Why You Don't Want To Be In Alaska This Month

Ice fog often forms around Fairbanks, Alaska, when it gets very
cold, like it is now up there. Photo by John Dougherty/KTVF

Frankly, I would never want to be in Alaska in January. No matter which year.

Heck, I'm such a wimp that I'm too cold this month in Vermont, and it's been a much warmer than normal January.

Not so in Alaska. That state came off its warmest year on record in 2019 but that northern state has had quite a flip to start 2020.  

It's damn cold up there, even by their standards.

Take Fairbanks, Alaska (Please!). The average temperature there so far this month is -21.2 degrees Which is 13.1 degrees below normal through January 27. (That their normal January temperature is alround 8 below is another chilly story).

It's been at least 30 below on 16 days this month in Fairbanks, with the lowest reading dropping to 43 below On ten days, the high failed to get above minus 20.

Unbelievably, the odd thing about the cold in Fairbanks is not how frigid it is. It's just that it's been consistently cold.  Fairbanks typically gets January "thaws" in which you get spells in temperatures rise all the way into the teens and 20s above zero. But not this year. The hottest day so far this January up there reached to 4 above zero.

The Fairbanks cold is nowhere near to breaking any records. While many nights have gotten into the 30s below zero this month, most record daily record lows in January are within a few degrees either side of minus 60.  Ugh!

Down in "tropical" southern Alaska, its the same cold story this month.   Anchorage has never had a January in which the temperature has failed to get to 24 degrees or above. This month, it has only gotten as high as 22 degrees this month.  There is a chance, just a chance it could get warmer than that in Anchorage Wednesday before the frigid air returns.

Not all of Alaska is in their version of the deep freeze. On the northern tip of Alaska, the community of  Utqiagvik, formerly Barrow has had an average temperature so far this month of minus 11.3 degrees. That sounds awful, but that's still 1.9 degrees warmer than average.

It's this cold in Alaska this winter because the overall weather pattern is vastly different than it has been in recent winters.  Winters lately have featured relatively weak jet stream and steering pattern winds over the Arctic.

That helped create big dips and bulges in the jet stream. That pattern has allowed big chunks of very cold air to plunge south into places like the United States. It also allowed plumes of mild air to stream north into places like Alaska.

This year, the jet stream winds in the northern hemisphere are pretty strong and generally west to east, keeping the cold air bottled up in the far north. It also keeps the Polar Vortex way up there.

The Polar Vortex, as you remember, is this very normal pool of frigid air up over the Arctic. Sometimes, pieces of it break off, causing those frigid outbreaks in places like the United States and western Europe.  Not this year. That's why it's been such a warm January across most of the continental U.S., including here in Vermont.

It's hard to say whether this pattern will maintain itself through the rest of the winter and early spring.

There are a few signs that the jet stream might buckle a little bit, allowing a few squirts of Arctic air into places like the United States, and a few shots of somewhat milder air to go up into Alaska. We'll see!

I guess it was time for Alaska to turn cold. As noted above the year 2019 was easily the warmest year on record in Alaska. Four of the last six years in Alaska have been the warmest on record, so this January has been an exception, for sure.

Bitter Cold. Next Up: Freezing Rain In Vermont. Oh, Joy!

Bad road conditions in Burlington, Vermont last winter. Expect more
of the same as winter's early arrival keeps punishing us.

I'm more than a little jealous of people in north central and parts of the Northeast Kingdom.

Last evening, as those well-predicted snow squalls lumbered through, there were lightning strikes up in that area.

Thundersnow! I haven't seen that in a few years, so I missed out. Where I'm at in St. Albans, there were some snow showers, but nothing spectacular.  So congratulations to those who got thundersnow.  You get the Jim Cantore thundersnow excitement award.

Now, as expected, its ridiculously cold out there. Most of us were in the single numbers to low teens at dawn broke this morning. A couple subzero readings showed up.  As of 6 a.m., it was minus 2 at Gallup Mills, Vermont in the Northeast Kingdom and early this morning it was a remarkable 8 below at the tradtional cold spot of Saranac Lake, New York. 

We will have record cold high temperatures today, as temperatures only peak between 15 and 22 degrees. It should be in the low to mid 40s this time of year. More record low temperatures are due tonight, with lows regional wide from about minus 5 to plus 10.

Think this winter misery for so early in the season is over after that? Think again. I hope you like freezing rain and ice, because that seems like it's coming our way Monday into Tuesday.

Now, this won't be the type of 1998 ice storm that brings down all the trees and powerlines. Not by a long shot. There will only be a light accumulation of ice. Enough to make the roads, sidewalks and such a slick nightmare.

There's still a lot of question marks as to how much ice will come, exactly when it will come and how much sleet or snow might mix in.  On Monday afternoon, temperatures in many areas will probably sneak a couple degrees above freezing.

But it's been so cold that the ground is frigid, so rain will freeze when it hits. This is normally a problem later in the winter, not in November. But this is a bizarre month. Has been from Day 1.

The Monday evening commute and Tuesday morning trip to work will both be tricky.  Again, there won't be a lot of precipitation, but it will be the wrong kind.  At this point, it looks like the mix will change to snow Tuesday morning, but there won't be a huge accumulation.

This icy start to the week will come from an offshore nor'easter.  It will be pretty far out to sea, which explains why the precipitation won't be especially heavy in Vermont. But the weather pattern will pull moisture inland from the storm, which means we will get some icy ick coming from the sky.

This same nor'easter will cause gusty winds, coastal flooding and a lot of beach erosion in the Southeast and the Mid-Atlantic states.

The next storm comes Friday. It's too soon to give you details. Early hints are it will be a rain to snow situation, but there's plenty of time yet to figure that one out.

Vermont Snowstorm On Track; Big News Is Midwest Icebox

The latest snowfal prediction map for the region. The blue
in northern New York and Vermont depicts less snow,
around 5 inhes, while most of central and southern Vermont
can expect six to nine inches. 

Good Tuesday to you all!

I'll get into what's up here in Vermont first. (Spoiler: Snow, then cold.) Then I'll address the frozen elephant in the room, which is that intense Midwest and Plains Arctic blast that's making headlines.

HERE IN VERMONT

Light snow was falling here and there across Vermont and surrounding areas this morning, and that state of affairs should continue the rest of the day. That's coming from a fading storm coming in from the west.

Forecasters are still very confident a developing storm along the East Coast will spread moderate snow across Vermont later this afternoon, tonight and early tomorrow morning.

This still looks like a mid-sized, run-of-the-mill snowfall for the Green Mountain State. Most of the state should get four to ten inches out of this, with the least up in the northwest corner and the most in the high elevations and in eastern Vermont.

Winter storm warnings are up for most of Vermont, and winter weather advisories are in effect for western portions of the state.

It will be a powdery snow, so there's no worries about trees and power lines getting weighed down by heavy sludge. You'll need extra time to make it home this evening on the roads, and you'll need to leave early tomorrow morning for work and school because the roads won't be in great shape then, either.

You know the drill. You've done it plenty of times this winter.

That Arctic blast from the Midwest will start to come in on Wednesday.  Temperatures will slowly fall in the afternoon, and we're stuck in the ice box through Saturday.

As I mentioned yesterday, this cold wave will certainly be quite unpleasant in Vermont, but not nearly as bad as out west. I'll get into that in a moment.

The last half of the week will feature overnight lows from 0 to 15 below, depending upon whether you're in Vermont's banana belts or cold hollows. Highs will range from 0 to 15 above through the period. Wind chills could sink to as low as 30 below, especially Thursday.

A dramatic warmup still looks to be in the cards starting Sunday -- highs in the 30s! The forecast is a bit vague and uncertain beyond that. From this vantage point, Vermont looks like it will be relatively mild early next week, with risks of some snow, mixed precipitation and/or rain.

