Winter Won't End, At Least In The Mountains

A view of Mount Mansfield from the winter of 2019. Snow
cover on the summit has been below normal all winter, but new
installments of high elevations snow are in the forecast for
the next few days. 

 It was a lackluster snow year in the higher summits of the Green Mountains of Vermont this winter. Through April 1, the deepest snow at the stack near the top of Mount Mansfield was 57 inches. 

On average, the snow depth atop Vermont's highest peak tops out at about 70 inches. In many years, more than 100 inches of snow graces the areas near the summit.

Snow depth atop Mount Mansfield remains below average now, due to bouts of rain and mild temperatures this month. Even so, the snow is hanging tough remarkably well because there's been decent, but not overwhelming snows in Vermont's mountains this month. 

The snow depth atop Mount Mansfield actually reached a later than average season peak of 61 inches last Sunday.  It's back down to 48 inches, but new installments of snow are due. That's true of Vermont's mountains, but even the valley floors might be getting into the snow act over the next few days. 

The relative mild character of this April will come to end in Vermont today, and it won't warm up all that much for a good week or so. There's also a couple chances of snow, with the second round of snow potentially heavy in the high elevations. 

Today will be chilly and raw, with temperatures not getting out of the 40s, with light showers around.  Those will change to snow later today and tonight in the mountains, and I bet the summits will clock in with at least one to three inches of new snow by tomorrow. Even the valleys could get some wet snow flakes tonight and tomorrow. 

A break comes Monday with sunshine. After a pretty hard morning freeze (still pretty normal for this time of year) we'll pop back up into the low 50s, which is only slightly on the cool side for mid-April.

Then there's the next bout of storminess Tuesday.  One storm will head into the Great Lakes while another nor'easter type thing gets going on or near the New England coast. As the National Weather Service in South Burlington puts it, how these two storms interact will establish who gets how much snow, and who gets rain. 

If neither storm really dominates then it will mostly be a cold, light rain. But if the coastal storm turns dominate, then precipitation will be heavier, and more likely take the form of snow Tuesday. 

The dominate coastal scenario at this point seems somewhat more likely.  However, it's relatively hard, but not impossible, to kick off a decent snowstorm this late in the season in Vermont valleys. Anything could happen with this one, but right now, it seems like valleys could skate by with a rain/snow mix with little if any accumulation.

The mountains are another story. Higher elevations could easily receive a snowfall of a good six inches or more out of Tuesday's storm. Lingering mountain snow showers would add a little to the totals on Wednesday. 

It will be getting into late April, of course, so it can only stay so cold for so long. Average temperatures are rising fast, so it will keep getting more and more difficult to squeeze out any snow in Vermont.