Record Warmth Parts Of Vermont Today But Return To Winter Ugliness Returning

My yard in St. Albans, Vermont showing the effects of 
record warmth today. Yesterday is was still partly 
snow covered. Not so this afternoon.

Especially for those of you in western Vermont, if you thought today was incredibly mild, you were right.  

Temperatures reached to record levels. In Burlington, it got to 57 degrees on Wednesday, which beat the old record high of 54 set in 2006.

Rutland got up to 60 degrees and Bennington was at 61. I don't know if those were records, but they had to be at least close.

Eastern Vermont was a tad cooler, with temperatures in the 40s. That's quite balmy for this time of year, but not in record territory. 

Like many parts of the year, February has had some warm temperature extremes in Vermont in recent years under the influence of climate change. 

In Burlington, for instance, the warmest it had ever gotten in February prior to 2017 was 61 degrees. But in 2017, Burlington got up to a whopping 72 degrees. I've never seen a monthly record broken by that large a margin.

The following year, 2018, Burlington got up to 69 degrees, which would have been a major monthly record if not for the year before. But Montpelier in February, 2018 reached 70 degrees, again by far its highest recorded temperature in February.

We've had plenty of other warm February moments lately. It got up to 57 degrees in Burlington last February. In 2016 it got to at least 50 degrees six times during February. Four of the top 10 warmest Februaries in Burlington have occurred since 2012,.

But, as you might suspect, don't get used to today's toasty weather.  We are still firmly in winter, after all.  Just put the shorts and t-shirts away and wait for real spring to get here. Whenever that happens. 

Thursday will still be warmer than average, but noticeably colder, with highs in the upper 30s and low 40s.

As a cold front comes in Thursday night we face a spell of mixed precipitation, then sharply falling temperatures Friday.

We'll have another brief spurt of fairly mild weather Sunday and Monday but then a long spell of near or somewhat cooler than normal weather will start next Tuesday.

I'll have more on this in Thursday morning's post