MIDWEST ICEBOX TO SET SOME RECORDS, BUT....

This credit union in Minot, North Dakota was
exaggerating things a bit yesterday. A sensor
broke in the sign, causing the wrong reading.
Still it was 19 below with a 45 below wind chill
in Minot this morning. 

The widely advertised intense cold wave has blasted into the middle of the nation, and they are feeling the chill big time.

In those rare instances when temperatures get into the minus 20s here in the Champlain Valley of Vermont, I really fall into a mode of dread. We should feel fortunate. High temperatures - Highs! today in northern Minnesota and northeastern North Dakota will be in the minus 20s.

It'll get into the minus 40s tonight.

Couple that with wind chills in the minus 60s and you know people are hibernating up there.

It's true this is probably the Midwest's most intense cold snap in a generation. It already is, in fact. There have been record low tempeatures in several cities and there will be more. On Sunday the was an unofficial report of an actual temperature getting down to 57 below in Cotton, Minnesota, which is close to the statewide record low of 60 below in 1996.

Minneapolis got below zero very early this morning and probably won't get above zero again until Friday morning. Lows Thursday morning could flirt with 30 below in the Twin Cities. Chicago could get into the minus 20s.

This is likely the worst cold wave in the Midwest since 1996.

The warnings to take care against the chill and be safe are well-placed. But to put it in perspective, if you want to avoid the hype, this cold snap will fall well short of the most intense, worst cold waves in U.S. history.

Cold waves of this magnitude are increasingly rare as global warming takes hold. Past cold waves make this one seem like just a cool, breezy day.

Some examples courtesy of The Weather Channel, which largely cited weather historican Christopher Burt:

The year 1899 featured what was probably the worst cold wave in U.S. history. It was 61 below in Montana and 2 below in Tallahassee, Florida. The nation had 45 states at the time, and all of them fell below zero.

A snow ball fight in Tallahassee, Florida during
the history cold wave of 1899. 

It was 16 below in Louisiana, 39 below in Ohio and 47 below in Nebraska, which still stand as the coldest temperatures on record in those states. It was 9 below in Atlanta. Parts of the St John's River around Jacksonville, Florida froze over and people walked out on the ice.

Ice floes emptied out of the Mississippi River into the  Gulf of Mexico.

So yeah, this cold wave is a piece of cake.

This cold wave won't last all that long. By the weekend. Temperatures across the ice box region will be near or above normal.

Minneapolis is expecting a high of 38 on Saturday, which would be 66 degrees warmer than the expected low on Thurday morning.

Past cold waves have lasted far longer than this. In the winter of 1935-36, the temperature stayed continuously below zero for 41 in Langdon, North Dakota.

In 1976-1977 the temperature stayed continuously below freezing in Burlington, Vermont for 52 days.

So yeah this cold wave is bad, but it could be so much worse. That's, ahem, cold comfort I realize, but take what you can get.

That Arctic Blast Everybody's Talking About And What It Means For Us

Do you like cold weather? Head to Minnesota. These were temperatures
there this morning. Expect this and worse in Minnesota and the
rest of the Midwest most of this week.

The big Arctic blast that everybody's been hyping in the Midwest seems to have started kind of before it began.

An initial surge of bitter air settled over an area centered around northern and central Minnesota - and  surrounding areas - this morning, setting some awfully nasty record low temperatures in the process.

Meanwhile, the main surge of Arctic air should surge across the Canadian border tomorrow. For parts of the western Great Lakes and Midwest, this will be the most intense cold wave in at least a few years.

It won't be the worst ever, contrary to what some clickbait types are telling us, but it will be impressive.

For us here in Vermont, we'll have our share of bitter air with this, but it won't be as bad as our friends to the west are experiencing. I'll get into how Vermont fares in a bit.

First, we go west. Checking the weather in International Falls, Minnesota early this morning, their conditions were dense freezing fog, with a temperature of 45 below. That's not the wind chill. That's the actual temperature.

That 45 below was a new record for the date, beating 36 below in 1966. It was a record 40 below in Hibbing, Minnesota and 47 below in Ava, Minnesota.  They can keep that.

On Saturday, it was 23 below in Madison, Wisconsin, colder than any reporting station in Alaska. (It's a bit on the warm side for this time of year in much of Alaska.

It will get worse out there in the Midwest. The temperatures probably won't go that low again this upcoming week, but the wind chills with the  main Arctic outbreak this week will be ridiculous.

Low temperatures this week in cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Des Moines and Detroit could easily fall to levels not seen since the 1990s. Minneapolis could get well into the minus 20s. Chicago might flirt with 20 below, too.

Of course, cold snaps of this magnitude used to be more common, but have gotten more rare with global warming.

As dangerous as this cold wave will be for the center of the nation - and it is a dangerous cold wave - it won't last nearly as long as some of past historic cold waves, like those in the 1930s and to a lesser extent those in the 1970s.

By next weekend, temperatures in the Midwest will be rebounding to levels that are chilly, but nothing out of the ordinary for early February.

I also want to add a hype alert: You will see it in the headlines all week, "OMG!! Polar Vortex Invades US! We're all DOOOMMMED!!!!!!!!!!!

Um, no. Pieces of the Arctic polar vortex do break off and head south from time to time, occasionally reaching the United States. That's what's happening this week, and it's not that weird. Although the intensity of the cold will be worse than usual, it's not unprecedented.

During a similar weather pattern in 1996, the temperature fell to as low as minus 60 in northern Minnesota. It won't get that cold this time.

VERMONT EFFECTS

We in the Green Mountain State will certainly feel the effects of this Arctic blast, but it won't be as bad as it's likely to be in the Midwest.

The Arctic air is coming almost due south from the northern reaches of Canada straight down into the northern Plains and western Great Lakes. It will move fast and  not have a chance to warm up even a smidge by the time it hits the United States. That's why places like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois are going to be hit so hard with this.

From there, the Arctic air will head east, across the Great Lakes toward us. The comparatively warm waters of the lakes will modify the air a little bit. Also, once the bitter blast gets as far south as the United States, it will be exposed to more sunshine than areas in northern Canada. That will take a little bit of the punch out of the chill as well.

That said, it won't be a picnic here in Vermont. This cold wave will probably be on par with the one we had last Monday. That means from Wednesday into next weekend, we'll have subzero nights and early mornings, and high temperatures in the single number and teens, which is definitely a lot colder than normal.

Wind chills will be brutal, too, especially Wednesday and Thursday. This won't be the worst cold wave ever in Vermont - not by a long shot. But it will be unpleasant, that's for sure.

Before we get to the chill, we have some more snow to talk about. As of mid-morning today, Sunday, January 27, there are already snow showers and blowing snow around Vermont amid gusty south winds.

Those south winds are bringing a bite to otherwise relatively mild air that will take us to near 30 this afternoon.

The big news today is something that on radar looks like one of those summer time thundery, gusty squall lines heading toward us. In today's case, that's a line of snow squalls that seem destined to come through Vermont during early to mid afternoon.

This line of squalls will hit some areas harder than others, but a lot of us face the prospect of a brief period of very heavy snow, terrible visibility on the roads, which will suddenly become slick, and some relatively strong gusty winds.

Snow accumulations today will only amount to one to three inches, but in many places those snow squalls will be a danger.

Monday, a modified piece of that Arctic air from Minnesota will be here, giving us a chilly day. Tuesday will warm up to near 30 degrees ahead of that main cold front. A complex storm along this front at this point looks like it could give us a few to several inches of snow.

Then the Arctic blast hits. Enjoy the ride!

Early Winter Blast Coming Into Nation, Including, Eventually, New England

If you like winter, you'll love the weather in much of the nation
over the next week or two. The cold weather makes here into
Vermont this weekend and especially next week.

If you love winter, you're going to be ecstatic about the weather pattern across most of the nation in the coming week to 10 days.

What may well be the coldest spell of November weather since at least 2014 - and in many areas since long before that - is entering the picture.

Pretty much everyone east of the Rockies will share in this mid-winter type joy, if you can call it that.

The epicenter of this cold blast is, as usual, places like North Dakota, northern Minnesota, northeastern Montana, those types of areas. In some North Dakota towns, the temperature went below freezing yesterday and probably won't get above 32 degrees again until the middle of next week.

The cold from Canada will come in waves, which is normal, with the strongest shot likely to start plunging southward on Sunday and engulfing most of the eastern United States next Monday through Thursday.

Parts of the northern Plains could have overnight lows below zero next week. High temperatures in a broad area reaching all the way across New England could easily have high temperatures that never make it above freezing.

There are some signs the Southeast might really be super cold, relative to average. It won't be like North Dakota down there, but to them, it could end up feeling like the heart of January. We'll see.

It's a bit soon to say how this cold spell will rank historically, but given the warm autumns much of the nation has had in recent years, this will feel kind of shocking.

Of course, when it's that cold, it snows. It's a little hard to tease out at this point who will get the heaviest snows. There will certainly be some lake effect thumpers in places like Michigan, northern Ohio and western New York.

Here in New England, it's possible we could get a lot of snow from a storm or two, but that's still unlikely. But we will face the prospect of at least a little snow, and the first true widespread bout of icy roads, even in the valleys.

Us Vermonters can enjoy some relative warmth this week before the cold settles in. There will be a gradual cool down between Wednesday and Sunday, and the biting weather will come next week.

Before it gets too cold, another round of rain seems likely Friday and Friday night. Some of that might come down as snow in the higher elevations Friday night. We'll have to wait until they fine tune the forecast to see how much snow falls up there and to which lower elevations, if any, the snow reaches.

Mostly Random Thoughts On The Record Arctic Blast As It Concludes

A frigid near -20 view from a web cam at the University
of Vermont in Burlington this morning. Note the steam
on Lake Champlain from the rapidly shrinking part
of the lake that is still not frozen. 

I'm still working on a bit of an opus on how this huge Arctic blast and storminess has become a pawn in the climate change political wars, but since it's still in the minus 20s as I write this early Sunday morning, let's offer a few other bits and pieces on this first.  

RECORD LOWS

There were widespread record lows across the Northeast this morning, including here in Vermont, where Burlington reached 20 below, the first time the temperature there has touched 20 below since January 16, 2009.

It's also the first time Burlington has had a record low since 2015. (During just 2017 in Burlington, 13 record highs were tied or broken.)

Yesterday in Burlington never got above zero, the first time that's happened since January, 2014.

As the day goes on today, I'm sure we'll get lots of reports of new low temperature record set throughout the Northeast today.

The nation is now temporarily having more record lows than record highs, a reversal from the past year. According to NOAA, as of yesterday, 1.275 record low minimums have been recorded across the United States and just 161 record highs. (way out in the western part of the nation.)

The overall longer term trend has had record highs far outpacing record lows. I'm sure global warming has something to do with that. Over the past 365 days, the United States has seen 34,151 record highs and only 10,398 record lows at the many hundreds of weather stations across the country.

With this long Arctic outbreak finally showing signs of petering out, the pace of record highs will start to increase in the coming days and the pace of record lows will surely decrease.

By the way, back here in Vermont, temperatures are now forecast to get well into the 40s by Thursday. A January thaw seems almost definitely on the way.

NOT SHIP SHAPE

One bit of news that came out of that huge, destructive nor'easter that hit last week has me steaming mad at Norwegian Cruise Lines, of all outfits.

The 4,000 passenger cruise ship Norwegian Breakaway sailed into the teeth of the extraordinarily strong nor'easter on a return trip from Bermuda to New York last week and encountered 30 foot swells and hurricane force winds.

Passengers onboard reported water pouring into the ship from all angles, water dripping down elevator shafts, two inches of water in staterooms. Glass shattered everywhere as things fell off shelves. The force of the waves even shattered glass shower doors in guest rooms, reports CBS 2 in New York. 

You can see in a video at the bottom of this post scenes of interior flooding, and outdoors, immense waves and hurricane force winds.

The infuriating thing is Norwegian Cruise lines should have known that storm was there. The cruise company put out a statement saying the ship "encountered stronger than forecasted weather conditions due to winter storm Grayson during the trip's return to New York from the Bahamas."

There's shifting blame for your own mistakes on to an innocent party for you. The size, strength, intensity and general location of this storm had been widely forecast by meteorologists for days before the storm actually developed.  I call bullshit on Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Luckily, there were no serious injuries, but there was damage and a lot of vacations were ruined.

CBS 2 contacted other cruise lines, who said they wisely detoured their ships around the southern periphery of the storm to avoid the worst effects of the waves and wind. These maneuvers caused  minor delays in schedules. But who cares? Everybody was safe and sound on those ships.

FAST NEWS FRIENDS

On to a lighter topic: Inevitably, in extreme weather, news stations put their reporters outdoors into the thick of it, where they look miserable as they tell us the obvious: It's nasty out.

In Belmar, New Jersey, WNBC Reporter Tracie Strahan was out on a beach boardwalk during the storm, near a coffee shop that was closed due to the storm. This gal needed coffee!

Enter "Mikey Bones" as the reporter called him, Mike Flint of Neptune, New Jersey, who brought coffee to our intrepid reporter. The two became fast friends on air. The affable Mike, with his thick Jersey accent and goofy smile, just made the news report so much better and you can see Strahan get much happier on air with Mike, and the coffee.

Video is below, followed by that video from the storm-tossed Norwegian Cruise Line ship.

The famous "Mikey bones blizzard television interview from last week:



The Norwegian Cruise Line in the big storm, where it shouldn't have gone:

Most Insane Part Of Arctic Blast Is Today, Relief Coming, I Promise

Early this morning, I took the dogs outside to do their business at my St. Albans, Vermont house.

Flooding, ice chumks, debris, stuck cars and snow
remained Friday in coastal Massachusetts, still
recovering from the nor'easter and near record storm
surge and now, bitter cold. 

Needless to say, Jackson and Tonks did NOT stay out long, not with a roaring wind, blowing snow, subzero temperatures and a wind chill in the minus 30s.

I even had trouble closing the door when I got the dogs inside. Blowing snow was getting into the door jam and freezing. It's that bad.

Yes, here in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast, today is insane, no two ways about it. And we're tired of it. Aside from a rather poor excuse for a break in the cold this past Wednesday, we've endured this since December 26 - nearly two weeks.

The end of this Arctic siege is coming though. It will very likely be a temporary end, as it's still early winter, but we'll take it.

As we keep saying, you want to be super careful today in northern New England, much of the rest of the Northeast and southeastern Canada. Don't go outside if you don't have to, and if you do, cover up everything. Skin can easily freeze in less than a minute in these conditions.

Check on your elderly neighbors, too, They can get in trouble quickly in this weather. They can have problems with heat, or busted pipes or something else. Make sure they're warm and safe.

By the way, there's been a lot of nonsense online and in the media as to whether this cold snap and big nor'easter is a sign there's no global warming, or that climate change is entirely to blame. Look for a reality check on this ridiculous jabber in the next day or two.

Here in Vermont, temperatures will stay below zero all day. If Burlington, Vermont stays below zero all day today, which is highly likely, it'll be the first time that's happened since January 22, 2014. (It used to happen pretty much every year, but winters have generally gotten a little warmer.)

The wind will continue to crank all day, too. So there will be little, if any improvement from this morning's conditions.

The news for tonight is a mixed bag. On the plus side, the National Weather Service has backed away a bit from what they expect to be cold overnight lows. Instead of 20s to upper 30s below zero, depending on your location, we're now looking at something like 15 to 30 below. Vaguely better.

But that's because the wind will keep going for a good part of the night, keeping the atmosphere mixed and interfering with radiation of what little heat there is out to space. The wind will die down before dawn, and that's when temperatures will really plunge. Exactly how cold it gets where you are depends upon how early the wind dies down. The earlier the calm winds arrive, the colder it will get, generally speaking.

Temperatures will start to warm late Sunday morning and afternoon but you probably won't notice it. When a cold snap like this one ends in Vermont, I like to say it "warms up cold" especially in the Champlain Valley.

What happens is, the temperature indeed rises. But as the warmer air begins to flood in, strong southerly winds also arrive, most noticeably in the Champlain Valley.  That means wind chills become an issue again.

Sunday, then, won't be a nice day. There will also be a lot of blowing snow around. Remember, the wind Sunday will be coming from the opposite direction as it has for the past two days. That means snow that blew into protected areas will blow around again. Look for snowy, icy patches on roads, drifts and areas of poor visiblity.

It's going to snow again, too, on Sunday night and Monday. Not much. We're looking at one to three inches most places.

By Monday afternoon, however, the warm air will have flooded in. Look for temperatures somewhere in the 25 to 35 degree range Monday. That's above zero, my friends.

If the temperature rises above freezing in Burlington Monday, that would mean we spent 15 consecutive days below freezing. That's not an amazing record, though. That would tie us for the 63rd longest continuous stretch below freezing. The record is 52 days, during the tough winter of 1976-77.

Another cold front will come through Tuesday, but don't worry, this next cold front is really lame. You really won't even notice it. High temperatures Tuesday will be near 32 degrees and "cool" into the 20s Wednesday. Not bad.

Toward the end of the week - Thursday and Friday - we could genuinely get into some thaw conditions in Vermont, with temperatures possibly in the 30s to low 40s during the day. The only problem is mixed precipitation or even rain is a good bet on those days.

Even if there's plain rain, it's been so cold lately that the ground temperatures are frigid. Say it's 38 degrees and raining Thursday afternoon. We'd still be getting freezing rain because the precipitation would likely freeze on contact with pavement. But at least it will be warmer!

This pattern change is good news, though, for most of the country. The eastern half of the nation has been in a deep freeze for so long now. This new weather pattern will keep almost the entire nation warm.

It also has been scarily dry in California this winter. Wildfires lasted into the end of December, which is unprecedented. This new weather pattern makes rainstorms and mountain snowstorms a very good bet for all of California in the upcoming week or two. They only drawback to the California rains is that, starting Monday, locally heavy rains will cause potentially dangerous debris flows in the vast areas hit by wildfires between August and December.

This warmer, and for California, wetter pattern looks like it will last at least into the third week of January. (We'll get brief cold spells here in Vermont, but nothing extreme.) Who knows, though, what we'll deal with in late January and February? At least we're getting a break, though.

The Frigid Blast Has Arrived; Snow, Blowing Snow, Too, But Hope On Horizon?

The scene in Boston during storm surge
flooding on Thursday. 

The epic nor'easter from yesterday has pulled away into Atlantic Canada, but here in Vermont, we're still going to have that hangover of snow, lots of blowing snow, wind, and frigid temperatures.

We've been advertising this for days, of course, and now it's here. Moisture wrapping around from the Atlantic Ocean down toward us will keep the snow falling today, especially in the north and mountains.

The snow won't be all that heavy, but it will continue to pile up.  Which means this storm is overachieving in northern Vermont. The Champlain Valley can expect storm totals in the six to nine inch range, with most of northern Vermont getting a grand total of six to 12 inches out of this. A moderate size snowfall, yes. But that wind and cold!

It's a really fluffy snow, so gusts to 40 mph or even more will really whip that stuff around. It's going to be tough driving to work or school or wherever today with all the snow, black ice, drifting snow, poor visibility in blowing snow and those low temperatures.  A lot of schools will close or have delayed openings today anyway.

But think about it: We're almost through this long, nasty cold spell, which began on Christmas. Seems like ages ago. Yes, there's wind chill warnings here in Vermont through Saturday night for air that will feel like it's 40 below or so.

Yes, the wind and blowing snow are miserable. And temperatures still expected in the 20s to low 30s below zero Sunday morning are nothing to embrace, that's for sure.

The end of this cold siege is at hand, however. Sunday afternoon will still be quite chilly, but not nearly as bad. By Monday and Tuesday, practically all will be forgotten as temperatures rise to the 20s to around 30. There might be a little snow those days, but we can handle that.

Traffic backed up on the Arctic wasteland, namely Interstate
89 in Milton, Vermont this morning. Lots of black ice.

Forecasting models have also pretty much abandoned the idea of another Arctic blast for the middle of next week. YAY!!!  It's even quite possible a January thaw of sorts could come in for a couple days toward the end of next week.

Meanwhile, they're picking up the pieces in places like Massachusetts and Maine, where this intense nor'easter caused a lot of storm surge flooding along the coast on Thursday.

At least 75 homes in Suffolk County, Massachusetts had water on their first floors. Water surged onto the streets of downtown Boston.

Other homes flooded on Cape Cod. Throughout the coastline, motorists were caught by surprise by the flooding, and had to be rescued. Quite the memorable storm to say the least. You can see videos of it all at the bottom of this post.

The Weather Channel said more than 4,000 airline flights were canceled on Thursday, and it will take awhile to work through that backlog.

In Canada, up to 100,000 residents lost power in the places like Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Deep snow engulfed New Brunswick, while heavy rain, hurricane force wind gusts and destructive storm surges assailed Halifax. On coastal location in Nova Scotia reported a wind gust of 105 mph. It gusted to 72 mph in Halifax.

As of this morning the intense cold that's beginning to affect us here in Vermont is also surging into the Maritime Provinces in Canada.

The storm might have also set a record, at least for the western Atlantic. To qualify for the now-famous "bomb" status, the storm had to get stronger by 24 millibars (an air pressure measurement) within 24 hours. Preliminary estimates indicate the storm strengthened by 59 millibars within 24 hours.

At least we got through it all. So far anyway.

Below are some videos from the Massachusetts coastal storm surge yesterday:

Storm surge in Marshfield, Mass:



Chaos in the Seaport district of Boston:

If You Think This Is Bad, Wait Until Next Friday's Arctic Blast

Blue nation: This morning's National Weather Service
home page map was a study in blue, filled with
vast areas of wind chill and freeze alerts.

I usually don't like to talk much about forecasts more than five days down the road, but this time I do want to put out an alert that the frigid Arctic cold wave we're having looks like it will reach its crescendo next Friday and Saturday in New England.

It looks very grim. Could be one of the most brutally cold days in my lifetime. Considering I'm 55, that's saying something.

Oh, I know, it might not be as bad as current predictionss are indicating now.  Forecasts change. But some indications for next Friday are shivering my timbers, let me tell ya.

First let's get through the latest Arctic blast, which came in last night. It seemed "warm" in Burlington, Vermont for awhile Saturday afternoon.  The temperature peaked at a lovely, balmy 11 degrees above zero in the afternoon, the hottest it's been since Tuesday evening.

That, of course, didn't last long. It was back to the deep freeze last night, and that will continue through New Year's Eve. Looking at the national weather map, the United States is now Blue Nation, and I'm not talking about politics.

At least half of the U.S. is colored in hues of blue on the National Weather Service home page - filed with wind chill warnings and advisories, and in the south, hard freeze warnings.

I haven't seen such a vast cold wave in the United States in quite a few years.

