Snowy April Day Underway In Vermont, Should Clear Out Late, Spring Still Coming

Traffic camera shows a snowy Route 9 in Searsburg, Vermont
around 7:30 this morning. An initial burst of snow hit
far southern Vermont. Much of the rest of the state
could see briefly heavy snow showers today. 

 If it hasn't snowed where you are yet as you read this in and around Vermont, it will soon. 

A small disturbance is blowing through, consisting oa a reinforcing shot of cold air that'll keep us quite chilly through tomorrow morning. 

A burst of pretty heavy snow has already crossed Bennington and Windham counties in southern Vermont, depositing a quick inch of snow. 

It left roads looking pretty slippery around Bennington and along Route 9 heading up and over the far southern Green Mountains. 

Scattered snow showers were across parts of central Vermont as of 8 a.m. Another main band of snow appeared to be twisting around the mini-storm's center not far from Watertown, New York. It was gradually heading east.

I'm not sure whether that band will hold together completely, but almost all of the state has a shot of a quick inch of snow, if it hasn't already happened. There's a slight question as to whether the snow band will be able to pivot into the far northern Champlain Valley, but for now, we should assume it will. 

In any event, the snow could briefly come down pretty hard anywhere in the state. That means that we'll have to harken back to our winter driving habits a bit as the roads will get briefly slick. Since this is happening in April during the day, some of the snow will tend to start melting off shortly after any bursts of heavier snow ends. 

Hopefully that means any problems with icy roads won't last long. This isn't a full blown winter storm, after all. Just a nippy springtime hassle. 

Yep, another snowfall forecast map. Perhaps the last one
of the season? Don't count on it. This map shows many
of us could get a quick inch of snow. There might
be locally heavier surprises in the mountains

Some places might have more than one burst of heavy snow.  Certain spots in the state could technically get up to two or three inches of snow. 

But it would be an inch that melts, followed by another inch that melts again. So nobody except the high elevations should have much  more than an inch of snow on the ground out of this. 

That said, small mini-storms like this in April can work with amazingly lame amounts of atmospheric moisture and create a good local dump of snow, so keep an eye on it through the day.

 A few isolated spots - mostly up high -  could end up with several inches of surprise snow. No guarantees, but just a possibility there. 

Our little disturbance should start to head on out late this afternoon, taking its snow showers with it. 

FRIGID TONIGHT

We're setting ourselves up for potentially the coldest April night since 2016.  What is likely, hopefully, the last Arctic high pressure system of the season should settle right over the top of overnight and early tomorrow. That means light winds and clear skies - the perfect recipe for a frigid night. 

Or almost perfect. If there's snow cover, it tends to get even colder in these situations. Many of us will still have some snow on the ground overnight, so that could make things even chillier.  The bottom line: Most of us will be in the frigid teens by the time dawn breaks tomorrow. A few of us could be in the single digits. 

That's damn cold for April. Maybe even close to record territory in a few places. Burlington's record low of 11 tomorrow is completely safe.  But it could get close in St. Johnsbury, where the record low is 10 above on Wednesday. The most likely candidate is Montpelier. Their record low tomorrow is 14 degrees, and the forecast low is also 14 degrees.

SPRING RETURNS

Don't worry, we still are convinced spring will come back in a hurry. And stay for awhile this time. Tomorrow afternoon will still be cool for this time of year, but 40s won't seem bad after today. 

Thursday and Friday will pop right up into the nice 50s to low 60s before another cold front comes in. But the next cold front is a spring front, not an Arctic one. So Saturday will probably only be about 50 degree, which is still reasonable.

On top of that, a stiff southwest wind could bring us up to near 70 degrees next Monday if thick clouds and rain hold off until the end of the day. Stay tuned on that one! 

Unprecedented Heat From March Still Has Climatologists, Others, Losing Sleep At Night, But It's All A Scary Sign Of The Times

March was so hot in the western and central U.S. was so
extreme it's still keeping climatologists up at night.
These kinds of "unprecedented" hot spells and 
extremes are now becoming regular occurrences
in this age of climate change. 

There's patches of record warmth remaining in the United States as we make our way through the first week of April, but the extreme, whackadoodle heat of March has subsided. 

