After A Noisy Night Tonight, A Showery Warm Vermont Springtime Week Due

Daffodil shoots really beginning to grow in St. Albans
Vermont. A wet, warm week, marked by balmy nights
should have daffodils blooming in my yard by
next weekend, if not sooner. 

Saturday wasn't quite the bright and sunny day we hoped for, especially in northern Vermont. Instability clouds lingered, leading to a blustery, cloudy day. Southern Vermont did break into the sun. 

If you like sun, this isn't going to be your week, but on the bright side, many of us will see plenty of April showers, the ones that stereotypically lead to May flowers. And spring allergies. That's especially true since it still looks like we have mild weather on the way. 

TODAY/TONIGHT

Get out first thing this morning if you like to bask in sunshine, as there will be only glimpses of sun during most of the week. 

It started out in the 20s for most of us today, but the morning sun will help get us into the 50s by early afternoon. There were already high clouds out there as of 8 a.m.. Those clouds will thicken and lower today, blotting out the sun. By late this afternoon, it will be gray and overcast and blah, with rain on our doorsteps. 

The culprit is a warm front. That will spread a bunch of rain across Vermont overnight and through much of Monday. It'll also get windy overnight, especially in the Champlain Valley. 

That will create the classic Vermont noisy night: We'll hear bursts of rain on the roof and the roar of wind through the trees, especially before and near dawn tomorrow.  Somehow, that kind of weather makes me sleep better, but I'm sure that's not the same for everyone.

The winds will probably be strongest during the early morning hours. During that time, the rain will have tapered off somewhat.

Strong winds from aloft mix down to the surface better when it's not really raining, hence the stronger winds when we're out of the showers.

 This won't be any kind of destructive wind storm. It'll be what we've seen repeatedly over the past three weeks or so. Gusts will go over 40 mph in many places in the Champlain Valley. In the rest of Vermont outside the higher peaks, winds would gust in the 25 to 35 mph range. 

If you've gotten optimistic and put out lightweight summer furniture and decorations, you might find them blown against the fence line by tomorrow bring. 

There's even a very slight chance of thunder, but I think we're a bit more likely to see thunder later in the week. 

The risk of shower will continue through Monday, but I don't think it will rain all the time. 

Southwest winds aloft might limit precipitation overnight and much of Monday might help the Adirondacks block moisture to the Champlain Valley. Those areas might only see a quarter to a third of an inch of rain by Monday afternoon. The lower Connecticut River Valley should also see about that amount of rain. 

Most of the rest of northern and central Vermont should see at least a half inch of rain with up to an inch in the Green Mountains. 

All this will allow rivers to rise again, but it doesn't look like it'll be enough to set off any real flooding. 

REST OF THE WEEK

The "cold front" from this storm will arrive late in the afternoon tomorrow. I've got it in quotation marks because it won't exactly make us cold.  Mostly because it should stall out somewhere near northern Vermont. 

Places north of Route 2 might be a little cooler during the first half of the week because of this front.  We'll once again see that wide range in Vermont temperatures we've seen so often this spring.  

It's a little tough to predict actual temperatures because it all depends on where that front sets up. But for now, it looks like far northern Vermont will hold in the 58 to 65 degree range for daily highs Monday through Thursday. 

Meanwhile, valleys in far southern Vermont could see highs in the mid-70s for three or four days in a row, which its fairly impressive for April. 

The more eye-popping warm temperatures with this weather setup will be the overnight lows.  Minimum daily temperatures Tuesday through the weekend should range from the upper 40s to upper 50s.  That's pretty close to record high low temperatures for this time of year. Confusing sentence, there, but you get the point. 

The warm nights will also ensure that the pace of spring will move incredibly fast. It's possible a few trees in the balmier valleys of southern Vermont could start to turn green much earlier than normal. Here in northern Vermont, I strongly suspect I'll have daffodils blooming by next weekend. 

Disturbances riding along the front will keep a chance of showers and even thunderstorms in the forecast every day this week. It won't rain all the time. In fact southern Vermont should be dry most of the time. Pinning down the exact timing of the showers is of course early impossible this far in advance. 

Have an umbrella handy all week if you don't want rain to ruin your perfect hairdo, or something like that. 