Can I stop right here and indulge in another rant about people on the roads? During this cold snap, we here in Vermont and a lot of other places in the vast cold zone have been getting little bouts of light snow. It's too cold for salt to work.  The snow and ice stays on the highways. The wind does appears to blow some of the snow off the roads, so they're perfect, right?

Um, no. Car tires have been compacting some of this light snow into black ice. The roads don't look too bad, but they're icy. I saw a lot of cars off Interstate 89 Friday evening and a few more Saturday. Motorists are going 75 mph. They don't get it that there's black ice, which is hard to see. Slow down, morons!!    

This cartoon by George Danby in the Bangor (Maine)
Daily News this week pretty much sums things up. 

At the bottom of this post, you'll see some videos from Michigan of people going too fast on the highways during lake effect snow squalls. People gotta learn to slow down. More people are going to be killed because people are too stupid to slow down on ice and low visibility.

Rant over. Moving on. As expected, it's damn cold today, and will be tonight for New Year's Eve festivities. We're still looking at wind chills in the teens and 20s below zero come midnight in Vermont, so 2018 is starting out by giving us the cold shoulder, to put it gently.

It'll stay cold New Year's Day, then we get into a "mild" spell Tuesday and Wednesday, when high temperatures will rise all the way up into the teens to around 20. Break out those swimsuits, baby!

Then we get into the trouble I talked about at the start of this blog post. An ocean storm will get going in the Bahamas and track northward, well off the East Coast. It will intensify rapidly, and become a vast, intense super strong wind machine.

It's still hard to say how far off the coast this monster will track. At this point it looks far enough away to spare the eastern United States from a lot of snow but it still bears watching.

Once this huge storm approaches the waters off New England, it will tend to curl a little bit toward the northwest, while still strengthening. That could cause a blizzard in eastern Maine if it comes close enough, and a little snow in Vermont. And it will probably cause an epic, dangerous storm in the Canadian Maritimes.

But that's not worries me so much about this storm. All of the Northeast, certainly including Vermont, will be in this huge storm's huge wind field. That means by Friday, I expect that north winds could be gusting in the 30 to 40 mph range, maybe more than that in the higher elevations.

Worse, this storm is going to grab a chunk of Arctic air from Canada and bring it down on us. Friday's chunk of Artic air looks like it might be even colder than the icebox we've got over us today .

The combination of wind and extreme cold looks awful. If this comes to fruition, I expect lots of burst and frozen water pipes as the cold winds push the Arctic air through every nook and cranny of our houses and buildings.

Low temperatures Friday and possibly Saturday night across Vermont and surrounding areas look like they could be in the 20 to 35 below range, and that's not including the wind chill.

Having lived in Vermont all my life so far, I think I've only experienced such conditions two or three times before

Of course, I'm still hoping current computer forecasting models are blowing this all out of proportion and it won't be so bad. That's still certainly a possibility. Maybe by Thursday I'll be doing my best Emily Litella impression: ("Never mind!") But it's still something to watch.

If you're looking for good news, it looks like by next Sunday, the deep chill will start to moderate. There will be more Arctic fronts after next Sunday, it looks like, but those outbreaks of cold air don't look anything nearly as bad as what we're experiencing today, and what we're likely to experience next Friday.

Here's those road crash videos. The first is the most dramatic. The couple in the car, which slid off a Michigan highway, narrate as cars and trucks keep smashing into one another. At least three plow into the couple's car. I'm amazed by how calm the two remain. The second video shows more of the same type of thing.

Let's be careful out there!



And here's  tow truck driver's overview of the scene in Michigan:

Dangerous Cold Wave Expands, Intensifies For New Year's

This crazy ice covered dude has been surfing on Lake Superior
amid persistent subzero cold. 

As of this morning, about a third of the continental United States, including all of Vermont, was under wind chill warnings or wind chill advisories as the deep cold wave expands and intensifies, just in time for New Year's Eve celebrations.

During tomorrow night's famous New Years Eve ball drop in Times Square the temperature will likely be in the upper single numbers with wind chills as low as 10 below. Quite dangerous if you're out there too long and not for me, thanks.

I'm a cold weather wimp. First Night organizers will hate me, but I'm staying in. Enjoy First Night, definitely, but here in Vermont, do so while dressed for minus 20 wind chills or worse. I have a feeling the indoor events during the celebration in Burlington,  Vermont will be more popular than those outdoors.

I'm feeling a bit bad for the Vermont ski resorts: They finally got a year in which the Christmas week snow and snow conditions are terrific. But it's so cold that I'm sure it's discouraging some people from venturing out. There even have been some occasional wind holds on the lifts this week over wind chill concerns. That mght happen this weekend, too.

As the cold wave expands into the states in the Deep South, there's another concern: Freezing pipes. That's a problem here, of course. But down there, homes aren't very well insulated. It'll be easy for pipes to freeze, burst and flood homes. There will be a wave of insurance claims, for sure.

Cold waves like this always come in surges. There's at least two more Arctic surges here in Vermont to go through before there's any hope of relief. The first one is coming in tonight and tomorrow, in time for the already mentioned New Year's Eve festivities.

The cold will ease up a bit temporarily Tuesday and especially Wednesday, when highs could reach 20 degrees. Still cooler than normal, but not terrible. Then another Arctic surge hits next Thursday and Friday with more painful Arctic air.

No promises yet, but there are signs that starting in a little more than a week, temperatures might moderate again to near normal January temperatures. Let's hope so.

Not much snow is in the forecast, except for areas slammed by lake effect snow squalls near the Great Lakes.

Forecasters have been eyeing the possibility of a frigid, strong nor'easter next Thursday, but for now at least, most indications now are there will be a very strong storm, but it will be too far off the coast to give us much precipitation. A few computer models still bring the storm closer to the coast, so it still bears watching, just in case.

In any event, it does look like the storm would be close enough to give us strong north winds during the Arctic surge late next week, which means wind chills will be the most ridiculous yet in this cold spell.

Not everybody is hibernating amid the chill. Below is a video of a guy who has been enjoying surfing on Lake Superior during this cold blast. Never mind temperatures are below zero and wind chills are in the 20s below up there. This guy is nuts:

Severe Cold And Big Lake Effect Snows Will Probably Prompt Climate Arguments, Again

The six to 10 day forecast into the beginning of January
keeps the eastern United States quite cold. 

We're now in the heart of a long, long Arctic cold wave in much of the eastern two thirds of the nation that will close out 2017 and begin the first several days of 2018.

Wind chill advisories and warnings this morning extended from Montana to Maine and south as far as Kansas.

Locally, here in Vermont, winter chill advisories are up in the "warmer" valleys like the Champlain, and wind chill warnings are up elsewhere. It's too bad it's so cold: Ski conditions for the holiday week in the mountains are actually quite good. Better than most years.

Now that we've got the long, long, cold wave established and we're still getting those lake effect snows, activists who concentrate on climate change are going to be making noise again.

I'll give you the bottom line first, then the explanation:

For those of you who say all this cold and lake effect, deep snows are "proof" that the climate isn't warming, you're wrong.

For those of you way all this persistent cold and record breaking snows are signs of climate change, you're not wrong, exactly, but I think you could be overdoing it.

First of all, I have to give the usual statement before I dive into this whole thing: Individual weather events in small parts of the world are very rarely a clear signal of climate change, though they can be influenced by the phenomenon.

Also, to state the obvious, winter cold waves like this one have always happened with or without climate change. Arctic blasts in the winter are perfectly normal. As are lake effect snowstorms near the Great Lakes.

This is, of course, a very strong cold wave. International Falls, Minnesota had a record low of 36 below this morning, and the town of Cotton, Minnesota made if to 41 below.

As cold waves go, this one is covering a pretty big area, too. It goes most of the way across southern Canada, and covers, or will cover all but the southwestern 25 percent of the United States.

