Chaotic, Near Record Cold In Northeast Gives Way To Big Changes

Massive, fatal pileup on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania
due to unseasonable cold and snow squalls in the Northeast,
including here in Vermont Monday. 

Winter certainly left its mark on the Northeast on Monday with near record cold, snow, garden and crop damage and at least one terrible highway pileup. 

Next up, temperature gyrations and a brief visit to spring, followed by March weather as we begin April. Confusing, yes, but that's spring for you. 

Let's go over Monday first. When very cold blasts of air hit us in the spring, the weather can get weird, and sometimes dangerous, which was the case here.

Around Vermont, the snow showers weren't that heavy, but the fine flakes would often briefly cut visibility to risky levels if you were out on the highways. Worse, the weak March sun would come through and melt snow on the roads, and then it would re-freeze when the clouds thickened up at times. This was especially true on bridges and overpasses

I'm surprised there weren't more crashes in Vermont than there were. But that's a goo thing. 

That wasn't the case in other areas further south and closer to the Great Lakes, where snow squalls were added to the mix. This led to a terrifying pileup on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania. The video in this link is probably the scariest pileup video I can recall seeing. 

Unfortunately at least three people died in the pile up and 24 others were taken to hospitals.  The death toll could rise because as of this morning the wreckage was so extensive crews had not gone through it all yet.  Nearly 24 hours after the crash, the Interstate was still closed.

While Monday wasn't exactly unprecedented in the weather department, it was still something given how otherwise mild this March has been. Montpelier only reached a high of 19 degrees on Monday, tying the record for the lowest high temperature for the date. 

Since it was an early spring in the Northeast, garden plants and orchards were already starting to sprout.  

I think Vermont was far enough north so that any early daffodil and other perennial shoots that were up when the cold hit will survive. 

New daffodil shoots in St. Albans, Vermont looking pretty
frozen after such unusual late March cold in Vermont.
They should recover, fingers crossed! 

Down in southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic States, there was damage to decorative cherry tree and magnolia blossoms.  I THINK blooming daffodils down that way will manage.  Orchards aren't blooming yet in places like Pennsylvania and New Jersey so things should be OK 

As cold as Monday was, we can always come up with incidents when it was worse, if we want to feel better about things. 

I was able to find examples of worse cold than what we just endured even later in the season.  A couple of April 7s in fairly recent history stand out. 

The modern gold standard of springtime cold and wintry weather would be April 6 and 7 in both 1972 and 1982.

Back in 1972, Burlington recorded its all time coldest temperature with a lovely 2 above zero. It won't get that could in this little late season Arctic outbreak. It was 2 below that day in Enosburg Falls, and 39 inches of snow was still on the ground at high elevation Peru, in southern Vermont. 

It didn't even warm up much after that cold shot in 1972. Montpelier never got any warmer than 54 degrees until April 30. 

In 1982, central and southern New England and New York experience a blizzard on April 6-7 and temperatures fell to previously unheard of levels for that late in the season. 

Burlington's high and low temperature on April 7 ,1982 was 26 and 13 and that was one of the warmer spot. Down in Worcester, Massachusetts back in 1982's winter redux, the high was 21, the low was 11 and 15 inches poured down on the city. That would be fairly wild in January, never mind April! 

NEXT UP

 It's still very wintry out there today, but we hit rock bottom yesterday and still should climb back toward spring.  It'll be slow process at first, then we'll have a brief burst of full-on spring before temperatures quickly retreat again. 

Most of us will stay below freezing again today, but it will still be a little warmer than Monday. I know that's not saying much, but whatevs.. 

 Frankly, today won't be much better than Monday was. Sure, it will be almost ten degrees warmer than Monday, but that's saying basically nothing.  A high around 30 is not the way to impress at the end of March. 

It'll be a little chilly for the season but even better Wednesday when it gets up to 40 degrees or so. We have one little slap of winter to go with a bit of snow and mixed precipitation Wednesday evening when a warm front approaches.  But it won't amount to much. 

The warm front will pave the way for a strong but brief surge of very mild air on Thursday.  Especially west of the Green Mountains, the air will take on an almost humid feel as actual temperatures approach 60 degrees. It will be somewhat cooler east of the Greens.

Unlike the expected storm chaos in the South and Southeast with this system, we should have some showers and perhaps a rumble of thunder up in our neck of the woods.  (I'll have a separate post today on the extreme wildfire threat in the Plains and tomorrow's expected severe weather in the South).

After that, we get into a similar weather pattern we just had. The difference is the dip in the jet stream that will cause the cool, possibly showery weather over the weekend won't be able to grab Arctic air from the North Pole.

So it will only be sort of chilly, with those scattered valley rain and mountain snow showers Friday and into the weekend.  Highs in the low to mid 40s sound a lot better than teens, so we'll take that over the weekend.