Spring Is Resuming Today, But Why We Got That Huge Storm And What Are Its After Effects?

Trees on the verge of collapse during yesterday's wet
snowstorm in St. Albans, Vermont

 For the second year in a row, much of Vermont received a surprisingly strong winter storm in the third week in April. 

In both cases, the snowstorms hit during a spring that was earlier than usual, though 2021's version featured a much earlier spring than this year. 

April Winter Storm 2022 surprised forecasters as snowfall was much heavier than predicted. This storm had a high bust potential to begin with. 

Temperatures were just a degree or two colder than forecast, and the atmosphere was only subtly more primed for heavy snow than predictions ahead of the storm.

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service in South Burlington, and local TV meteorologists got the basic premise of what would happen correctly well ahead of the storm. 

They knew that overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday, a pretty hard thump of snow would move south to north across Vermont. And that's what happened. However, expectations were that valleys would be warm enough so that there would only be an inch or so of snow before things changed to rain. Mid and high elevations would get three to six inches of snow, which is what happened. 

However, the cold air hung on long enough so that during the period of heaviest precipitation, the snow never changed to rain, at least in western Vermont. So that inch of snow turned into three to six inches, with locally higher amounts. 

I also think the precipitation was a little heavier than forecast. That rush of  heavy snow coming down from aloft might have helped cool the air near the ground just a bit, so the snowflakes managed to land without turning to rain first.  

As expected, eastern Vermont had less wintry weather than the western half of the state, as the storm took an inland track northward through central New England. While areas west of the Green Mountains were stuck in the 30s early Tuesday afternoon, it go up to a seasonable 55 degrees in St. Johnsbury.

Meteorologists had said before the storm that central New York and the Adirondacks would have the heaviest snow of this storm and boy did those areas deliver! 

Damage from heavy, wet snow in St. Albans Tuesday.

Amounts were as high as 18 inches in the towns of Bleecker and Virgil, New York. 

THE STATS

Believe it or not, at least in Burlington, this wasn't even a record high snowfall for the date. The National Weather Service in South Burlington measured 4.2 inches of snow Tuesday. But on the same date in 1925 there was a six inch dump. 

However, I only found two days in the roughly 140 years of records in Burlington with more snow later in the season than yesterday.  There was 4.3 inches of snow on April 20, 1953 and 4.9 inches on April 23, 1993. 

Of course, other parts of Vermont have had frequent bouts with even deeper snow into the month of May. 

Gusty winds mixed with the wet snow in some areas contributed to the power outages, which peaked at around 22,000 in Vermont yesterday. As of 6:30 this morning, about 2,100 customers were still without electricity. 

Gusts as high as 54 mph were reported in Proctor. Much of the Northeast Kingdom had strong gusty winds as well.This led to a tragedy on Lake Seymour in Morgan when two young men died when their canoe overturned.  According to VTDigger, the two set out on the lake in the canoe when strong winds arose, causing waves and areas of slush that overturned the boat.  The two tried to swim to shore, but drowned. 

There was a lot of water in Tuesday's snow. Melted precipitation was 1.11 inches in Burlington, which was a record for the date. This puts the month of April solidly wetter than normal, but not remotely near any records.  Most other areas in western and central Vermont also had about an inch of precipitation yesterday. 

YOUR GARDEN

This Korean lilac in my St. Albans, Vermont yard looked
completely smushed to the ground and potentially
ruined by heavy wet snow, but as the snow melted
the branches bounced back into place and this
lovely shrub was completely unharmed by the snow.

Damage to early season gardens will not be as bad as during another bout with snow and cold a year ago, on April 21-22, 2021.

The only real damage this time around will be if the heavy snow broke branches on any of your trees or shrubs.  I do have minor damage in my gardens from snapped and bent branches, but nothing extensive.

The good news is your early hardy perennials and tree buds are fine. Temperatures during the storm bottomed out at around 32 or 33 degrees, which is not cold enough to harm anything. 

Last year, buds and flowers were more advanced than this year, so lilac, crabapple and other flowering trees and shrubs suffered some damage last April as temperatures crashed well into the 20s just as these plants were starting to bloom.

FORECAST

A little more snow fell overnight in the mountains, judging from radar reports and web cams that show snow covered roads at high elevations. Snow showers lingered in the mountains all night, so I bet there was several inches of snow at summit level, but little if anything below 1,500 feet.

Jay Peak reported an additional six inches of snow overnight for a storm total of 15 inches. 

Runoff from the snow melt will probably put the Lake Champlain lake level at just under its flood stage of 100 feet above sea level.  It will be mushy underfoot for a few days once again.  

Strong south winds Thursday might cause some minor splash over and erosion problems along some shorelines in the northern half of Lake Champlain. 

To help dry things out, we are expecting very little rain in the next week or so. It'll amount to just a few hundredths of an inch to a quarter inch now through next Monday which is next to nothing. 

Though things will get decidedly more springlike than yesterday, we've fallen into a pattern that will keep us mostly cooler than normal at least into early May. Not every day will be on the cool side, but that will be the trend. Too bad, I like warm spring days. 

In the near term, today will be blustery and quite cool, even with increasing afternoon sun. Highs will only make it into the upper 40s, which is about 10 degrees on the cold side. Still, the remaining snow on the ground should disappear for most of us, unless you're up high. 

It stays cool through the weekend, with some frosty nights (not damaging for what's out there now). Afternoon temperatures through Thursday through Sunday will be in the 50s. We might get one day of warm weather Monday before it turns chilly again. 

I don't see any signs of more snowstorms in the coming days. At least not here. We're not in North Dakota, parts of which are expecting their third big snowstorm in a little over a week. Ugh!