March Was Another Warm, Dry-Ish Month In Vermont

After a relatively warm March, crocuses were popping
up on the final day of the month in St. Albans, Vermont.

Notwithstanding a few wintry interruptions, March weather in Vermont followed a trend we've seen very often in the past two or three years: It was warm, and at least in a good portion of the state, it was on the dry side. 

Temperatures were uniformly warmer than normal across the Green Mountain State. ranging from about 2.5 to 5.5 degrees warmer than average, depending upon where you were.  

This wasn't anywhere near record warmth - Burlington scored well below the top ten warmest - but it was an early spring. 

The early spring was aided by a continued lack of snow. St. Johnsbury, for instance, had 9.8 inches of snow for the month, which was six inches shy of normal for March.

The story was about the same in Burlington, where they had just under 10 inches of snow for March, which was 7.7 inches below normal for the month. Snowfall for the entire winter season as of last night in Burlington was 66.5 inches, far behind what should be the normal 83.4 for this late date in the snow season.

This will be the third winter in a row with pretty far below snowfall, unless we get a huge, surprise dump of a couple feet of snow in April, which is highly unlikely. It will almost definitely snow in April, it pretty much always does. However, it won't be enough to bring the entire snow season up to what is considered normal. 

Though western Vermont had near normal overall precipitation in March, eastern Vermont was on the dry side again. Montpelier mustered just 1.43 inches of rain and melted snow in March, which is about an inch shy of normal. St. Johnsbury was nearly a half inch on the dry side. 

By contrast, both Burlington and Rutland were right about at normal with 2.35 inches in Burlington and 2.65 inches in Rutland. Bennington was actually on the wet side in March with 3.46 inches of precipitation, which is about three quarters of an inch above normal.

If March is a sort of prelude to spring, April is the grand opening.  If things progress normally, there's a dramatic difference in Vermont between April Fool's Day and the close of the month.  

In Burlington, for instance, the normal high temperature today is a still-chilly 48 degrees, but by April 30 it should be 63 degrees or so in the afternoon.  A freeze is an almost nightly occurrence now, but becomes pretty infrequent by the end of the month. 

Of course, there's no such thing as a completely normal April. Temperatures have been as high as 91 degrees and as low as 2 degrees in April in Burlington. There's been as much as 21.3 inches of snow in April (1983). Only two Aprils in the past century, 1941 and 2005, brought nary a snowflake to Burlington.

Remember, Burlington is the banana belt, so I'm sure other parts of Vermont had snow those two years.

Of course, we don't know how this April will shape up. Short term forecasts are fairly easy.  We'll open April today with chilly rain showers today. They'll change to snow during the day, starting at the mountain tops and reaching valley floors tonight. 

Us valley dwellers will only see a slushy coating to a couple inches, but high elevations of the northern and central Green Mountains could see three to six inches by late tonight. 

Temperatures are forecast to be pretty close to normal for the upcoming week, with rain chances increasing by the end of the week.

For what it's worth, NOAA's long range forecast for the entire month of April, 2022 give us slightly better than even chances of being both somewhat warmer and wetter than average. We'll see!