The west to east orientation of the front looks like it could change to more of a north/south arrangement by the weekend. As it sets up to the west, all of Vermont could see a day or two in the 70s or even near 80 if we get lucky. 

If we had to guess when that front would finally come through Vermont and head east, we'd think maybe next Sunday or Monday.  After it comes through, our summer in April will end amid cooler, blustery weather.  

Why Are There Still Southern Snowbanks? Latent Heat Takes Time

Old snow piles take forever to melt. 

Every spring, we in Vermont see dirty, sad monuments to the past winter. 

They're in the form of those dirty, ugly slowly fading piles of snow at the edges of supermarket parking lots and back behind strip malls. The piles are a remaining bit of late winter grossness while trees bud and flowers bounce happily in the spring breezes nearby. 

This spring, people in the the southern United States had the rare opportunity to experience these fading remembrances of winter and they were freaking out. 

Usually when it snows in the south, it's usually a wet, heavy slop that's so close to water anyway that it melts quickly. Or it's a quick shot of fluffy, usually a couple inches at most.

This winter, a huge swath of the South, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic States got basically snowy cement in January. It was a dense mess of snow, lots of sleet, all frozen together by a round of freezing rain. 

In February, southerners freaked out this mess wasn't melting, despite temperatures occasionally poking well above freezing. The conspiracy theories swirled. It wasn't melting, so it wasn't "real" snow. The government, the corporations, the oligarchs were doing.....something.

But there's reasons why that snow and ice didn't melt fast. We'll get to that in a minute. 

Then, the dirty icy "monuments" in the parking lots in the South remained well into March. That's normal for us in Vermont, but it's completely bizarre for people in Tennessee, or Virginia or even Maryland and New Jersey.   

The conspiracy theories started again. Snow always melts way before now! Something is wrong! say the worried conspiracists.  Even if people didn't believe the conspiracy theories, they still remarked about black piles of debris in Philadelphia in late March that were in fact leftover snow piles. 

Montclair, New Jersey residents are annoyed by lingering snow dumps in parks.  The snow was removed from streets in the winter, and left in the parks. As of earlier this week, much of the snow was still there, covered in grime and flecked liberally with trash. Big piles of "snowcrete" remained at the airport in Baltimore as April arrived. 

Now all these residents get to enjoy what we Vermonters do: On top of our mud season, the rotting piles of dirty snow  in parking lots and the grimy puddles surrounding them are as much a scene of spring as crocuses and budding trees.

Big old snow piles need a lot of what is known as latent heat of fusion to completely melt.  Latent heat of fusion is just the energy needed to turn ice from a solid into a water a liquid. That's not the same as temperature. It's not a matter of just heating up the ice. Energy has to go into the process of converting ice to water. 

According to the Boston Globe via Mental Floss: 

The piles are dense and heavy, especially since they formed in large part from sleet in addition to some snow. The piles were plopped there, become even more dense and heavy. The snow closer to the surface  starts acting as an insulator for the snow buried further down. The compact snow requires more energy to dissipate.

If you really want to get rid of an old ugly snow pile, you can spread it out with a shovel or backhoe. If more surface is exposed to the air, it will melt faster. If you don't have the energy to do that, pray for rain.

A well soaked snow pile melts faster than one that sits out there day after dry, sunny day .

And it could be worse. In the winter of 2015, Boston had epic amounts of snow, we're talking several feet in a few weeks. The city piled snow in back lots in a desperate attempt to get it off the streets. Not all of that 2015 snow melted until July.

North/South Split In Spring Weather Is HUGE In Vermont This Year

Got another small section of the gardens cleaned up
yesterday before it rained. Although we'll have
frequent chances of showers over the next week,
especially in northern Vermont, we also should
have dry, balmy periods to enjoy the outdoors, too.

 Yesterday was another one of those extreme days in which northern Vermont wasn't all that warm while southern parts of the state basked in near-summer warmth. We've had several of those kinds of days already this spring. 

At 4 p.m. Friday, for example, it was a balmy 76 degrees in Bennington, but a relatively chilly 53 in Highgate and 54 degrees in Newport, both near the Canadian border. In the middle of the state, it was in the decent 60s. 

