Vermont Meteorological Winter Starts, Ma Nature Gets The Memo

Snow showers start to obscure the view of Lake Champlain
from St. Albans, Vermont on Thursday, December 1
Gusty, cold winds and snow showers were appropriate
conditions for the start of meteorological winter. 

 Yesterday, December 1, was the start of meteorological winter. 

It's the period from December 1 through February 28 (or February 29 on leap years) that climatologists and others regard as winter. 

Astronomical winter is something completely different, of course. That starts on December 21.  

Meteorological winter is set up the way it is, as it makes it easier to compare and contrast past winters and past seasons. 

I noticed here in Vermont, Ma Nature got the memo regarding meteorological winter. Gone was the mild weather on November 30.  It was winter.  (Video at bottom of this post proves it)

On Thursday, bursts of snow came out of the sky, propelled by gusty northwest winds. It was kind of cold, too, with temperatures holding in the 30s.

It wasn't anything unusual for this time of year. Temperatures were actually near normal. But it felt like a winter day, that's for sure. 

Normal temperatures are continuing to plummet, so winter is settling in.  The normal mean temperature today is 33 degrees, at least in Burlington. By New Year's Eve, "normal" will be ten degrees colder than that. 

Actual weather seems to be aiming squarely toward winter, too. Oh, sure, today will be nice enough, and Saturday will be downright mild with a little rain - not snow - thrown into the mix. 

But it will get more and more wintry as we go through the upcoming week. Again, nothing that out of the ordinary for a Vermont December, but definitely winter. 

Long range forecasts also keep us mostly colder than average through the middle of December. 

As winter seemed to settle in yesterday, I, as I often do, took some video clips of a gusty, sometimes snowy December 1 in St. Albans, Vermont.

You can see snow showers move in from the north, gradually obscuring the view of the lake. Then gusts of wind and waves of snow flakes move through. 

You can click on this link to see the video. Or, if you see the image of the video below, click on that to view: