New England Winter Storm Over-performed Today, Impressive Snows

Daffodils struggling a bit with today's snow in my
 St. Albans, Vermont gardens. 

The winter storm that started engulfing parts of the Northeast last night really decided to escalate unexpectedly, at least to me.

The snow managed to spread all the way down to the coast of New England. For a time, the snow extended into Vermont's Champlain Valley this afternoon as well. 

That spreading outward of the snow during daylight hours is especially impressive for this time of year. 

The high springtime sun angle allows heat even through the type of thick clouds we had today. That normally would have been enough to make temperatures creep up a bit.

This, in turn would prevent the snow from extending to low elevations during daylight hours, and should have made even some slightly higher spots switch over to rain. 

But the storm, especially its upper air support, grew stronger, allowing a cool pool of air overhead to get even colder. So places that had been raining switched to snow, at least for a time late this morning and this afternoon.

The snow in the low spots still had a hard time accumulating. I only managed to see 0.3 inches here in St. Albans, Vermont. As of this writing, just before 6 p.m., there's still a mixture of light rain and snow falling.

In some parts of southern New England this was among the larger late season storms on record. Parts of northwest Connecticut reported 6 inches of snow. Some towns in central Massachusetts received eight inches. 

Here in Vermont, amounts were really impressive in the high elevations in the southern half of the state. 

So far, I've seen reports of 11.1 inches in Winhall,  10.8 inches in Ludlow; 10.5 inches in Shrewsbury and Bridgewater; 10 inches in Mount Holly and Athens and 9 inches in Vershire.

A couple factors going on now will - I think - minimize additional snow tonight  There could be a few more inches in some favored high spots. But a somewhat drier tongue of air is pushing in from the east, which would lighten the precipitation this evening a lot. 

Snow dusting my St. Albans, Vermont yard
this afternoon.

That means less cold air being driven down from aloft, so some places that switched to snow will go back over to light rain or drizzle. 

We seem to be in the process of doing that now here in St. Albans, we'll see. I also see places that had been snowing in southern Vermont earlier today had switched to rain by late afternoon.

I think the storm has reached peak intensity, so despite the setting sun, air aloft might start to warm ever so slightly, which will help keep additional snow out of the valleys. The storm is also getting ready to slowly depart, and stagger off to the east, out into the Atlantic Ocean. 

This storm did certainly help with drought relief. It didn't solve all the problems, but it certainly helped! The immediate problem of bone dry farm fields and gardens has disappeared, as has the brush fire risk. At least for now. 

As of late this afternoon, Burlington had received just over an inch of rain and melted snow out of the storm. Down in southeastern Vermont, Springfield was a little over 1.5 inches of rain and melted snow from the storm by late afternoon. My very unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans clocked in with about two inches of water so far.

The snow that many of us have on the ground will melt very quickly.  Tomorrow won't exactly be warm, but highs well into the 40s will put a dent in the accumulations in the somewhat higher terrain. Even warmer air is likely at Sunday and Monday, so spring will return.

Next up, there's a lot of uncertainty about the intensity and temperatures associated with a system due here around midweek. This next one could also involve a little snow, but not nearly to the extent we experienced today.