Stalled Front To Continue Harassing Vermont With Showers, Storms And Weird Temperatures

This morning's radar shows thunderstorms and heavy rain
in northwest New York near Watertown.  The rain
should weaken some by the time it gets to Vermont, but
it will make for a wet afternoon again. No severe
storms in Vermont today, but they're possible tomorrow

 I knew about an hour after I wrote yesterday's post that severe storms would avoid northern Vermont. North breezes started, introducing cool, stable air to that part of Vermont. 

The stalled west two east front was sharpening  up, with very warm air in southern Vermont, with kind of chilly air to the north. The result was a soaking rain north, and thunderstorms-  some strong  - in the south. 

Trees were reported down in Brattleboro and Vernon. One tree was reported to fall down onto Interstate 89 in Brattleboro, and another one temporarily blocked Route 142 in Vernon.

 Judging from radar images, I suspect the storm also might have caused some damage in lightly populated areas west of Brattleboro. 

We are more or less stuck with the same regime for the next couple of days at least. Northern Vermont should see highs in the 50s today, maybe getting into the low 60s tomorrow. Meanwhile, in the southern Vermont valleys. highs will generally reach the low to mid 70s

Disturbances will continue to ride west to east along our stalled front, causing daily bouts of showers, rain and thunderstorms. 

TODAY

The disturbance coming through this afternoon should be less intense than yesterday's. If there's any thunderstorms at all, they'd be limited to far southern Vermont with no risk of anything severe. 

The north will just be damp. The low clouds and fog early his morning might lift somewhat by noon, but it will still be clouding, cool and somewhat dank. The north should have a rising chance of showers this afternoon, but they won't be nearly as drenching as yesterday. Still, we expect a tenth to a quarter inch of rain this afternoon, so it won't be great being outdoors in that.  

Much like on Tuesday, the storms were in western New York early this morning and were producing a ton of lightning. But unlike yesterday, all that mess is likely to weaken quite a bit by the time it gets to Vermont. 

Highs should range from the low and mid 50s far north to upper 70s far south. Another one of those days! 

TOMORROW

Current severe thunderstorm forecast for tomorrow. Dark green
is level 1 out of 5 risk levels, meaning just a chance of isolated
trouble. Yellow shading is a slightly greater chance of
severe rather. Expect adjustments to this forecast.

A stronger disturbance will come along that stalled front tomorrow. At this point, it looks like Thursday's episode could be similar to yesterday's. 

At least in some ways. These stalled front situations always contain surprises. There will be adjustments to the forecast.  

For now, it looks like the low pressure rippling along the front might push the front northward a little. Since the small storm will be stronger than today's it could add lift and spin to the atmosphere. That means severe thunderstorms might be in play again for the southern half of Vermont. 

 Right now, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center gives the highest chances for strong storms to western Rutland and Bennington counties and on into eastern and central New York.  But again, that will probably change somewhat with later forecasts

Northern Vermont can expect another drenching, probably much like yesterday. That means another good half inch of rain, with locally up to an inch. Especially after yesterday, rivers continue to run high, and tomorrow's rain will keep them up.  Flooding is still not expected, but I know the National Weather Service is keeping an eye on it in case rains are unexpectedly heavy. 

High temperatures are tricky for tomorrow, as we still have questions about the amount of cloud cover and the timing of the rain and storms. Early guesses are near 60 near the Canadian border to as high as 80 in the warmest valley floors of far southern Vermont. 

FRIDAY

Yet another disturbance is due Friday, but we don't yet know the strength and timing of that one. Chances are it will be weaker than the one we get tomorrow. 

WEEKEND/NEXT WEEK

We're finally going to shake out of this stalled weather pattern and front over the weekend, but not necessarily in the way you'd like. At this point, Saturday l, looks decent enough, with a fairly low chance of rain and mild temperatures, fingers crossed. 

But a more north to south oriented cold front will come in Sunday, followed by much colder air that will stick around for perhaps a week, give or take.  Sunday night and Monday look terrible for this time of year. Not record breaking by any stretch of the imagination, but still unpleasant.

We could get a little snow late Sunday night and early Monday, and highs Monday would barely make it into the low 40s. Normal highs for next Monday are in the mid and upper 50s.

The cold should relax a little after that, but it should stay cooler than normal .The generally cool weather has a shot at lasting into May, unfortunately.  