Scientists are still agog from March, which is easily going down in history as among the most extreme, over the top, seemingly impossible climate-related events hot spells ever seen.  The heat wave completely rewrote the March weather record books in the western and central U.S. 

It was the kind of event that keeps climatologists up at night.  Especially since these "impossible" events are coming along in a steady stream now. Each one bigger than the last. And each one potentially more deadly. 

We're lucky this one hit in March, months before summer. Had it happened in July, who knows how many deaths would have been created by just the hot days themselves? Even so, the heat set the stage for a potential summer of out-of-control wildfires and deep water shortages. 

Already, fires are burning months before they should. A raging wildfire threatened homes in Moreno Valley , California last week. It was the kind of fire you see in parched late summer and early autumn and not moist March. But the rules have changed. March is the new summer, apparently.  

Nebraska just experienced their largest wildfires in history, burning an area larger than Rhode Island. 

And we've probably only just begun with the fires.

THE EXTREME MARCH HEAT

It's hard to know where even to begin with the accounting for March's heat. 

AccuWeather gives just a glimpse of the breadth of the March heat wave: 

 "During the unprecedented mid-March heat waves in the central and western United States, more than 8,200 daily records and more than 2,000 monthly records were broken at weather stations across the West."

Incredibly, 17 states set new March record highs.  And these are large western and central states, not smaller Eastern states where it's a bit easier to accumulate numerous record highs. Many of these states broke monthly record highs, only to have those records broken in subsequent days. 

The nation saw its hottest March temperature on record at 112 degrees. It came close to setting the April national record of 113 degrees.

No fewer than 16 western cities not only broke their all-time highs for the month of March, they also broke or tied the mark for April, which is beyond insane. 

On March 19 alone, nearly half of the 900 or so long term U.S.. weather stations in the Global Historical Climatological Network set or tied daily record highs. 

More than four dozen major reporting stations with data since at least the 1960s had their warmest March in history.  Major cities that had their warmest March on record, - most of them by a wide margin - include Dallas, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

Once all the numbers are crunched, it looks like Colorado will end up with a March that was three or four degrees warmer than any other in the past 130 years or so. For a state to break its statewide record for hottest March by a degree is wild. By three degrees ----there's no words for it. 

We still don't have confirmation as to whether March, 2026, is the nation's hottest on record. That will come in a week or two. But it was at the very least as warm as what was considered the impossibly hot March of 2012.

CHAIN OF EXTREMES 

Climate change doesn't just warm up the world uniformly. It sets traps. Springs surprises. 

As Yale Climate Connections notes: 

"Since climate change is also fundamentally disrupting atmospheric circulation patterns, we now have mega-unprecedented extreme events occurring with regularity. These circulation changes allow the biggest regional and local heat extremes to intensify by a much larger margin than the roughly 1.4 degrees Celsius increase in average global temperature since preindustrial times."

Honestly, climate change contributes to new extremes every weeks, or so it seems. But the standouts - the weather events that make climatologists and other scientists deeply worry about the future  - seemed to begin almost exactly 14 years prior to this March's heat.

In March, 2012 most of the heat focused on the central and eastern United States.  Thousands of daily record highs were set, as were hundreds of all time record highs for March.  Among those thousands of record highs, nearly four dozen were broken by at least 22 degrees, which is beyond insane. Four record highs were smashed by 30 degrees. In a handful of cases, the low temperature on a particular date on March 12 was warmer than the record high.

 "An initial assessment led by Martin Hourlong at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratories concede that human-produced warming likely contributed on the order of 5% to 10% of the magnitude the heat woven March 12-23, 2012, The report added: "the probability of heat waves is growing as (greenhouse gas)-induced warming continues to progress," notes Yale Climate Connections. 

Still, we figured we wouldn't see another March, 2012 in our lifetimes again. Until we did.

The March heat of 2012 came at the tail end of a La Nina, and led to an extreme, punishing drought across the nation's middle that summer.  We're in the same situation now. It might not be just the western mountains that are running out of water. 

Much of the central and southern Plains are already in serious drought. Will this key crop growing area further dry out? There's already plenty of other stresses out there with food production - political instability, tariffs, war, a feckless president.  

We are set up for a rough summer, and March probably just made it much, much more rough. 