It's almost always warmer in southern Vermont valleys than in the far reaches of the Northeast Kingdom, of course. But in the spring, that temperature range can get pretty extreme. 

This has already happened a few times in Vermont this spring. For instance, at 1 p.m. on March 11, its was simultaneously 36 degrees in Highgate and 63 degrees in Bennington. On March 31, afternoon temperatures were in the 30s in Burlington and flirting with 70 in Bennington. It's almost as if two seasons are an easy drive apart. 

Some of this has to do with the nature of spring cold fronts. 

 Usually, cold fronts come in from the west. But in the spring, we are more likely to have some occasional "back door" cold front as well. Those "back door" fronts come in from the north or even northeast. They tend to move slowly, and often stall out. The stalls for some reason often happen somewhere near the Canadian border,

In some years, spring comes a lot sooner and a lot more completely in places like Bennington and Brattleboro than in up by the Canadian border in little towns like Alburgh, Richford and Derby Line. 

Spring is hitting the whole state, of course. So don't worry. Even if you can see Canada from your house, or if you're actually in Canada, spring is developing. Even if it's a little more grudgingly than further south. 

Next week,  it looks like we might  have more of those extreme temperatures ranges in Vermont and the rest of New England as a front drapes itself somewhere near the Canadian border. The details are hard to pin down this far in advance, but we'll try to give you an idea in the details below:

TODAY/TOMORROW

The front that kept extreme northern Vermont fairly chilly swept through the rest of the state in the late afternoon and evening Friday, dropping temperatures rapidly. Rutland, for instance, went from 70 degrees to 56 degrees within an hour last evening. 

With the front gone, temperatures will be relatively even across the state today. With brisk northerly winds, highs will only make it into the 40s to maybe a couple low 50s south. 

After a frosty start to the day, Sunday should feature increasing clouds with highs in the 50s. Sunday might be the last day for awhile in which the entire state is pretty much having the same kind of weather 

THE (NEARLY) STALLED FRONT

A slug of rain should come through Sunday night and part of Monday. As has been the case lately, the north will get more rain than the south. Current guesses give places near the Canadian border about two thirds of an inch of rain. That'll gradually taper down as you head south, so Bennington and Windham counties will only get a tenth of an inch of rain.

The front we're talking about will then spend much of next week wavering near the Canadian border. Little ripples of low pressure will run roughly west to east along it, giving us an ever-present chance of showers. But it won't rain all the time.  

If the front dips to the south of the Canadian border, northern Vermont would get chilly, at least at times. If it stays north, all of us will see almost summery weather. That means the air would feel kind of humid, and temperatures during the day would get into the 70s. Maybe near 80 if the sun breaks through enough. Nights would stay in the 50s.

Wednesday and Thursday are the most likely days in which the weather will be summery. If this balmy, humid weather actually happens, you'll see spring advance incredibly fast. You'd better get your lawn mower serviced for the season now if not sooner. 

Since the front will stay hung up near the Canadian border, rain is most likely up there during the week. which leads me to another concern. The U.S. Drought Monitor says southern Vermont is still abnormally dry.  To recover from the lingering effects of last year's drought, now is the time you want a lot of rain. 

Southern Vermont might miss out. Forecasts can change but as of this morning, at least 1.25 inches of rain could fall north of Route 2 over the next week. But less than a quarter inch is forecast in the far south of the state.

We all like sunshine and warm temperatures, but you know what they say about those April showers. We need 'em!

 

Ma Nature Really Picking On Michigan For Some Reason

Ariel view of river flooding affected several houses
in Michigan recently. The state has really been socked
by several damaging, sometimes 
deadly storms this spring. 

Every once in awhile, a state or region gets stuck in a weather rut. Anything bad that could happen tends to strike that state. Over and over again. 

This year, especially since March, Michigan seems to have run afoul of Ma Nature's good graces 

The storms that got the most publicity - and were the most tragic - were the tornadoes across southern Michigan on March 6, killing four people and destroying neighborhoods. Especially in Three Rivers and Union City, Michigan. 

A new storm swept through Michigan last weekend, causing widespread flooding and dropping  a tornado. The twister last Saturday, April 4 in Van Burn Township, Wayne County in southeast Michigan. It was and EF-1 with winds of 100 mph and a path running three miles long. 

The flooding in the past week might be the worst of it all. There were dozens of incidents scattered across Michigan, mostly in the western, central and southern parts of the state. Dozens of homes received at least some damage. Especially along the Grand River in Michigan, which touched major flood stage. 

As in many spells of bad weather, Michigan residents last weekend saw a series of flood-related incidents that seemed to hopscotch across the state. 

Heavy rain flooded a large parking lot at an apartment complex in East Lansing, Michigan, destroying a few dozen cars.  It was unfortunately the third time in two years residents had their cars wrecked by flooding. 

The animal rescue group Detroit Animal Welfare Group in Macombe County, Michigan suffered severe flooding,

It took 16 hours to make sure all the animals had been moved to safe location, but on the bri Took 16 hours to get animals to safety at the 25 acre farm. 

A washout on railroad tracks in western Michigan forced Amtrak to suspend service between Grand Rapids and Chicago for several dahs. 

It wasn't just severe weather and flooding over the past month or so.

Easily one of the worst blizzards in Michigan history hit the Upper Peninsula on March 14-17. Some areas received up to four feet of snow. High winds piled the show into enormous drifts. Roads were shut down for days. 

On the southern edge of the blizzard, an ice storm cut power to 120,000 hones and businesses. 

The rough weather didn't stay in Michigan, since storms tend to be more far-ranging than just one state. Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and western New York all had a brutal series of storms over the past few weeks. 

Western New York has had an especially tough go of it.   The first March tornado in the state since 1976 touched down on the 31st, and the town of Gowanda and surrounding areas suffered serious damage to homes, buildings and cars as thunderstorm winds of more than 70 mph drove torrents of hailstones bigger than golf balls through the area. 

Oneida Lake, a little northeast of Syracuse in New York, is flooding. Strong winds sent waves from the lake into homes in Sylvan Beach, New York, damaging several of them. Sea walls also collapsed under the onslaught. 

Back in Michigan, it's not over. Weather patterns during a particular season sometimes get "stuck."  In this case, a pool of very cold air - basically what's left of the winters polar vortex - has been swirling around near or north of Hudson Bay for weeks. 

Meanwhile, a broad southwesterly flow has helped pull warmth and moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. Where those two polar opposite types of air come closest to each other, you get storms. More often than not though the late winter and spring, that stormy air mass meeting spot has been in or near Michigan. 

That will still be more or less the case over the next week, though now that we're later into the spring, the warmer air is winning out in Michigan. Their biggest threats are severe storms and flooding over the next week or so. The worst of it appears as it it will be early next week. 

A rough, snowy winter and that March blizzard means there's still quite a bit of snow left on the ground on the state's Upper Peninsula. 

Warmer temperatures, rain and thunderstorms starting later in the weekend and continuing into next week will melt more snow and raise rivers to flood levels. (There was still three feet of snow on the ground in Marquette, Michigan as of Wednesday, so there's still a lot of snow to melt). 

Places like Wisconsin, Ohio, northwest Pennsylvania and western New York have been caught in this web of storms, too. But Michigan seems to be Ground Zero. Here in Vermont, we're on the outer eastern edge of this persistent storm track. That means we'll have a frequent chance of showers, but it doesn't look like we're under the gun for any extreme weather. 

Looking further ahead, wetter than normal conditions are expected in Michigan for at least the next two weeks, if not beyond that. 

Friday Morning: Hard Core Spring Arrives In Vermont

After a windy, dry day, some wind-roiled, interesting 
clouds set up shop overhead in St. Albans, Vermont
Thursday at sunset. Clouds are back today, and
by the end of the day they'll yield some April showers.

 As expected, we had our gusty, mild Thursday, as temperatures reached the low 60s in many areas.

The wind made outdoor spring clean up difficult, especially in the Champlain Valley. I see that Burlington gusted to as high as 49 mph on Thursday. The relative humidity was down in the teens and low 20s, so the forecast of a high fire danger was also correct. 

I'm sure there were a few instances of out of control fires yesterday in Vermont. Small, but potentially dangerous. 

I'm aware of one fire up on Skunks Misery Road in Franklin, Vermont. I had to mention this blaze, which was quickly brought under control, because it's my favorite street name in the state.

TODAY

Anyway, there's still some lingering fire danger today, especially in southern Vermont, where it's drier. Winds are lighter, but not calm, so we still have to be careful out there. A cold front is approaching, and that will provide a little rain later this afternoon and evening to tamp down the fire risk a little bit. 

The clouds will come in from the west and north, and that will have an effect on the temperatures. Where it clouds up first in  northwest Vermont, temperatures should still make it up to around 60 degrees, which is still relatively mild for this time of year. So, fine. It'll be in the 60s in central Vermont and near 70 in warmer valleys south. 

We'll have a  rising chance of showers this afternoon first in the northwest, then spreading south and east. It looks like very little rain will fall until very late this afternoon and into the evening, when the bulk of it will come down.

"Bulk" is a bit of an extreme word for the situation we're actually facing. We're only going to see a quarter to a third of an inch of rain, give or take, north and central, with a tenth of an inch or less in the lower Connecticut River Valley. 

This all might end as a few snowflakes in the highest elevations north overnight, but most of us won't see any snow this time. It fact, if you're a weird hard core snow lover, you're kind of screwed. For once, no snow is really in the forecast at all. I think that's the first time since late October I could say that!

WEEKEND

It'll be a cool April weekend, but certainly not frigid.  Saturday will be a classic April day: Highs will be in the 40s to around 50. We'll see some nippy north breezes, but bright sunshine should take the edge off the chill. 

It'll be below freezing overnight Saturday night, but it won't be the deep, near record cold we saw Wednesday morning. Instead, it'll just be a typical April freeze with lows in the 20s to around 30.

You'll notice skies clouding up Sunday as temperatures hold in the low 50s. We'll see a rising chance of rain as we go through the day, too.  Get your outdoor stuff done in the morning if you can. 

NEXT WEEK

We have some hard core spring weather coming with warm temperatures, relatively humid air and a frequent risk of showers, especially in northern Vermont. 

There will be a front nearby separating relatively cool air to the north with almost summer-like air south. It's hard to say exactly where the front will set up, but it should waver north and south occasionally as disturbances roll through. 

The early guess is northern Vermont will be on the warm side,  with highs most of next week in the 60s to possibly near 70.  I'll happily take that if we comes!

Far southern Vermont could see a few days in a row of downright summer conditions, with highs in the 70s to possibly near 80 and mild low in the 50s. You might even be tempted to get you air conditioning set up for the summer. 

That's no guarantee, the forecast is going to need refining and updating between now and Monday. But regardless, I think you're going to see things turning greener and buds swelling outside very nicely over the next week or so. 

Next thing you know, you'll be mowing your lawn. It'll hit sooner than you think. Especially with the kind of weather that's in the forecast. 

Despite the usual snowy setbacks, it's been an incredibly easy spring in Vermont so far. It looks like that will continue.  I hope I''m not jinxing it. The last thing we need is a wintry May! 

Did Landing Planes Cause Some Weird Little Waterspouts Near Boston's Logan Airport?

Hard to see in this screen grab, but a strange
waterspout is seen approaching shore in
a bay in South Boston. The theory is that
planes landing at nearby Logan Airport
helped set off the strange phenomenon. 

Something strange happened not far from Boston's Logan airport earlier this week. 

This was at Castle Island In South Boston, in a cover of water known as Pleasure Bay. It appeared two waterspouts approaching shore there Tuesday morning.

Video of the incident is at the bottom of this post. 

It's not completely clear from the video, it looks like the two waterspouts, or whatever they were, spun in opposite directions as they both advanced toward shore.

 It seemed like a bit of a mystery, since atmospheric conditions didn't seem conducive to waterspouts.  

There were some rain and snow showers in the area around 8 or 9 a.m.. But they didn't seem the type of thing that would spawn waterspouts.  And it appears the video was taken around 6:30 a.m or so.

On key thing: It appears the area where the waterspout like features appeared was in the flight path of low flying aircraft heading northbound to land at nearby Logan airport. 