Tuesday Evening Update: Few Severe Thunderstorm Still Possible Southern Vermont Next Couple Hour. North Just Wet/Cold

National Weather Service radar showed plenty of rain in the
cool air north, with thunderstorms, with a risk of
them becoming severe heading toward southern
Vermont from New York in the warn air down 
there The severe risk should end later this evening. 

 The northern half of Vermont got cheated out of a warm day today, but that chilly air that became established prevented any severe thunderstorms from forming up there. 

However, its a different world south, and as of 4:30 p.m. strong to possibly severe storms were heading toward Vermonts southern four counties. 

That weather front that is draped west to east across our area sharpened up this afternoon.  Temperatures late this afternoon were near 50 in northern areas, with some upper 40s near the Canadian border.

 In this colder air, a disturbance riding west to east along the front was only able to create a rainy afternoon. Some of the rain came down hard at times, and a couple areas reported a rumble or two of thunder, but that's about it. 

As mentioned, southern Vermont is a different world. It was 77 degrees in Rutland, 79 in Bennington and 80 in Springfield as of 4 p.m. Some sun broke out too. The warmth and the sun has made the air  south of that stalled front unstable enough too support strong thunderstorms .  

Those thunderstorms were racing in from  New York State, Some of those storms prompted severe storm warnings. And a severe thunderstorm watch is in effect this evening for the four southern counties of Vermont. 

Judging by how fast they're moving. it looks like the last of those storms will leave southeastern Vermont hy 7 p.m. or so. The rain in northern Vermont should taper off by around the same time. 

That weather front will stay pretty much put over Vermont for the next couple of days. While the contrast might not be as great as it was today, it still looks like we'll have at least a seasonably cool north and a balmy south in the Green Mountain State. 

More rounds of showers and storms are likely both Wednesday and Thursday. The chances of severe storms seem lower than they were today. We'll still have locally heavier downpours here and there north days  It sill doesn't look like it'll be enough to cause much if anything in terms of flooding. 

I'll have much more on this weird weather in tomorrow morning's post. -

Risk Of Severe Thunderstorms In Vermont Today, First Big T-Storm Day of The Year Possible

There's a level two out of five threat of severe 
thunderstorms in yellow shading. That includes
southern Vermont, eastern New York and southwest
New England. There's an even greater chance of 
severe storms in parts of the Upper Midwest today. 

You know it's spring because we in Vermont have our first threat of severe thunderstorms of the season today. 

A few areas in the Green Mountain State could see strong to damaging wind gusts in a few of the storms that could form today. 

The best chances of a severe storm are south of a line from Saranac Lake, New York to Lebanon, New Hampshire, the National Weather Service office in South Burlington tells us.  

That's basically along and south of Route 4 with the risk getting into the southern Champlain Valley as well. The risk in this area is level 2 out of 5 point scale. 

All of the rest of Vermont except maybe the extreme northeast tip has a quite low, but not zero chance of an isolated thunderstorms with potentially damaging winds. 

The culprit is a cluster of thunderstorms in the central and eastern Great Lakes early this morning. They're the leftovers of severe weather that sent a few tornadoes swirling through northern Iowa, southern Minnesota and Wisconsin yesterday. 

During the heat of the day, as these storms approach us in northern New England, they might strengthen again. Not nearly enough to give us a round of tornadoes like in the Midwest, but give us the risk of strong winds. 

A "NOWCAST" DAY

The National Weather Service is calling this a "nowcast day." There are so many moving parts that have to line up, or not line up to produce our thunderstorms. And determine how rambunctious they'll get. And where they'll hit.

We won't really know for sure how this is going until things start to bubble this afternoon. Especially going to spend the day outside, you'll want to have a way to hear special weather statements, forecast updates and possibly severe thunderstorms watches or warnings. 

Remember, a watch means maybe. Think of it is as your mother calmly calling you in,  using your nickname. A warning means a severe thunderstorm is coming. That's your mother, angry, urgent, using your full name to get yourself inside. "JOHN MATTHEW SUTKOSKI, GET YOUR ASS IN THE HOUSE NOW OR YOU'LL REALLY HAVE SOMETHING TO BE SORRY FOR!!!!"

Ahem.

Anyway. back to those factors that will go into today's storms. 

One factor is sunshine. Sun heats the atmosphere, to be Captain Obvious here, and that make the air more unstable and leaves more energy for vigorous thunderstorms. We don't know exactly how much clearing we'll get so we'll have to wait and see. As of 8 a.m. today, the clouds were pretty thick across Vermont. It's a wait and see game to determine whether it will clear out at all. 

