teens above zero.

We'll see.

That Impressive Cold Front Last Night Will Bring Near Record Cold To Some Northeast Cities

Boy, that was as impressive of a November cold front as you could get last night.

City forecast that are circled are where record
lows are threatened Saturday morning. Click on
the map to make it bigger and easier to see

When it rolled past my house shortly before 12:30 a.m. it was accompanied by thunderstorms, which brought cloud to ground lightning, loud thunder and quite a bit of pea-sized hail.

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington also reported thunderstorms.

As expected, the temperature plummeted behind the front, as strong northwest winds are blasting the cold air into the Northeast.

The strong winds will continue today and wind advisories are up for sizeable portions of New York and New England. Winds could gust to 45 mph, which would cause some scattered power outages once again

Temperatures before dawn ranged from the teens in northern New York to the 30s in central New England. Those temperatures will either stay steady or continue to fall the rest of the day.

Although not unprecedented, this is a strong cold snap for mid-November, and quite a few record lows for the date will be broken across the Northeast. The record low for Saturday in Burlington is 16 degrees, and current forecasts have the temperature dropping to 14 degrees.

I still wouldn't be surprised if a few of the cold pockets in the mountains get to zero.

The last time I saw a cold snap that threatened so many record lows was Valentine's Day, 2016.

Already, some records in the Midwest have fallen. It's even worse than here in some northern zones out that way.

International Falls, Minnesota, normally considered an icebox, is even more so. Both yesterday and this morning, it got down to 13 below in International Falls, breaking yesterday's daily record of 0 and today's daily record of -6. Duluth, Minnesota also saw record cold yesterday and today.

The record low of 18 degrees in Chicago was tied. At last check, Green Bay, Wisconsin had set a new low temperature record for today's date with 11 degrees.

However, like that Valentine's cold snap, the current one will be brief. We just have to endure a couple days of cold. By Sunday afternoon, temperatures will not exactly be warm, but not far from average for November.

Those highs Sunday in the upper 30s to mid 40s in Vermont will seem tropical after today and Saturday.

We're Still On For Biting Cold Tomorrow, Saturday

Get ready for midwinter cold Friday
and Saturday in the Northeast

November so far isn't following the playbook of September and October playbook here in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast.  

Gone is the persistent warm to record warm weather, and welcome to winter.

The first week of November here in Vermont was a little warmer than normal, but not to the extreme of the previous two months. And we're still bracing for quite a blast of Arctic weather tomorrow and Saturday.

The coming slam of cold air is far from unprecedented for mid-November; we do get this sort of thing from time to time in November. Still, a few towns and cities in the Northeast could have some near record cold for the date Saturday morning.

Here in Vermont, I'd still expect some icy roads for the Friday morning commute, especially in the north and mountains. When the cold front comes through tonight, there will initially be some rain, them some snow showers and snow squalls.

Accumulations won't amount to much, and in some areas, there will be no snow accumulation at all. But the temperature will plummet sharply after the cold front and any water on the roads and sidewalks will freeze super quickly.

This is the first time this fall that there is a risk of icy roads. People are particularly stupid the first time of the year we get this type of thing, so you're probably going to be late for work. Because the people ahead of you will probably cause car crashes. Leave for work early.

And take your ski parka. With expected high temperatures in the 20s Friday with wind chills in the single digits, it'll basically be a typical mid-January day.

Temperatures Friday night will bottom out in the single numbers, with some lower teens in the "warmer" spots near Lake Champlain. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the coldest hollows flirt with zero degrees.

There might be clouds and flurries near the east shores of Lake Champlain as the contrast between the very cold air and the relatively warm waters will produce clouds and perhaps lake effect flurries. The overall air mass will be quite dry Friday and Friday night, though, so I don't expect anything substantial off the lakes.

In western New York, south of Lake Ontario especially, there could easily be a brief period of lake effect snow as well. The dynamics of the cold front, and the sharp drop in temperature and the contrast with the warmish water of the lake, could actually trigger a thundersnow squall or two.

Saturday will also feature mid-winter cold, but with lighter winds and sunshine, it won't be quite a bad. Then from Sunday onward, it's back to seasonable November weather -- highs in the 40s. Which means winter hasn't permanently settled in just yet. Give it time.

Northeast Frigid Spell Has Begun, But Will Really Intensify By Saturday

Steam rises from Lake Champlain at Burlington, Vermont
during a sharp cold wave a few winters ago.
Similar scenes are likely this weekend. 

Yesterday, in Burlington, Vermont, it was the first cooler than normal day since January 24, ending a 17-day stretch of consecutive mild days.

This morning, I awoke in St. Albans, Vermont to a temperature of 5 below. It was a bone chilling 23 below over in Lake Placid, New York.


Burlington also had its first zero degree reading of the winter. Pretty late for the first one, but there you go.

The well-advertised cold wave has begun, but this is just a preview. We're still expecting the Big Chill to really descend on us tonight and last through the weekend, into Monday morning.

Wind chill warnings are up for most of New England and New York. After a warm winter, we're not used to this.

By this, I mean wind chills easily in the minus 20s, minus 30s even minus low 40s, especially Saturday afternoon, Saturday night and early Sunday morning.

High temperatures Saturday in northern New England will probably start the day just above zero, then slowly fall below zero during the day.

Saturday is going to be a truly awful day. The Arctic cold front that will bring this chill will have dropped anywhere between an inch and six inches of snow across the North Country. Winds gusting to at least 30 mph from the northwest will blow that snow around, and make it feel just brutal.

It really will be like living at the North Pole.

Saturday night looks totally brutal. Temperatures will all into the teens below zero across most of northern New York and northern New England. There will be a few 20s below as well. Winds will stay strong, so the wind chill is going to be a nightmare.

It might make it to 30 below in the Adirondacks.

The strong winds will drive the cold air into the southern New England cities. I wouldn't be surprised if Boston and New York have a rare subzero reading early Sunday morning.

Sunday looks frigid, too, but at least the wind will die down in the afternoon. After another subzero night Monday night, the cold wave will be over by afternoon. It will be in the 20s during the day Monday.

So, a couple of tips to get ready for the weekend:

Home Heat: Make sure there's enough fuel in your home furnace to make it through the weekend. Running out of fuel can make the house cold enough to freeze your pipes very quickly.

The Car: Keep the gas tank full in the car, too. It will start better with a full tank. Make sure the car battery is in good shape, too.  

My dog Jackson enjoys the outdoors last winter.
He won't want to stay out much during this weekend's
cold snap, and it would be dangerous to let him. 

Allthough trust me, even the most winterized car won't start that well in such cold temperatures.

If your car does start in this weather, there's no need to let it run for a long time before you drive off. With most cars nowadays, you only need let it run for a minute or so before you drive it in this weather.

You might want to leave a blanket, extra clothing and snacks in the car too, in case it stalls and you're stuck out there in this weather.

Your Neighbors: Give your elderly friends, neighbors and relatives a call or two this weekend, too. They're particularly susceptible to the cold, so you want to make sure they're OK.

Your Pets: Your dog will need to go outside and do his or her business no matter what the weather is, but it will be best not to let them linger outside too long. Yeah, pets are furry, but they still get dangerously cold in this weather.

Postpone your romp in the dog park until maybe Monday. And whatever you do, don't leave your dog or other animal chained up outside in this weather. Even if there's a dog house out there. That's just cruel, And dangerous. Please be kind to your furry companions.

Pro tip: A warm dog or cat is a great companion to have sleeping on your lap in these cold waves.

Your Weekend Plans: You'll also want to cancel that outdoor cross country ski excursion or ice skating party or snowboarding blast Saturday. It doesn't take long to get frostbite and hypothermia in this kind of weather.

Wait until Sunday afternoon, or better yet Monday when things get toastier.

Besides, it's Valentines weekend. If you've got a honey, just keep snuggling with him or her.

Weird, frustrating winter that it's been, the big warmup continues Tuesday as a storm rolls up the coast, and quite possibly tracks inland over New England.

It's uncertain exactly what will fall with this, but there's an excellent chance that any snow that gets going Monday night or Tuesday morning will change to mixed precipitation or rain Tuesday afternoon, even in northern New England.

This Tuesday forecast, I'll caution, is still EXTREMELY iffy. It could stay snow, it could be almost all rain, it could be an ugly mix. Just stay tuned for this one.

After Tuesday, another blast of cold air looks like it might envelop New England again, but that colder spell the middle and end of next week won't be anywhere nearly as frigid as the one now at our doorstep.

