Springtime After Christmas: More Rain In Vermont, Too

Since it was so springlike yesterday in Vermont, I dragged
out my tools and started a bit of early spring garden
cleanup.  It's been remarkably warm this month. 

Honestly, it really feels like early spring.

Yesterday, Boxing Day, had me outdoors on a really nice early April late December day. 

The air had the muddy, organic aroma of spring promise. For the first time in days, low clouds and fog broke up for a few hours to bring us some sunshine. 

The weather surely had many of us wanting go out and start your spring garden cleanup tasks, at least in the corners of the garden that weren't too soggy. Of course that's exactly what I did Tuesday.

It was both nice and disconcerting out there, me with no jacket, comfortable in a thick-ish black t-shirt, primping up at least some corners of the perennial beds. It was only 50 degrees or so, but with light winds and a little sun and getting some exercise, you didn't need to bundle up at all. 

 It was even more strange seeing tentative new fresh green daffodil shoots poking up.  That's the fourth warm December in a row that's happened. 

This ain't your grandfather's Christmas season, that's for sure. 

April, oops I mean December showers returned after dark last evening, and we're back to the fog, gloom, drizzle and light rain we've gotten used to this month. At least it's not pouring, like it has on some occasions in the past few weeks. 

The strange warmth will continue the rest of the week, but will begin to fade toward the end of the week. Temperatures will remain a little above normal through the New Year holiday, but not as warm as today and tomorrow. 

Daytime highs are not extreme.  The thick clouds today and tomorrow will hold us in the 40s, which is about 15 degrees on the warm side. Records for warmest daily lows for the date are in jeopardy today and tomorrow. Many of us won't go under 40 degrees until Thursday night. That's insanely warm. About average for early May. 

Rainfall will keep coming and going amid a complex mess of weather disturbances meandering around and near a sprawling upper level low pressure in the Midwest, heading toward the southeast as forecast.

No one system will really wind up to provide any huge dumps of rain.  So we'll deal with the risk of periods of light rain, especially this afternoon and during the day tomorrow.  There's no worries about flooding. 

By Friday, at least some of the higher elevations will see a return of some snow, though nothing heavy. We might eventually see dustings of snow in the valleys, too.  Gee, what a shock for New Years.

Long range forecasts suggest that January will be more wintry than December has been. Then again that's an awfully low bar. 

All this winter warmth is not to say frigid weather is impossible. We can still get bitingly cold months here in Vermont.  It's the luck of the draw. As recently as January, 2022, we had a much colder than average month with numerous days below zero.

But with climate change, those bitterly cold months will be less frequent.  The dice that decide whether it will be a cold or warm month are now definitely loaded in favor of the warm side. 

You're a lot less likely to be able to tell your grandchildren you trudged through four feet of snow on your walk to school, uphill both ways.