But in the grand scheme of things, even that vast cold area isn't all that big when you take the entire Earth into consideration.

So if it's cold where you are, you are not experiencing the whole world. You're freezing your ass off. That's not global warming. It's just bad luck where you are, if you hate cold weather.

Even though this cold wave will last up to two weeks in some places, that's not climate. It's weather. People always tell us to think of it this way, and it make sense: Climate is nature's personality, weather is her mood. In other words, good natured people are occasionally angry. Weather sometimes very briefly goes against decades long trends. No big deal.

Now, could this weather set up be a perverse symptom of climate change? Well, possibly, but there's a lot of more mundane things at work here, too.

Let's look at that epic, record shattering lake effect snowstorm in Erie, Pennsylvania, the one that dumped 60 inches of snow on the city in two days. Lake effect snows, as I've said, are normal. Cold air sweeps across the relatively warm waters of the lakes, easily picks up moisture and deposits that moisture on the shore as snow.

Lake effect storms usually arrange themselves in narrow bands. In the middle of these snow bands, it's a zero visibility blizzard. Five miles on either side of these bands, the sun might be shining. Often, but not always, these snow bands move north or south, east or west a little bit, depending on the prevailing wind, so no one place stays in the heavy snow.  

Erie, Pennsylvania was buried under 60 inches of snow
in two days. Photo by Greg Wohlford, Erie Times Union

Sometimes the snow bands do stay in one position. And if the wind comes from a direction that is most efficient at picking up moisture from the lake, the result is incredible amounts of snow.

That's what happened in Erie. The band of snow stayed positioned over the city, and the direction of the wind was perfect for manufacturing LOTS of snow.

So that's the main reason why Erie got clobbered. However, there is a legitimate climate change angle to all this. If the overall air temperature in the Great Lakes are warmer, despite the occasional cold snap, the lakes will be warmer, too. Warmer lakes mean more moisture can get into the air, making the lake effect snowstorms that much more intense.

Also, lake effect doesn't work if the lakes are frozen over. The cold winds can't pick up moisture from the lake water if that water is sealed off from the atmosphere by ice. As Climate Central points out, if it's an overall warmer winter, the lakes don't freeze as quickly, and you have more opportunities for lake effect snows on the occasions it does turn cold.

Now what about this extended cold spell? Is climate change influencing it? Well, it's possible, but certainly not definite. Cold waves lasting this long have always occured on occasion, so this isn't some weird unprecedented climate change disaster.

However, there is some scientific evidence that a relative lack of sea ice in the Arctic, as we are experiencing now, can help weather patterns in the mid-latitudes where we live get "stuck" so a particular kind of weather would last longer than it otherwise would.

It's been a very warm winter once again in the Arctic, so ice cover up there is below normal. That means it's within the realm of possibility that this cold wave here is lasting longer than it otherwise would.

I have no idea if that's actually the case right now, and I doubt any scientist yet knows, either. But it's definitely something for people smarter than me to study, to really understand if melting Arctic ice is messing with weather patterns much further south.

Meanwhile, stay nice and bundled up. You're going to be cold for awhile!

Oh Boy! More Snow Due In Vermont! Aren't You Thrilled

My shivering daffodils earlier this month in St. Albans, Vermont
Most of them survived that cold  wave and snow,
but they might be hit by a bit more snow Tuesday
morning, and another good strong freeze Wednesday morning. 

We've entered the final week of April, so you'd think we'd just sit back here in Vermont and watch things keep greening up under the warm spring sunshine.

It's never that easy. You should know that.

I might as well just state it plainly:

It's going to snow in Vermont again tonight and tomorrow.

Don't hit me please!

It will only snow a little. Not a blizzard. They won't close the schools. No need to go panic shopping for bread and milk at Price Chopper.

But sizable chunks of Vermont are going to get a little snow.

We've fallen into an on again off again, but mostly on weather pattern where chilly high pressure systems set up to our north, feeding chilly, air down from Canada.

A warm front is going to try to make a run at us from the south later today and tonight. It won't make it through here, because that cold high pressure system to the north is holding strong.

The cold air feeding into the precipitation associated with the warm will change rain to snow in many areas, especially in mid and high elevations late tonight.

Many locations in central and southern Vermont are due for a trace to two inches of snow out of this situation. The snow will mostly fall between midnight tonight and noon Tuesday.

The far north of Vermont won't get much of any precipitation, because the cold air feeding in is dry, and will evaporate much of the precipitation that will try to fall.

Still, even there, there could be a thin coating of snow on the ground in some areas

The weather will remain chilly the rest of the week. Temperatures Tuesday afternoon will struggle only into the 40s, with some mid elevation towns in the southern half of Vermont staying in the upper 30s due to a lack of sun. (A little afternoon sun will come out north.)

Another hard freeze is coming Tuesday night, with 20s statewide, and a few upper teens in the cold spots.

Despite sun on Wednesday, many locations in Vermont will stay below 50, with another freeze Wednesday night.

It will sorta, kinda warm up later in the week with afternoon readings in the upper 50s. That's still a bit below normal. High temperatures in most of Vermont this time of year should be in the low 60s.

We'll get there, eventually. .

Surprise Seven Inch Snowstorm Northern Vermont, More Trouble Today

One of the decks at my St Albans, Vermont home, and
the surrouding landscape, were buried in a surprise
seven inches of snow this morning. Add caption

Well, that was a shocker.

I knew the current storminess at the end of a near record level April cold snap would yield some snow yesterday before going over to rain, but wow!

At my weather headquarters in St. Albans, in the northwestern corner of Vermont, I got seven inches of snow, count 'em, seven inches!

There's more weather trouble coming to Vermont later today and tonight. More on that in a little bit.

First, the Surprise Snow

VERMONT APRIL SNOW

That was easily the biggest snowstorm of the admittably paltry season here in St. Albans. There were no snowfall in the heart of the past winter that were this big.

The forecast had called for a thin slushy coating of snow last evening at most, so this was really a big, BIG surprise.

The heaviest snow was confined to far northern Vermont. Drive down to Burlington, Vermont, less than 30 miles south of St. Albans, and there was only 0.8 inches of new snow -- less than an inch.

By the way, that light snow in Burlington means that so far, 2015-2016 is still the least snowiest season on record in Burlington, in records dating back to the 1880s. However, if 0.3 more inches of snow falls this month, which is a distinct possibility, this WON'T be the least snowy winter.

Back up in northern Vermont, Belividere got 8 inches, here in St. Albans, as mentions we got 7 inches, as did Eden.

Another surprising thing about this snow was it all came while a stiff south wind was blowing. I've seen a few bigger snowfalls than this in Vermont during April, but I've never seen so much April snow with a south wind.

All the other big April snows in Vermont involved some variation of a north wind. Maybe northeast or northwest, but not south. This really was a weird one.

Seven inches of snow in my backyard this morning.
The snow never got that deep anytime during this
past winter here in St. Albans, Vermont.  

The reason it snowed so much in far northern Vermont was a warm front ever so slowly trying to push out the entrenched cold air.

The warm air flooding in lifted up and over the cold air still entrenched mostly north of Route 2 in Vermont, condensed and fell as snow.

Areas south of Route 2 got little or no snow because they were south of the warm front, and south of a  moisture feed riding up through the Midwest, then turning eastward across the Great Lakes, far northern Vermont and northern New England.

The reason the forecasts were wrong about the snow was because most computer models placed the core of the colder air and moisture with the warm front more to the north, in Quebec. There wasn't supposed to be that much precipitation of any kind in northern Vermont.

Ooops.

As of 7 a.m. this morning, the snow had stopped, the warm front was in Quebec, the temperature had risen above freezing pretty much everywhere in Vermont and the snow is starting to melt.