WATER SHORTAGES?

Colorado's snow pack ended the month at less than a quarter of average. Eighty-nine of 94 snow pack measuring stations were at record lows by the end of March. 

It's not just Colorado. It's virtually all of the West. Per the Guardian: 

'This year is on a whole other level.' say Dr. Russ Schumacher, a Colorado State University climatologist, speaking about the intense heat that began rapidly melting the already sparse snowpack in March. 'Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning."

On April 1, media went out to join California water officials to take a measurement of the water content of snow at a spot in the Sierra Nevada. Normally, the group would be standing on five feet of snow. This time, they were standing on a muddy field, flecked with melting remains of snow patches. 

Snow water equivalent is a measurement is the amount of water of that would melt out of the snow that's still on the ground.  This figure is now terrifying throughout the West. 

The overall snow water equivalent in the Sierra Nevada on April 1 was just 18 percent of average for this time of year.  In the Great Basin, snow water equivalent was just 16 percent of normal. In the lower Colorado River basin area, including most of Arizona and Nevada, it was 10 percent. The Rio Grande, which covers New Mexico, Texas and Colorado was at 8 percent. 

Because of a record warm winter, the snow pack was far below normal before March arrived. Everyone hoped for a "March Miracle," as some bad years in the past were relieved by cold, stormy Marches. Not this year. Not by a long shot.

If this were just one bad year, we'd be OK. But the six lowest April 1 snowpacks in California have happened since 2007. The state thought it was finally catching a break in January as it fully emerged from drought for the first time since in a quarter century. 

Reservoirs are pretty full in California, thanks to warm rains in recent winters that filled them even though the state couldn't build a decent snowpack. So at least for this year, the problem for most of that state would be intense wildfires but not necessarily widespread water shortages. 

Elsewhere, things are not nearly so serene. 

In the Colorado basin, Lake Mead is 25 percent full. Lake Powell was only 33 percent or so full at last check. Both lakes usually rise somewhat in the spring due to snow melt. It doesn't look like that's really happening this year. 

Water managers area already urging conservation in the West. 

Salt Lake City has called on residents and businesses to start conserving now, with a goal of cutting overall water usage by 10 percent, Also, as the Guardian reports:

"Across Colorado, there are local orders that list lawn watering, and in Wyoming, residents were warned that full restrictions on outdoor irrigation could come come as early as May."

Farmers and ranchers across the West are also having to make hard decisions and big adjustments with smaller allocations of water and a recognition that supplies will be strained. 

TIMING

What if a heat dome like the one we just saw in March hit during the middle of summer? And hit in a place not accustomed to extreme heat. 

We found out in late June and early July, 2021 when an unprecedented - here's that word again - intense, heat settled into southwestern Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

 All-time heat records in the Pacific Northwest were not just broken, they were obliterated. Portland Oregon reached 116 degrees. Salem, Oregon was 117 degrees. Rainy, cool Seattle reached 108 degrees.

The heat of 2021 was even more punishing in British Columbia, Canada. On June 29, 2021, the town of Lytton, British Columbia reached 121 degrees, the hottest temperature ever recorded anywhere in Canada. By a long shot. Before this heat wave, the hottest it had gotten anywhere in Canada was 113 degrees back in the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. 

The next day, Lytton burned down in a massive wildfire brought on by the scorching heat and drought. 

The 2021 heat wave is estimated to have caused at least 1,400 deaths in Canada and the U.S. 

What if a heat dome like that in 2021 settled into the heavily populated eastern United States and southeastern Canada? And what if it lasted a month, not a week? Nobody is prepared for such a nightmare. 

However, we'll find out soon enough. Perhaps this summer. Or the next. And it won't be pretty. 

 

Monday Morning: Back To "Winter Echo" In Vermont For A Couple Days

This garden, as of a this morning covered with a dusting of
snow and a mess of dead leaves and disheveled ground,
will someday be pretty again. Sooner rather than
later, we hope!

 Just for a reminder I live in Vermont, I woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground and some snowflakes in the air outside her in St. Albans, Vermont. 

That's not the least bit odd for early April, I know. But, everyone is anxious to see our world finally start to green up after a long, brown, gray, colorless winter.

