Friday, April 26, 2024

Back To Spring, And Spring Showers After This Morning's Vermont Freeze

 Temperatures at dawn in Vermont were a couple degrees warmer at dawn today than yesterday. 

Frosty leaves in the garden again this morning
in St. Albans, Vermont. 
That's not saying much, since pretty much everybody in the Green Mountain State was in the 20s, with a few teens in the cold hollows.  

Still, the fact that it was a tiny bit "warmer" than dawn Thursday ist he first sign that spring is about to return after a couple days away. 

 The sky is clear again, and the air is still super dry so temperatures will rocket upward as the sun takes over. 

 It will be a good ten degrees warmer than yesterday afternoon, so it will be in the 50s. Possibly near 60 degrees. Nice, just a little cooler than average.

The dry air will give us another chilly night, with temperatures near or below freezing again by Saturday morning. But if you're worried about any additional garden freeze damage, relax, it won't be that bad.

DRY TO "HUMID"

The super dry air we've had the past couple of days is going to be a thing of the past by Sunday. Saturday will be a transition day, as we get warmer and clouds begin to creep in.  Nice day, though, with highs in the 60s. 

A warm front will come in Saturday night. That will spread a little rain in overnight into Sunday.  Bonus: No snow. There's actually a chance warmer valleys will not see any additional snow again until October or November. So there's that.

After Saturday, I guess you can put away the ChapStick for awhile. By Sunday afternoon, the air will actually have sort of a humid feel to it.  Which is a remarkable switch from what has been the desert dry air we are in now. 

It won't be oppressive, but if you're exerting yourself on Sunday  afternoon, you'll sort of notice it. If sun breaks through, we could get temperatures in the low 70s.Weak weather disturbances and the vaguely humid air will combine to produce some scattered showers and maybe even a few rumbles of thunder, especially north, Sunday.  Kind of like summer. 

I guess if we're going to transition away from basically winter in the desert like we've had the past couple of days, we might as well go all in. 

WARM, BUT NOT THAT WARM

Longer range forecasts had been bullish on a warm close to April and equally warm start to May, but they've backed off on that. But at least it will be, well, normal.  Next week looks unsettled, with frequent chances of showers. It won't rain all the time, but there will often be that risk of raindrops.

We will have to watch for a back door cold front that could make northern Vermont a bit chillier Monday and eastern Vermont cool on Tuesday. That cold front makes forecasting temperatures a little trickier than first thought. 

It depends on where this cold front sets up and how fast it moves. There's a chance this front could hold down temperatures a little in northern Vermont on Monday, and then perhaps east of the Green Mountains Tuesday. 

But nobody is that sure. At least if parts of Vermont get in the cooler air behind the front, it won't be that bad. Certainly not another frost and freeze.  

If garden plants were damaged in this week's harsh freeze, it will be interesting to see how well they recover. They weren't that far advanced, and most of the stuff that was blooming are pretty hardy, so I think we escaped a garden nightmare from our freeze.


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