Early guesses are the best shot of any clearing later this morning and afternoon is along and south of Route 4, which  is one reason why the better chance of strong storms is down in that neck of the woods.

Also, high clouds blowing off the existing storms early this morning in the Great Lakes could race eastward, covering our neck of the woods and maybe suppressing the chances of strong storms. That's another wait and see situation right there. 

Another factor is timing. The models try to develop showers and storms in northern New York early this afternoon. Some of those models bring the shower and storms into Vermont early to mid-afternoon. If that happens, they won't have as much time to develop and won't necessarily be as strong. 

Other models bring the storms in late this afternoon, when they're more likely to be stronger. To complicate things further, the storms might or might not come through in one line. There might be several short lines of storms in various places, or clusters of them, or even isolated ones here and there. 

Upper level winds are stronger north.  If the winds are stronger up above, storms have a better shot of bringing those strong winds down to the surface. So, things aren't lining up perfectly. The best instability is south, but the best winds for strong thunderstorms are north. 

It still does look like upper level winds in southern Vermont are sufficiently strong to at least create seen risk of damaging thunderstorms. 

Here's something else I have to throw in: We have a sort of east to west weather front draped over Vermont or at least nearby in extreme southern Quebec today. You really have to watch weather fronts that are oriented that way. Especially in the spring. You get surprises sometimes from these lazy, sneaky fronts making their fainting couch the Canadian border. 

We'll see a large temperature contrast today in Vermont because of that front. Up along the Canadian border, forecast highs are around 60 degrees. That goes up to 70 by the time you get to Montpelier, low 70s in Rutland and upper 70s in Brattleboro.

The temperature contract could help strengthen storms. At least the ones in the warmer air to the south.

That front also makes it slightly possible we might get one or two storms to start rotating, maybe creating a sort of mini-supercell or two.  I know we equate spinning storms with tornadoes. And there actually is a very low, but not zero chance of a brief spinup today.  Even if a storm is spinning but does not produce a twister, it would tend to be more severe than one that is not spinning

Finally, you might have questions about flooding. Rivers are running sort of high. The ground is pretty squishy, especially where the frost hasn't entirely thawed from the soil yet. Northern Vermont in particular has gotten some rain in the past couple days. 

That will have people asking about flooding. I think we're good in that regard. It's true that some of these storms - if they do come into the state - will pack some pretty torrential downpours. A couple of these downpours might even get a couple small streams out of their banks or erode the edged so some gravel roads. Especially since the soil is so soft this time of year. 

The storms - again if they develop - will be moving right along, so torrential rain won't last long in any one place. Which really reduces the chances of flooding. In general, most of us would receive a safe half inch or so of rain today, give or take. Places that get really bullseyed by more than one storm could get up0 to an inch. 

However, so far at least, it looks like we won't have any real problems with that. But the very low but not zero flooding risk is another reason to pay attention to today's "nowcast" weather updates. 

REST OF THE WEEK

The unsettled, mild to warm weather will continue into the weekend, but we have big changes coming after that. 

Making it seem like summer, showers and possible thunderstorms - most likely in the afternoons and evenings - are a good bet each day Wednesday through Friday. No word yet on whether any of those storms will be strong. It's another thing we'll need to wait for details on.

A strong cold front Sunday will knock us back down to early spring reality.  Forecasts call for highs in the 40s by next Monday.  

Out Warm, Showery Vermont Week Has Begun, Springtime Thunderstorms In The Mix Too??

More patches of green and flower buds keep showing
up in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens amid mild air
and April showers. A lot more greenery will 
appear this week as the mild, showers weather continues. 

Well, Sunday worked out about as planned, as morning sun quickly yielded to a gray day, with rain arriving central and north toward evening. 

As expected, not much rain fell, except in a few places. Most of northern Vermont got a quarter inch of rain, give or take.  Some places close to the Canadian border got quite a bit more. 

My unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans recorded 0.8 inches of rain overnight. In southern Vermont, there were only sprinkles overnight. 

The wind also picked up in the Champlain Valley, and it was a bit gusty with winds to 40  or 45 mph at times. 

Elsewhere, there were some breezes, and cloudy skies and damp air to start the day. The wind will tend to diminish some this afternoon.