Big Cold Blast Coming In, As Expected

Bundle up in the Northeast. Over the
next few days, it's gonna get COLD! 

UPDATE: 

The forecast for that big cold blast heading into New England this weekend has changed little.

Wind chill watches are up through the weekend in much of th region, including all of Vermont. Wind chills Friday night through Sunday could easily reach 40 below at times.

Some of the big cities in the Northeast like Boston and New York could see record lows.

This isn't the usual type of winter cold wave where the it's frigid, and the sky is clear at night with deep snow on the ground and what little heat is near us escapes into space.

In those usual situations, rural valleys tend to get extremely cold, while urban centers with their pavement, cars, heated homes, etc. stay a bit warmer.

This cold wave will consist of a bitter blast of very windy air slamming down from the Arctic. The cold air will be force fed into the cities, so it will get almost as cold there as surrounding areas.

New York City might have its first below zero reading in years. Boston could have a record low for the date on Saturday. If that happens it'll be the first record low in Boston during February since 1967.

(Again, this is because the wind will blast the cold air into Boston.)

In the normally coldest spots of northern New England and the Adirondacks, it will be absolutely frigid, but not as bad as it can get in the winter. However, the wind chills will make up for the lack of 40 below weather.

Still, quite a few of the cold spots could make it to 20 below or a little colder Saturday night.

By the way, high temperatures Saturday and Sunday afternoon won't make it above zero in some towns in the North Country

The rest of the discussion, which I wrote yesterday, is still accurate. It's next:

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Way back in 1816, the so-called "Year Without A Summer" brought frosts and snows that kept hitting the upper Midwest and New England durin the so-called warm part of the year.

However, even in that frigid summer, there managed to be a heat wave  that sent temperatures briefly into the 90s before the chill returned.

The current Year Without a Winter is not as extremely warm as the summer of 1816 was cold, but you get the idea. And in this Kinda Year Without A Winter, we're about to get a bonafide true severe cold wave.

It won't last all that long, but you'll sure notice it. Especially since most of us are used to such a warm winter.

An area from Minnesota to the Northeast is going to get hit by cold, but northern New York, northern New England and southeastern Canada are going to take the brunt of this.

In fact, a lobe of the dreaded "polar vortex" is expected to sweep over northern New England Saturday night.

While temperatures will get below zero over the next few days from North Dakota to Maine, the deepest chill will hit Saturday through Sunday in the aforementioned path of the "polar vortex" lobe.

In Burlington, Vermont, the temperature has not gotten below zero yet this winter. That will change over the weekend.

Worse, the wind will blast hard out of the northwest Saturday through Sunday mornings. It's a sure bet wind chill warnings will fly Saturday into Sunday for a large area of the Northeast, especially New England.

The cold is coming in a couple waves. The first is entering the picture this Wednesday evening.  It will be kind of cold in the Great Lakes and Northeast Thursday, but nothing special for mid-February. Temperatures will probably run five to ten degrees below normal for most areas Thursday.

Then a second, stronger cold front and little storm will come through New England Friday. It''ll drop light amounts of snow, but more importantly, it will introduce that polar vortex.

High temperatures Saturday in much of northern New England probably won't get above zero, and those screaming northwest winds will take the wind chill down to as low as 40 below.

Going on a Saturday night date with your lover Saturday night, ahead of Sunday's Valentine's Day?

Maybe you ought to stay home and cuddle instead. With temperatures in the single numbers and teens below zero, maybe 20 below in spots, combine with winds gusting to over 30 mph, YIKES!!!!

If you kiss your honey outside in that weather, your lips will freeze together. Just giving you that warning.

Sunday looks awfully cold, too, but at least the wind will die down and the sun will be out. By afternoon, it will be cold, in the single numbes and teens, but it really won't feel that bad.

It'll warm up dramatically Monday and Tuesday, with high temperatures possibly popping back above freezing in many areas hardest hit by this upcoming cold snap.

However, the forecast starting next Monday is extremely uncertain. The best I can do is tell you the weather pattern looks very, VERY changeable for the rest of February in New England.

Expect a wide variety of weather for the rest of the month.

But here's some bright news for you winter cold haters: We haven't gotten any real cold waves until now, and starting in late February, the power of winter cold waves starts to wane.

Even if we do get more Arctic outbreaks into March, the tendency will be to have them slowly get more and more lame.