Winter In April: Get Through Today, And Spring Returns, Promise

A very wintry scene for April 22 this morning in St. 
Albans, Vermont. 

 I almost killed myself taking the dogs out for their business this morning in St. Albans, Vermont. 

Turns out the driveway froze solid and would make a perfect ice hockey rink.  Almost landed on my butt.

Spoiler: Our two pups weren't exactly thrilled by outdoor conditions, either. Wonderful for April 22 huh?

If we can endure one more wintry day, spring will return to Vermont. I promise. I can't guarantee the return of your early garden plants after this spell of Great White North weather, but we'll see.

With some added snow showers overnight, the storm total here in St. Albans ended up at 5.3 inches. That's near the top snow amounts reported so far in Vermont. The most I've seen anywhere in the state is 6 inches in Greensboro.

Large areas of Vermont reported three to four inches of snow. That's fairly impressive for late April. 

An uninviting morning today on our deck in St. Albans,
Vermont. Buried chair, frozen, dead plant, 
iced over dog's water bowl. 

Burlington's total snow came in at 2.8 inches, which broke the snowfall record for the date of 2.2 inches, set in 1988.

This was by no means the largest, biggest late season snow on record, despite the late season nature of it all. 

The latest three inch snow on record in Burlington came on May 9, 1966.  

The average date of the last three inch snowfall in Burlington is March 19, and the average last one inch snowfall is April 5, so yeah, this was a late one. 

More impressive than the snow is the cold. Not the intensity of it, we didn't come that close to a record low this morning. The length of time it has been below freezing is something.  As of 9 a.m., it was still 29 degrees in Burlington, which was the 20th consecutive hour of subfreezing air. 

The only comparable or worse spell of this type of cold I could find was in April, 1919. That year, the high temperature in Burlington on April 25 was only 27 degrees. It looks like the temperature went below freezing that year late on April 24 and didn't get above freezing again until the afternoon of April 26.

So, yes, it could be worse. 

Back to the here and now, snow showers are still scattered about this morning, especially in the mountains, where there's still probably some light additional accumulation going on. The snow showers will gradually retreat more and more into the mountains today. 

Frozen, snow capped and possibly destroyed lilac flower
buds in St. Albans, Vermont this morning. 

Those of you who received snow will hang onto it for another day. 

Oh, sure some will melt. Ground temperatures are warm, so part of it will melt from below. Afternoon temperatures in valleys will get a little above freezing. 

A little sunshine will poke through at times today, and that sun is strong. So yeah, it'll look a little better by the end of the day.  

But with temperatures holding for most of us between 30 and 40 degrees, it's not exactly a mega thaw. 

You'll wait until tomorrow to really clear the snow.  It won't exactly be balmy, but it will still be reasonable for April, for a change. Under variable clouds and still gusty winds, we should at least make it into the low 50s, which should get rid of most of the valley snow, anyway.  

Temperatures in the 60s Saturday should get rid of anything that's left, except for perhaps a few sad snowbanks. And there will still be snow left in the mountains. 

The next storm on Sunday doesn't look like it will bring especially heavy precipitation. Better yet, it will be all rain, except for maybe a bit of snow in the high terrain toward the end early Monday morning. 

Next week is looking decidedly warmer and springlike. We have that to look forward to!