Which leads us to our next weather problem today.

FLOODING?

A surge of warmer air is flooding into Vermont today. It'll easily get into the 50s in many areas. That's not far from normal for this time of year, but it's decidedly warmer than it's been.

The warm air is wet, and associated with a pretty vigorous storm. It's going to rain pretty hard later today and this evening across much of Vermont. Many areas will get close to an inch.

That's enough to cause rapid rises on streams and rives. Where there was little or no snow in central and southern Vermont, there will be little or no flooding.

In far northern Vermont, I have to wonder if the abruptly melting snow cover, the fast warmup v  and the downpours will lead to flooding.

I don't think the flooding will be super severe or widespread up north, but it's definitely something to watch.

If you live in a low spot, or will drive tonight on roads prone to flooding, be careful!  It's hard to see flooding at night, and you don't want to drive into three feet of cold water, or into a water-filled ditch because the road washed out.

By the way, there is a flood watch up for much of Maine, due to predicted heavy rain and snowmelt. And there's coastal flood advisories along parts of the New England coast due to astronomically high tides and strong south winds.

MORE SNOW AND WINTER?

Next, another big cold wave is coming into Vermont. Aren't you excited?

This next one won't be quite as intense as the one we just had, but it will be pretty big for April. And it will be accompanied by more snow.  Not another big snowstorm for Vermont, but still.

Temperatures will fall Friday amid rain and mountain snow showers in Vermont. The snow level will gradually fall all day Friday.  Wet snowflakes might be falling in the valleys by evening.

There won't be an organized storm,  just rain and snow showers. A few inches might pile up on the northern Vermont mountain peaks, but nothing in the valleys.

Friday night, there might be a light coating in the valleys as temperatures go below freezing, but knock on wood, I doubt places like St. Albans will get another seven inches. Burlington could conceivably get the 0.3 inches that would prevent the winter of 2015-16 from being the least snowy on record.

Saturday looks very cold, and rather interesting. Temperatures during the afternoon in Vermont and the rest of New England will barely get above freezing and a few places won't even do that. It'll get into the teens once again in many towns Saturday night.

The reason I said things will be interesting is the next cold wave will be caused by another very sharp dip in the jet stream, similar to the one that set up last weekend.

Like last weekend's cold snap, there will be fairly intense disturbance flowing through the dip in the jet stream.

One of those disturbances looks like it might spin up another fast developing storm in southern New England Saturday.

It's unclear still whether the storm will be close enough to the coast to drop snow on southern New England as it really winds up, but it definitely could. Places like Hartford and Boston could get their third snowfall this month, a big rarity for April.

It doesn't look like this potential weekend storm will bring snow to Vermont. There will just be some random snow showers blowing around that will drop dustings here and there.

After another brief warmup and rain early next week, another cold wave comes in the middle of next week. That next cold spell won't be as bad as the one we're getting Saturday and Sunday, and nowhere near as bad as the one last weekend.

The Winter Of 2015-16 To Finally Hit New England -- In April

Enjoy your crocuses today, as winter is going to arrive
in Vermont and the rest of New England tonight to
get rid of these in a hurry.  

We here in Vermont and the rest of New England are now bracing for the arrival of winter.

I know it should be spring, but cruel Ma Nature, as noted before, gets things backwards sometimes.

Yeah, winter usually hits in November, but this year, I guess it's starting in April, when it's really supposed to be warming up. Up until now, it has been pretty mild.

(If the Arctic forecast that I'll describe freezes you to the bone, I'll have some warm winter weather stats further down in this post to toast you right back up.)

First, winter.

COLD FRONT SLAMS IN

There is a big blast of gusty Arctic air coming, prompting wind advisories from Iowa to Massachusetts, freeze warnings from Illinois to northern Georgia, and winter weather advisories from eastern Minnesota to western New York.

As the Arctic front comes in, a storm will begin to form along the front and move from about Pennsylvania to southern New England.

Which means things look like they'll get especially interesting around southern New England Sunday morning.

As the Arctic air blasts in, it'll rapidly power up that storm and develop  rapidly developing storm somewhere near the New England coast.  Atmospheric instability will be extreme with this, so much of southern New England can expect a few hours of damaging winds, gusting from 40 to as high as 70 mph, bursts of intense snowfall and thundersnow.

The storm will zip out to sea pretty quickly Sunday afternoon, but by then, the near record cold air will be entrenched in the Northeast.

Here in Vermont, we'll miss most of the Sunday drama I described above, but we'll still get some snow showers, especially in the morning and especially in the southern half of the state.

Across all of Vermont, temperatures will hover at or below freezing all day and screaming north winds will gust to 45 mph or so. Expect wind chills in the teens or worse. That'll shiver your crocuses!

The cold air will remain entrenched in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast through Tuesday. A little storm will scoot by Monday, dropping a couple inches of additional snow on central and southern New England as it passes.

Up in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, most areas will probably stay below freezing through Tuesday. Overnight lows each night will be in the teens, with single numbers in the colder spots.

That's pretty damn cold for April.

Toward the end of the week, it'll sort of warm up as another storm arrives, but it will still be a bit cooler than normal for April. With the vaguely warm air coming in Thursday, most of the precipitation will be rain as temperatures get into the 40s.

Not particularly nice, but oh well.

And yet... we're not done with winter yet, oh no!  You can't get off that easily.

The weather pattern looks like it's going to get incredibly complicated (but definitely still cold!) toward the end of next week and next weekend,.

There are signs in this complicated mess of cold air and weather disturbances that a new storm will want to get going on the New England coast and move only slowly. If that pans out, we could be looking at a snowstorm next Friday or Saturday, especially inland, away from the coast.

It's still very VERY  unclear how things will evolve in a week's time, so don't panic over a snowstorm yet. A lot can change with the forecast over six days.

Long range forecasts suggest it might finally warm up somewhat to near normal springtime temperatures around the middle of April. Let's hope so!

MORE ON THE WARM WINTER

March in Vermont continued a very, very warm trend that started in November. The mean temperature for March in Burlington, Vermont was 36.7 degrees, which is a substantial 5.7 degrees above normal.

That places March as the 11th warmest on record.

More impressively, the entire period from Nov. 1, 2015 through March 31, 2016 was the warmest such stretch on record, the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, Vermont says.

Interestingly, the four warmest November-March periods on record in Burlington area all since 2001. Records in Burlington go back to the 1880s, so the fact that all the warmest ones are in this decade is pretty remarkable.

Burlington has had only 30.8 inches of snow for the entire winter. The least snowiest winter on record is 31.8 inches.

I'm guessing we'll get more than an inch of snow in the Burlington area over the course of the next week to 10 days, so this probably won't be the least snowy winter on record. But it will be close.

Snow Now On The Ground Northern Vermont To Melt Instantly, But....

My weather watching companions Tonks (tan coast)
and Jackson (in black) measure the snow that fell
on our St. Albans, Vermont yard overnight.
Looks like about 0.7 inches, the pups report.  

As expected, there's a bit of snow on the ground in much of northern Vermont this Tuesday morning.

It's windy and chilly and will stay that way all day. But there is some sun coming, except possibly in the northern high elevations, and especially around Jay Peak.

Temperatures just above freezing will melt most of the snow today, and a strong warm spell this week will make spring resume.

However, there's a horrible, midwinter style cold wave coming and that will really interrupt spring for a few days, starting Saturday or Saturday night.

After today's blustery weather and a seasonably chilly night tonight, Wednesday will be pleasant, with temperatures getting up to near 50 degrees under sunny skies.

Thursday morning, a warm front comes through and temperatures will probably get into the very mild 60s by afternoon across most of Vermont. Showers will come in from the west later in the day and continue into Friday.