This sets us up for a rather warm, pretty unsettled week. If you wanted your April showers, the next several days will result in a flood of May flowers. The good news is it doesn't look like the showers will be enough to bring much of any other kind of more unpleasant floods. 

Except maybe in far northern Vermont. There's no flood alerts anywhere up in that neck of the woods. But that part of the state can expect some local downpours over the next few days.  And maybe even some thunderstorms to jazz things up a little. Plus,  there's still snow melting off of high elevations like Jay Peak. 

I'm not particularly worried about any flooding at this point, but, as always, we'll keep an eye on it.

THE PATTERN

Everything is kind of stuck for a few days. A strong ridge of high pressure - basically a heat dome - is set up along or near the Southeast coast.  That means the East Coast from about New York City south will have a week of hot, dry weather. 

We'll see a bunch of record highs through much of the East. (Washington DC should have daily highs near 90 degrees all week, for instance).  The East Coast will also face worsening drought and a worsening wildfire risk, so the news isn't good there. 

It's been a relatively warm spring so far here in Vermont, but not as extreme as many other parts of the US. In many parts of the nation, summer essentially started by the time the spring equinox rolled around. Very weird. 

Small storms and disturbances will ride the western and northern periphery  of the heat dome, riding up through the Plains and parts of the Midwest, then turning eastward through the Great Lakes and then New England. Mostly northern New England. 

That means several days of a tornado and severe storms risk in the middle of the nation and flooding risks in the northern Great Lake. For us in Vermont, it won't be so scary.  Well see lots of showers mixed with breaks of drier weather, warm temperatures, especially in southern Vermont, a rapid advancement of spring and probably an explosion of those awful black flies we see every spring. 

Spring can't just be flowers and sunshine after all.

THE DETAILS

Essentially, a front separating somewhere cooler air to the north and the summery air to the south will hang out near the Canadian border most of the week, wavering north and south  into and out of Vermont as s disturbances come by one after the other. 

Northern Vermont will be mild enough, as the real cold air will stay behind another boundary way up in Quebec. By that I mean highs in the 60s most of the week, lows near 50 with those requent shower threats. 

By the time you get to southern Vermont, it will be almost full on summer. Today should be the first of at least six consecutive days in places like Brattleboro will be in the 70s.  I wouldn't be a surprised if an 80 degree day or two were thrown in. Pretty impressive for mid-April!

Southern Vermont might see some showers and thunderstorms too, but probably not as many as areas to the north. 

A warm front came though overnight.  That established our boundary we'll deal with all week. The front should settle back down into northern Vermont as a cold front this afternoon. That means showers would re-blossom this afternoon. 

Most of us should see only a tenth to a quarter inch of rain out of this. 

TUESDAY

The cold front won't be able to drop temperatures much in the north and not at all in the south. So by tomorrow, we'll have another day that reaches the low 60s north, near 70 south.  

Another in a series of disturbances will come at us tomorrow. This one might include thunderstorms. In fact a few of them could get a little strong in the warmer, humid air in central and perhaps southern Vermont. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has a marginal risk of severe storms basically south and west of Interstate 89 on Tuesday. That's the lowest of five alert levels for severe storms, but still. I think this i the first time we've contemplated severe storms this year. 

Basically, we could have isolated instances of strong wind gusts and some hail in a few spots tomorrow. This forecasts will probably be adjusted one way or another by tomorrow, so stay tuned. There is a much better chance of severe storms tomorrow over the Great Lakes and many parts of the Midwest. 

WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY

Kind of rinse and repeat. Disturbances will bring showers and maybe a few thunderstorms through both days. Whether we get any sort of strong storms depends on whether the disturbances come through during the peak heating of the day and whether we get sun ahead of these disturbances to make the atmosphere more unstable. 

We'll keep an eye on that, too. 

FRIDAY/SATURDAY/SUNDAY

The ridge of high pressure will tend to reorient itself so it pokes further north. By Saturday, that means we should have the warmest day of this spell of weather. Depending on how much sun hits, many areas could hit 80 degrees for a real summer preview. No promises, but we'll see.

Sometime later Saturday or Sunday, a cold front will come in with more showers and maybe storms, and that will bring us back down to reality.  Summer will be temporarily over by early next week as temperatures fall to near normal (highs in the 50s lows in the 30s).

After a seemingly never ending winter, you didn't actually expect a never ending summer in Vermont, did you?  Of course not. 

 

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!