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| The cold light of late afternoon in St. Albans, Vermont Sunday introduced us to a very belated arrival of true winter weather in the Green Mountain State. |
Yeah, yeah, I know, it's the middle of January. Winter started a long time ago. Supposedly.
But if you look at the weather we've had until now, you might beg to differ. Since December 1, only six days as measured in Burlington were regarded as cooler than normal. And that's the warmer "new" normal brought on by climate change.
Remarkably, temperatures in Burlington have yet to fall into the single numbers this winter. I'm pretty sure that's by far a record for the latest in the season we haven't reached 10 degrees yet. November lasted until mid-January, apparently.
WINTER ARRIVES
On Sunday, that all ended as snow squalls blustered across much of Vermont. Some of the squalls were impressive. A traffic monitoring weather station on Route 4 near the Twin Bridges in West Rutland showed visibility less than a quarter mile with frequent wind gusts to or over 30 mph for a full half hour.
My sister and husband, who live pretty close to that weather station reported at least 2.5 inches of snow within 45 minutes to an hour.
Those squalls introduced the first extended period of subfreezing weather we've had this winter. By the end of the week, most of us will have seen some nighttime temperatures fall to a few degrees either side of zero.
Which isn't exactly odd for a Vermont January, but there you go.
Today will be a quiet and cold-ish day today with highs just in the 20s. Then things turn even a little more wintry.
We might be in for a slight surprise on Tuesday. Yes, a storm well off the coast will miss us, but we still might get a decent snowfall. The air flow around that storm will help feed moisture into New England, which will encounter a disturbance coming in from the west.
The result should be a general two to five inch snowfall during the day. (Some places near the Canadian border might only see a little less than two inches).
On the other hand, this snowfall on Tuesday at least has a shot at over-performing a bit. There might be a little more snow than forecast, especially in southern Vermont. Bottom line, even places that missed out on Sunday's squalls should get at least some additional snow cover.
The rest of the week looks rather quiet and cold. There's still some question marks about Friday and whether we'll see any noticeable snowfall, so stay tuned of that.
The chilliest air looks like it will hit Friday and next weekend. At that point, we have a shot at seeing the first subzero temperatures of the winter. Again, it's awfully late in the season to see that level of chill for the first time.
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| The incoming cold air might not last all that long. This extended forecast covering most of late January leans heavily toward warmer than normal temperatures nationwide. |
And the cold won't be all that unusual for Vermont. Highs for two or three days will be in the 5 to 15 degree range and lows will be from 10 below to 5 above, as it looks now, so not ridiculous.
Especially if you compare this week's forecast to the "bad old days" - in the 1970s and earlier.
Back then, even the banana belt Champlain Valley of Vermont would endure five, six, seven consecutive days with lows in the teens and 20s below zero during many winters.
I'm also seeing signs that this winter style weather won't last. Long range forecasts, which I admit can be wrong, do suggest that the entire nation - including Vermont - could be bathed in warmer than normal temperatures during most of the last ten days of January.
That's not to say we won't finally see hard core winter in February and March. El Nino winters like this one tend to be back loaded toward the second half of the season.
But so far, Vermont is being let off easy this winter, at least in terms of temperature. Of course, we've had a terribly hard winter when it comes to severe storms. At least during this upcoming cold spell, chances are we'll get a break from the intense storminess, too.
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