Don't worry, the big green-up is coming and soon, but we'll have to deal with the usual "winter echo" we get every spring, in which winter weather continues to reverberate after the main show is done.

This year's episode of "winter echo' is pretty mellow compared to some years, so we have that to be thankful for, too.

COLD SPELL

This semi-return to winter really kind of started yesterday. It never really was able to partly clear up and warm up much across the Green Mountain State yesterday. It stayed rather chilly and raw all day even as rain tapered off as expected in the afternoon. 

Colder air coming in last night left us that lovely dusting of snow. At least in some parts of Vermont. It looks like the mountains picked up and inch or two of snow. Vermont Agency of Transportation web games showed is snowing pretty hard again around Jay Peak as of around 8 a.m. this morning. 

This morning's snow showers might tend to dry up during the day today, though they might not entirely die out. I imagine they might especially hang on like a bad party guest in the northern and central Green Mountains off and on all day. 

Highs today will only make it to around 40, give or take, which is about ten degrees chillier than average for this time of year. 

But then it gets worse.

TUESDAY

A reinforcing shot of frigid Canadian air is about to give us a January in April day tomorrow. Highs across most of northern Vermont won't get above freezing, and warmer southern valleys should mostly stay at or below 40 degrees.  

For comparison, valleys north should be around 50 degrees during the afternoons this time of year, while southern valleys should be in the low 50s.

This reinforcing shot of cold air will also bring through a disturbance during the day that should kick off quite a few snow showers. That it's coming through during the day means snow accumulations should be limited. Maybe an inch or less in the valleys and a couple inches in the mountains. 

It might be one of those days in which  you actually get a couple inches of snow, but never actually see that much on the ground. With the strong sun angle of April, you might get a half inch of snow in a burst, then it melts, to be followed by another half inch that melts, etc, 

The orientation is a little in question, so it's hard to tell who gets the most snow. It doesn't really matter that much, because it won't be a lot. Especially first thing tomorrow morning, that snow might be creating slick spots on the roads, though, so keep that in mind.  

The April cold will be a little more intense than we've seen in recent years. The National Weather Service is going for a high tomorrow of 32 in Burlington and a Wednesday morning low of 19. 

If that happens, it'll be the first time since 2016 that a day didn't;t get above freezing in April. It would also be the first time since 2016, and the second time in 20 years that it gets into the teens. It'll be a close call.

Before climate change kicked in, we would much more often see subfreezing highs in April and lows in the teens and even single numbers during the month. The world is warmer now, so we're not used to cold snaps that were once routine, but are now kind of exceptional. 

THE WARMUP

We're not going to flip to anything record warm or anything like that, but you'll find the second half of the week, next weekend and beyond much more palatable. Wednesday afternoon should still be cool after that frigid start, but the warm April sun will make it feel OK. 

It's hard to get a feel for exactly how warm it might get starting Thursday, but 50s and low 60s for daily highs looks reasonable at this point. That's somewhat milder than average, and we'll take it. Since the warm up looks like it will last at least several days, you'll start to see lawns green up a little, garden perennials sprout, and tree buds swell.

It's a promise. Despite "winter's echo," spring is inevitable. 

Sort Of A Stormy Easter Morning In Vermont, Gets Better Later

I know it's disappointing to wake up on Easter Morning to find it rather stormy out - rainy enough to soak and ruin your Easter bonnet and windy enough to blow it away. 

The first part of April is never pretty, and that was the 
case this Easter morning in St. Albans, Vermont. After
an expected throwback to winter, the progress of spring
will accelerate later next week 

But who the hell wears an Easter bonnet anymore? The Easter egg hunts might have to be postponed a bit, too, which might be a bummer.

But since this is all about ME!!!!!!, I personally like waking up on raw and wet Sunday morning in a cozy house. I can hear the wind blown rain clattering faintly on the metal roof, and the dull roar of winds still blowing through leafless trees, the gray skies, all starting the day quietly, contemplatory. 

We did - as expected - end up getting winds just as strong as the gusts we had Friday morning, but they came in the hours just after midnight, when we were less likely to notice them. The wind advisory that was in effect was justified.

