February Redux: Echo Of Winter Arctic Blast Freezing Much Of Nation, Vermont Included

All that dark bluish color in the middle of the nation
of the NWS home page is an immense area of 
freeze warnings due to a huge record cold surge. That's 
spreading east, so much of the East will have
freeze warnings later this week.
Snow for us in Vermont again 

 You'll remember back in February that big, record breaking Arctic blast that froze much of the nation's Middle and South, killing dozens of people, shutting down Texas and other areas of the South and just being horrible.  

There seems to be an echo of that Arctic blast going on right now.  Except it's April, not February. 

For the most part it won't be a winter storm that shuts down entire states, but it's going to be a widespread crop and plant killer. 

By the way, we here in Vermont get to share in the frigid excitement. More on that in a moment.

Freeze warnings today cover an immense part of the nation from central Texas to Michigan.  Those freezes warnings will be extended later to much of the East Coast as well by the end of the week.

Temperatures in parts of South Dakota were in the upper teens this morning. It was close to 90 degrees there earlier this month. Snow was falling this morning in places like Kansas City, Missouri, which is pretty much off the charts for this time of year.   

What I'd feared would happen this spring is happening. After that February freeze, spring took hold strong and early.  Everything from the Plains to the Eastern Seaboard bloomed way earlier than normal. 

Now, we get an Arctic blast.  (The same thing happened in Europe a couple weeks ago. A much earlier than normal spring, followed by record cold).

In this case, the United States freeze will probably lead to higher prices for fruits and some vegetables. Blooms and early stuff on cherry, apple, peach and other trees are going to be nipped in widespread areas of the nation. 

On a smaller scale, home gardens will be ruined, too. 

Record lows will fall quite a few cities from Texas to the Great Lakes. All in all a depressing state of affairs, but on the bright side it is April. The cold snap will end quite soon and we'll be back to the normal springtime warmth and outbreaks of severe weather in the Midwest and South soon enough. 

VERMONT/NEW ENGLAND EFFECTS

A pretty strong storm is forecast to form along the cold front ushering in this frosty air.  Forecasts keep trending colder and colder with this storm, as it's now expected to move across southern Vermont or western Massachusetts on up through New Hampshire and into Quebec, strengthening all the while.

It'll never really warm up west of the Green Mountains under this scenario, so expect mixed rain and snow for Wednesday, trending more toward all snow in northern New York, especially the Adirondacks. 

The cold air on the back side of the storm will really assert itself more later Wednesday and Wednesday night, bringing snow to pretty much everybody in Vermont again, even on valley floors. 

The only places that might escape any snow are around the lower Connecticut River Valley. 

Wednesday night and Thursday morning will also be the coldest we've seen since the opening days of the month. With the snowflakes flying, it'll be between 25 and 30 degrees for most of us at dawn Thursday.  That's enough to threaten early leaves, flowers, gardens etc.  That's especially true since winds will be howling from the northwest, gusting over 35 mph. 

Most of the snow falling late Wednesday and Thursday morning will be in the mountains, but you'll see flakes in the valleys as well. 

At this point, the National Weather Service in South Burlington isn't expecting any huge accumulations of snow, except in the high country of the Adirondacks and northern Green Mountains, where locally four to eight inches of snow could pile up.

In the valleys, it will be more like a dusting to as high as three inches. Still, the second snowfall in a week around these parts is a bit much for some of us. 

Thursday will be a lousy day with clouds, strong winds, scattered rain and snow showers and temperatures that will stay at or below 40 degrees. Yuck! 

It will sort of warm up again by Saturday before another kind of cold system comes along toward Sunday.  For most if not all of us, the Sunday system looks like it will be pretty much snow-free, except maybe on the highest mountain peaks.