Satellite View Shows Diminishing Snow Cover In Vermont

Satellite photo from Sunday shows snow remaining
in the Green Mountains and Adirondack and in
much of northeastern Vermont.  Click on the map
to make it bigger and easier to view.

 Sunday was crystal clear and beautiful in Vermont, so it was time to take a sneak peek, via satellite photo, to trace Vermont's remaining snow cover. 

To nobody's surprise, there's been a big decline since April 1, when we last took a good look at satellite photos showing, among other things, the Green Mountain State's snow cover.  

Judging from the forecast, we'll lose a lot more snow in the coming days.

In Sunday's satellite photo taken in the morning before a little additional thawing got underway, areas along and east of the Green Mountains still have snow. You can see it as sort of that off-white hue.  

Unlike on April 1, if you look closely, you can see valleys in eastern Vermont are looking brown, meaning the snow is gone. You can really see it in the Connecticut River Valley south of St. Johnsbury, and to a somewhat lesser extent the White River Valley in east central Vermont, and the Winooski River valley in Washington County. 

The splotches that have the most brilliant white hue, compared to the rest, are mid and high elevations where snow cover is still pretty deep. As of Sunday morning, the high elevation town of Sutton in Caledonia County still had a foot of snow on the ground. Corinth, in Orange County, still had 14 inches. 

Mount Mansfield still had 73 inches of snow at the stake near the summit, just six inches less than it had on April 1.  I'm pretty sure you'll see decent declines in snow depth up there later in the week. 

That 73 inch snow depth up there is a little more than average for the date. Since mid-March, the Mount Mansfield snow depth has been somewhat above average, after spending the entire winter below normal. 

You can also see that north of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, there is still a TON of snow on the ground.

On the very bright side, it seeming like we're escaping any substantial spring snow melt floods in Vermont. 

Locally heavy rains in northern Vermont on April 5, caused some minor flooding, but really, it was no big deal. 

This week, very little rain will accompany the melting snow.  Late in the week, high temperatures in higher elevations could reach well into the 50s and 60s, which would accelerate the runoff from the mountains. 

That'll probably mean river levels will remain on the high side, but nothing to really worry about.

As of Sunday, the Lake Champlain level was at 98.15 feet, a little less than two feet shy of flood stage. That level is also very close to normal for this time of year. 

The lake might continue to rise, but severe flooding on the lake is off the table, unless we somehow get record heavy rains in later in April and May, which seems pretty unlikely.