Winds at the sandbar on Route 2 in Milton got to 59 mph. Jay saw gusts to 53 mph; Morrisville, 51 mph and Panton, 49 mph. There were plenty of gusts statewide in the 30s and 40s mph. Not enough to cause widespread problems but enough to rattle the shutters. 

Early this morning, roughly 2,800 homes and businesses had no power, mostly in the northern Green Mountains. 

REST OF TODAY/TOMORROW

The rain that moved in before dawn is now tending to suppress the wind somewhat. That rain should mostly move out by shortly after noon.  We'll end up with a third of an inch of new rain, give or take, so we're safe from any flooding. This afternoon will actually be OK, with temperatures hovering near 50, with breaks of sun and southwest breezes.

At least as measured in Burlington, there have only been two Aprils without so much as a snow flurry in Burlington (1941 and 2005).  This year won't join those two illustrious Aprils.

First of all, there's already been a snow flurry on April 1.  And more are probably on the way.  Progressively colder and colder air will start coming in this afternoon and night, setting the stage for some spring snow showers. 

Tomorrow will be chilly, but it won't be the worst of it. High should make it to the upper 30s northern highlands to upper 40s warmest southern valley floors.  There could be a few snow flurries in the mountains. 

THE COLD PEAKS

As the cold air continue to pour in Monday night and early Tuesday, more snow showers should blossom. For now, anyway, forecasts have measurable snow statewide by the end of the day Tuesday, though I have my doubts about this for warmer southern valleys. 

Tuesday will be a throwback to winter, with many of us receiving a dusting to an  inch of snow. Some  northern towns will probably never get above freezing on Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday night will get into the teens to low 20s. Spring will be on temporary hold.  Don't worry, happens every year. 

SPRING RETURNS

Strong high pressure, which initially will contribute to our nippy April weather, will warm us up as it passes nearly overhead and then off the east coast Wednesday.  By Wednesday afternoon, it'll get well into the 40s, which is still a little cooler than normal. But the strong April sun will make it feel much better.

After that, we get a huge break. April can be notoriously tempestuous, but the second half of next week and next weekend look anything but. High temperatures in the 50s and low 60s will get spring flowers and plants and tree buds going, and no notable storms are on the way. 

Sure, this Easter morning is gray and brown and muddy and ugly, as early April is in Vermont. But that promise of spring keeps getting more and  more real. 

Friday Morning Wind Blast in VT/NY To Go On Repeat Overnight Tonight

This house in St. Albans, Vermont was damaged early 
Friday when strong winds tore down part of a large
tree, which landed on the house.
Photo via Scott Levick/Facebook

As those sputtering showers and thunderstorms were speeding through northern New York and Vermont early yesterday morning, the wind was absolutely blasting parts of northern New York and the northern Champlain Valley. 

It was so bad that a large section of a tree fell and smushed a big chunk of a house in St. Albans, and another tree blocked a major commuter route for a short time in the same community. 

 Winds gusted to 57 mph at Knight Point State Park in Grand Isle County, 54 mph at the Milton Sandbar 50 mph in Plattsburgh and 49 mph in Burlington. 

In hindsight, it might have been a good idea for these parts of Vermont to be under a wind advisory, which is designed to alert people to potential gusts of 50 mph. 

The wind died down somewhat by Friday afternoon and by this morning, things were calm. 

Tonight and early tomorrow, we're going to do it all again. For pretty much the same reason as yesterday. A storm will go by to our northwest, bumping into high pressure over northern Quebec. That will funnel strong south winds up the Champlain Valley. 

Winds will again gusts to or a little over 50 mph. A wind advisory is up for the central and northern Champlain Valley in Vermont and across northern New York from 8 p.m this evening to 8 a.m. Sunday. The strongest winds are expected between 11 p.m. an 6 a.m., says the National Weather Service. So it'll be a noisy overnight. 

Like yesterday, expect a few scattered power outages in northwest Vermont during this windy period as well.

SOME OTHER DIFFERENCES'

Even though the weather situation early Sunday morning will be strikingly similar to Friday morning there will be a few minor differences. Really odd, though, that the exact same weather setup will happen within two days of each other. 

This time, the cold air won't dam up as well in eastern Vermont, so I see little risk of any freezing rain. It might come close to freezing in a couple of the cold hollows when the rain comes in, but this won't exactly be the Great Ice Storm of '26. 

