Matt's Weather Rapport: Journey From Spring To Winter To Spring, In Photos

Saturday, April 24, 2021

Journey From Spring To Winter To Spring, In Photos

Before the storm, April 20

As promised, we're back to full blown spring here in Vermont after our bout with late season winter.

For me, it was back to doing garden work yesterday here in St. Albans, Vermont on a cool, breezy, but pleasant evening. That involved assessing the damage from the snow and freeze. I found that plants can be nice and resilient.

A series of photos in this post depict our journey in St Albans from spring to winter and back to spring.

What saved many garden plants around much of Vermont was for most of us, temperatures stayed at or above 25 degrees.

It felt colder with the wind chill, but wind chill is for us humans. The snow hurt by crushing tender flowers and stems, but also helped by burying leaves and sprouts to protect them from the cold.

It's still not perfectly clear yet what died and what survived, but for most plants, they're good.

2:32 p.m. April 21, the burying begins.

The most disappointing result I've seen is that although all those daffodils around my house survived and continued to bloom, they got mushed down and are now not as pretty and well-arranged as they were.

Some flower stems failed under the weight of the snow, so the flowers drooped to the ground and are dying.

The forsythia flowers, a brilliant yellow before the storm, are now brown and dead, but the new leaves sprouting on that bush look fine. The leaves on the day lily plants are flattened but will perk up as spring progresses.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the lilacs. The budding flowers drooped and took on a darker, brownish color in the freeze, making me think they died and we'll have to wait another full year for the glory of the lilacs.

However, the flower buds seemed to perk up in Friday's sunshine, so maybe they survived. We'll see how they do in the next few weeks.

4:31 p.m April 21 The snow keeps flying

Thank goodness we don't have much more cold weather to talk about. Today will be sort of warm for the season with highs up into the 60s.

Sunday will bring less rain than originally expected, but there will be showers around under seasonably cool conditions.

The dreaded "S" word comes back late Sunday night and early Monday, but relax, it will be no big deal. There might be a few wet snow flakes in the air in the hours either side of dawn Monday, but it won't amount to anything.

Monday will be close to 10 degrees colder than average, but that means highs will be near 50 degrees. That's not too bad. Temperatures will be near freezing Monday night, but again, not cold enough to cause any further plant damage.

The weather for the rest of the upcoming week looks fairly uncertain, but it will be a little warmer than average, and expect some late April showers here and there.

Continue to scroll down to see our climb out of the winter blast and back into spring. It's satisfying to see.