The theory is that exhaust from at least one of the low-flying planes somehow reached down and formed a sort of air whirlpool or two which sustained themselves one the plane was gone. 

Obviously, this whole thing wasn't strong enough to cause damage or danger, but it was an example of how the strangest things can cause some local weather effects.  

Click on this link to view the video. If you see the image below, click on that. 

 

From Snow To A Fire Risk As Quick Spring Weather Changes Continue In Vermont

It''s that time of year when we start seeing
brush fire dangers in Vermont. For
today, yellow areas have a  high
fire danger, while blue areas
have a moderate danger. 

 Most of the snow from earlier this week has melted away - at least at low elevations. And now, Vermont suddenly faces a brush fire risk today. 

As expected, yesterday featured wall-to-wall sunshine and very low humidity. That evaporated most of the snow quickly to the point where I could tell by late afternoon that the dry weeds from last year were tinder dry already. 

True, there were still patches of snow in the shadows where the sun wasn't able to penetrate. But those patches are few and far between. Today, believe it or not, is a day to be really, really careful with fire.

Especially in the Champlain Valley. 

TODAY

The high pressure that brought the record cold Wednesday morning to Saranac Lake, New York and Montpelier, Vermont has headed to our east, as expected. 

A squeeze play was setting up between that high pressure to our east and a cold front far to our northwest. The result is some dry south to southwest winds that were already starting to pick up in the Champlain Valley as of 8 a.m.  

Those winds will keep increasing. By late this morning though early evening, gusts will reach to between 35 and 40 mph in the Champlain Valley and 20 to 30 mph elsewhere. Except maybe in the lower Connecticut Valley and protected valleys in eastern Vermont, where the winds will be a little lighter.

Since it's so dry, the slightest spark could set that dry brush on fire. That fire would spread fast and be hard to control given how gusty it is and how dry the air is. 

The Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation says there's a high fire danger all through western Vermont west of the Green Mountains. Also in the lower Connecticut River Valley, which has had little precipitation recently. Elsewhere, the fire danger in Vermont is moderate. Mostly due to a few snow patches and wet spots left in mid elevations. 

This sort of situation is common in April. Parched, sunny air and winds can really dry out all that dead brush, even if it rained or snowed just a couple days earlier. 

We already had one small, but briefly out of control brush fire in Northfield yesterday, even before the wind started to blow. So today's the day not to flick your cigarette butt out your car window. And that brush pile in the back 40 that needs to be burned should wait for some more damp weather. 

Which is on its way. 

TONIGHT/FRIDAY

The dry winds will continue to blow tonight, but not as strongly . The humidity will be a little higher.  There might even be a brief sprinkle north, but don't count on it. All those factors will diminish but not get rid of the fire danger.

The winds and fire risk should continue for part of tomorrow. but that cold front will slowly approach, then arrive with its showers in the afternoon and evening. 

This will be no means be a blockbuster rain, but it will tamp down the fire risk. Some areas of northern Vermont could see up to a third of an inch of rain, but most of us should stay under a quarter inch.  Southeastern Vermont, and maybe parts of the Champlain Valley could stay under a tenth of an inch. So not exactly a memorable storm. 

By the way, hights today ad tomorrow should be well into the 50s to maybe low 60s in spots, so fairly mild!

WEEKEND/NEXT WEEK

It'll be a classic bright April weekend in Vermont with cool breezes, and a fair amount of sun. Highs both Saturday and Sunday will be fairly close to 50 degrees, but Sunday should be the warmer of the two days. 

Things kind of get interesting next week as a sort of stalled weather pattern develops. Vermont will stay near a boundary separating warm, humid air to the south and chilly air to the north. We might start getting a few days thrown in where the far north of Vermont is in the 40s and low 50s while the far south is in the 70s. 

For now, though, the first couple of days of next week look pretty balmy statewide.

That's not a firm forecast yet, because we don't know exactly where the front will set up on any given day. Also, again, depending on where the front and disturbances riding along position themselves. It also looks like there's chances of showers or even thunderstorms each day next week starting Monday 

This pattern is also ominous for much of the Plains and Midwest, as it creates conditions for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes out there.