If you head further east into northern New Hampshire  and northern Maine, you probably will run into mild precipitation late tonight and early Sunday, so a winter weather advisory is up once again over in those parts. 

Unlike early Friday, I don't think we'll hear any rumbles of thunder, but hey, we could be surprised. There is a risk of severe thunderstorms in western New York later today. Those will fall apart well before we get here, but there's a minuscule chance, I suppose we can hang on to one or two lightning strikes by the time the rain gets here.

The rain over Vermont will be a little heavier than what we got yesterday, which isn't saying much. We should only get a quarter to a third of an inch of rain, which would mostly fall in the morning and early afternoon.

Oh, and both today and tomorrow should see highs in the low 50s. Which is about 10 degrees chillier than most of us saw yesterday. Low 50s is maybe a couple degrees above normal for this time of year.

QUICK COLD SHOT

We're still looking at a quick return to "winter" Sunday night through Wednesday morning. Again, don't panic. This is just a typical early April interruption to spring. 

It means highs in the mid 30s to mid 40s  and lows well below freezing. It's not like some of those past Aprils in  history in which we get a big snowstorm followed by true winter cold. We'll survive this just fine. Despite a few possible snow flurries in the air. 

It'll warm up by the end of the week and actually get quite nice again. 

I'm going to jinx it here, but with everything I see in the forecasts, this could turn out to be a much mellower April than we often get around Vermont. We often rocket between winter and summer and in in between the temperature hijinks, and we usually get some pretty interesting storms this time of year. 

I obviously won't be surprised by any weather surprises we get this month. But other than those wind storms, this is beginning to turn out to be an easy Vermont April.  

Rumbles Of Thunder This Morning Are Another Big Sign Of Vermont Spring

Lightning detector map from shortly before 5:30 a.m today
shows strikes especially across central Vermont and in
the far northern Champlain Valley. 

Many of us across Vermont, New York an New Hampshire woke up to the sound of thunder before dawn today.  

I would imagine some found the noise vaguely annoying. I happily found it that best confirmation yet that spring is here. 

Thunderstorms get more common as we head into the warmer months.  The warmer air and the increased moisture in spring and summer can create the rapidly rising air needed to create lightning. 

Now, it wasn't exactly warm while these storms were coming through northern New England this morning. In fact. a few spots in eastern Vermont and New Hampshire might have been getting freezing rain while lightning was flashing. Thunderice?  Not sure what to call it. 

But there was warm air.  The storms were triggered by a warm front moving in.  The warm air aloft pushed ahead of the front helped create the balmy lift in the air, leading to the lightning flashes. 

For some reason warm fronts coming through in the pre-dawn hours in April often turn out to be create the first thunderstorms of the year in Vermont. So the timing and nature of our thunder early today was pretty classic. Judging from lightning detector maps, the storm with the most lightning cut across central Vermont early this morning. 

Another area of lightning just clipped northwest Vermont.  Here in St. Albans, I heard a few rumbles around 4:30 a.m., along with a brief downpour and strong, gusty winds. So it was noticeable. 

The showers and thunderstorms were moving along at a fast pace, so nobody is getting all that much rain. Even if a thunderstorm has a downpour associated with it, the heavier rain hasn't been staying in one place very long. 

Bottom line: The storms are cool, but are not causing any real trouble. 

REST OF TODAY

As of 6:30 a.m., a little more lightning was flashing near Rutland, and in central New York, so we're probably not quite done with it yet. The warm front will pass through later this morning, ending the threat of more thunder and most showers. 

It was in the 30s to near 40 early this morning amid the showers and rumbles of thunder ahead of the warm front. Once it passes through, temperatures will zoom into the low 60s for most of us. This will be the mildest day we'll have for awhile, so enjoy it. Some sun will mix in, too, to give the crocuses a little boost. 

Winds were really screaming from the south early this morning, especially in the Champlain Valley. I'm on an exposed hillside in St Albans, and I would estimate some gusts were up to around 50 mph. I'm noticing a smattering of power outages in northwest Vermont, so don't be surprised if your power at least flickers this morning in the Champlain Valley. 