It will remain very mild Thursday night, with temperatures staying above 50 in most places, and getting well into the 50s Friday.

Normally I would say this is a good thing. It will encourage plants to grow, the grass to turn green and start diminish the March blahs and browns that we have now.

However, that cold wave coming in looks bad, and there are signs that it will last a bit longer than I originally thought.

How cold? Temperatures Sunday and Monday afternoon likely won't get above freezing in most of northern Vermont, and lows Monday night will get into the single digits and low teens across most of the Green Mountain State. It's even possible, if the skies clear and the winds die down, that temperatures could flirt with zero in the coldest hollows.

This forecast is incredibly cold for April. Maybe not coldest ever, but still impressive. For the record, the coldest temperature on record in Vermont in April was 12 below in Bloomfield, April 1, 1923. In Burlington, the coldest April temperature on record was 2 above on April 7, 1972.

I had anticipated an early end to the cold beginning Tuesday, but now some computer models suggest a reinforcing shot of cold air, at least as chilly as Sunday's blast, could come in on Tuesday. That's still uncertain, but ominious for those who want spring.

I'm not sure what I should do about all the daffodils and other plants coming up in my St. Albans, Vermont weather yard.

Should I mulch the hell out of them? That's a lot of work, since I have a zillion daffodils coming up. Or should I take my chances and hope they survive.

I don't like these extremes, but I guess it's the price we pay for such an extremely warm winter and early spring.

Awesome Cold Wave Scenes From This Past Weekend

The big Valentines Day weekend cold wave is waning fast today, but we have some cool videos on what effects it all had on different parts of the country. Here's a few videos to demonstrate.


Benjamin Williamson shot this gorgeous video of Arctic sea smoke around the Whaleback Lighthouse near Kittery, Maine.




Here, a huge water main break in Scranton, Pennsylvania coated a neighborhood in ice, as you can see from this Associated Press video:





Andy McDougal filmed these "steam devils" and a skinny water spout on Vermont's Lake Champlain as the bitter Arctic air flowed across the still-unfrozen water Saturday. For the record, I saw another waterspout on the lake off Colchester, Vermont Saturday, but didn't have my camera with me to record it.

Here's McDougal's video:

Northeast Cold Wave: Record Lows, Dangerous Power Outages, Other Trouble

A huge highway pileup in Pennsylvania Saturday
caused by a snow squall associated with
the invasion of Arctic air into the Northeast.

There's no doubt we in New England are suffering through a particularly intense, dangerous cold wave this Valentine's Day.

It's going to get better, slowly at first, but much more rapidly on Monday.

But there's more weather trouble due Monday night and Tuesday. More on that in a minute.

First, the cold:

I was seeing some scary reports on Twitter and other media amid the cold this morning. There was an unconfirmed report of a truck through the Lake Champlain ice near Swanton, Vermont. That's something that might not end well, if it's true.

In Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, there was a dangeous power failure Sunday morning.

According to the Vermont Electric Cooperative web site, the power went out at around 3 a.m. for more than 1,400 homes and businesses in nine Northeast Kingdom towns and is not expected to be restored until 11 a.m. or so today.

A broken transmission pole, possibly caused by the cold weather, is to blame.

Temperatures early this morning in most of the affected towns were between 20 and 25 below, not including the wind chill.

The communities of Orleans and Barton were opening emergency shelters for people fleeing their frigid houses. And I think there's also going to be a lot of burst pipes in the homes with no electricity and heat.

Very Cold, And Many Record Lows

Temperatures across northern New England were in the upper teens to mid 20s below Sunday morning. I noticed Montpelier, Vermont at least tied its record low for the date of minus 19.

Arctic sea smoke in the bay, Scituate, Mass. this morning. 

In Watertown, New York, the temperature reached an awful 37 below.

Snow squalls associated with the Arctic cold front caused a highway pileup in Pennsylvania Saturday that killed three people. 

Southern New England and the New York City area were setting more impressive records.

Boston got down to at least 9 below, the coldest temperature on any date there since 1957, and the coldest February morning there since 1943.

New York City reached minus 1, a record low for the date and its coldest morning since 1994.

Block Island, off the southern coast of Rhode Island, set a record this morning for its coldest morning on record, for any date. It was minus 4 there.

The extreme cold in southern New England and the New York area led to some unusual warnings. There was a heavy freezing spray warning for Long Island Sound this morning.

Such a warning is fairly common in places like the waters off Alaska, but I don't remember the last time we had one in Long Island Sound.

Freezing spray warnings are issued when it's really cold and waves spray up onto boats and freeze. According to the National Weather Service,  "it is recommended that mariners not trained to operate in these conditions or vessels not properly equipped to do so remain in port or avoid the warning area."

Still A Warm Winter.

The odd thing is despite the extreme New England cold this weekend, this winter could still easily be the warmest on record for many towns in the region, or it will at least score in the top 5.

For instance, if the forecast for today and tomorrow in Burlington, Vermont is anywhere near accurate, the month of February will still be running about a degree and a half warmer than normal overall by the end of the day Monday.

After that, we'll have a few days of near or above normal temperatures. Who knows what the rest of the month will entail, but at Burlington, if February as a whole is ends up at just a little less than a degree warmer than normal overall, the winter of 2015-16 will still be the warmest on record.

It'll stay bitterly cold in New England today, but there are signs that the beginning of the end of the cold wave is coming.

The frigid air was caused by a lobe of the polar vortex working its way all the way down to New England Saturday. That's why southern New England and New York was so cold relative to normal.

The air over us came straight from the North Pole and northern Greenland, and due to the polar vortex lobe,  modified little on its trip down to see us.

A measure of the degree of the cold wave, and whether or not its fading, is to look at temperatures a few thousand feet overhead

Mount Washington, New Hampshire is a good place to take such a sample At around 10 p.m. last night, Mount Washington's temperature bottomed out at 38 below, its coldest temperature since March, 2007

By 7 a.m. this morning, the temperature there was up to 26 below. That's still obviously frigid, but the scant warming is a sign that the polar vortex lobe was weakening and starting to head away off to the northeast.

Down in the New England valleys, it'll still be frigid today and tonight, but not as bad as yesterday afternoon and last night.

Then the warmup really takes hold Monday, making way for a very messy storm Tuesday

The Upcoming Storm: 

Winter storm warnings extend from Kentucky, through much of Virginia and parts of West Virginia for tonight into Monday. A storm is sweeping southeastward through the Midwest into the Southeast, and is starting to interact with the cold air to produce snow and mixed precipittion.

The storm will head toward the coast, and head almost due north toward New England. It will sweep some warm air northward with it, so precipitation in the Northeast Monday night will start out as snow, then change to sleet and freezing rain, then rain in many areas.

A lot of this precipitation will come down pretty hard, too, since a lot of moisture is available to the storm.

Some areas will have quite a temperature whiplash. As noted, it was 0 in New York City this morning. By Tuesday afternoon, it will probably be about 50 degrees there. The change in Boston will be even more impressive: It will go from 9 below this morning to forecast high of 55 Tuesday.

Even where precipitation changes to rain and air temperatures get above freezing in New York and New England Tuesday, the rain could freeze in many areas as it hits the ground. Pavement, streets and sidewalks have been thoroughly chilled by this Arctic blast.

So rain could easily freeze even if the air is at something like 35 or 38 degrees. This would lead to a false sense of security among both motorists and pedestrians. "Hey its 37 degrees! The roads can't be icy," people will think. But trust me, the roads will be very icy in spots.

In the interior Northeast, like in northwestern New England, western New York and western Pennsylvania, there's still some question as to how much snow will fall, when the precipitation will change to a mix or rain, and how much of each kind of precipitation will fall.

Just plan on a really, REALLY messy day on Tuesday and leave at that for now.