It'll stay breezy to windy all day, but the strongest winds were probably happening as I wrote this around 7 a.m. They'll diminish some as we go through the day. 

All in all, despite the stormy start of the day, it'll be a rather nice one. 

THE WEEKEND

Our storm will drag a lame cold front through tonight, cooling us off only slightly. Saturday will be generally cloudy and mild-ish as the next storm approaches. By mild-ish, I mean low 50s, just a few degrees above average.

This one probably won't have any thunder an lightning with it. The showers will definitely ramp up, though, Saturday night and Sunday morning.  We'll have more rain than the light stuff we're having this morning. 

Between Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, it looks like we'll have roughly half an inch of rain, with perhaps a little more than that up along the Canadian border and a little less in far southern Vermont.  Don't worry about any flooding: Rivers will probably rise somewhat, but fall short of any real flooding. 

Highs Sunday will be in the 50s. 

BRIEF WINTER

The cold front with the second storm will be much stronger than tonight's so it will get much colder Sunday. Lingering rain showers will at least mix with, if not change to snow showers Sunday night and continue into Monday. 

Don't worry too much about the snow showers, They'll the light and scattered and mostly in the hills ad mountains. 

The first half of the week will be cold, with highs in the mid 30s to mid 40s and lows solidly below freezing. Yes, that's chilly for this time of year, but not really odd for early April. We should be able to sneak back up into the pleasant 50s for the second half of the week. 

March Was A Solidly Warm Month In Vermont

Paw prints left in the snow from Henry the Weather
 Dog after he took some weather observations on 
March 20 in St. Albans, Vermont. The month 
turned out to be solidly warmer than average.

The weather headlines in the United States was the extraordinary heat that shattered all-time record March highs. 

Vermont was on the outside of all this weather excitement, much cooler than the extreme heat in the South and West. 

Even so, we in Vermont ended up with a March that was solidly warmer than normal. As measured in Burlington, the average temperature was 36.4 degrees, a good 4.1 degrees milder than average. It was 19th warmest out of the past 139 years.

As the month opened, we had just been through four consecutive cooler than normal months, and were entering yet another winter cold wave. By the morning of March 2, it was below zero statewide.

But then, that was about it.  The warming trend peaked on March 7-12, when every day was at least 14.4 degrees warmer than normal. 

The heat peaked on March 10. Burlington reached 73 degrees, breaking the date's record high by an impressive 10 degrees. It was also the warmest temperature for so early in the season. Other hot Vermont cities that day include  71 in St. Johnsbury and 74 in Bennington, 

Before the mid-month heat wave, Vermont rivers were locked up in thick ice from a long, cold winter. The sudden warmth led to numerous ice jams in the Green Mountain State, Some of them caused minor flooding. It could have been a lot worse if there had been a lot of rain, but precipitation during the warm spell was light. 

The rest of the month toggled between relative warmth and winter chill, but there never were any particular extremes. 

Winter did return after the heat wave that was centered around March 10. A storm on March 20 had been forecast to dump half a foot of snow on northeastern Vermont, but only a couple inches in the Champlain Valley. 

Instead, nearly five inches of "wet cement" snow came down in just a few hours during the late morning an afternoon. It turned out to probably be the biggest traffic snarler since a similar late day dump of wet snow in November. 

It was a reminder that winter was not over. 

That day's snow (which fell as rain in southern Vermont) was a good shot of some needed precipitation, though. There's drought lingering from last autumn in parts of the state, so a wet spring is actually a good thing this  year. 

The news on the precipitation front in Vermont was sort of meh as rain and melted snow rain just about normal statewide. An exception was in the southwest, where Bennington turned up with a nice 4.36 inches of precipitation, which was 1.71 inches above normal ,

On the hand, Burlington;s precipitation of 2.27 inches was only 0.03 inches above average,  That was just the 68th wettest March out of the past 144 years. 

APRIL OUTLOOK

The month has begun with its usual schizophrenic attitude, with rapidly changing temperatures, and weather. 

Overall, NOAA expects most of the the U.S. to be warmer than normal in April. An exception is the Great Lakes a New England area a tossup: It'll end up either warmer or colder than normal, out somewhere near average. Precipitation would be above normal if NOAA's forecast is accurate.