A Surprise Overnight Heat Wave In Vermont, Late Night Record Highs

It's becoming  weird late December tradition around my
St. Albans, Vermont house. Record warmth has 
caused these daffodil shoots to sprout out of season
Same thing happened in recent Decembers. 

 We knew it would get warm here in Vermont overnight and this morning, but what happened is kind of ridiculous. 

Rather than reach the low 50s by this morning, Burlington, Vermont's temperature rocketed upward last evening, peaking at 61 degrees at around 11 p.m. That was good enough for a record high for the date, the old one being 58 degrees in 1984.

As you well know, 11 p.m. is an odd time of day to see a record high.  

Burlington was probably the warmest place around, because winds from the southeast had some compressional warming as gusts flowed down the western slopes of the Green Mountains. Still, it did manage to reach 58 degrees in Bennington, 55 in Rutland, and 57 in Plattsburgh, New York.

Place east of the Green Mountains have mostly so far missed out on the warmth.  The mildest it got in Springfield so far is 48 degrees. St. Johnsbury has thus far only managed to get as mild as 41 degrees. 

As of early this morning, it look like Burlington at least tied the record high for today's date of 58 degrees.  We'll see how that sugars out.

We've been re-writing the record books for late December in recent years. In 2015, it was 68 degrees in Burlington on Christmas Eve, the hottest December temperature on record. Our hottest Christmas was in 2020, with a temperature of 65 degrees. Just two years ago, in 2022, the record high that was probably tied today was set. 

COOLING TREND

I hope you got outside to enjoy Vermont's tropical warmth early today as you won't see temperatures like this again for a long time. 

Temperatures will gradually cool today behind a cold front that was on our doorstep as of 8 a.m.  It'll remain mild all day, but temperatures will fall through the 50s and 40s and into the 30s by sunset late this afternoon.

We could even see a snow shower or two this evening. It is winter, after all, though it didn't feel like it the morning.

New Year's Eve looks quiet and mild for the season, with highs in the upper 30s to mid 40s. Pretty warm, still for this time of year, and made all the better by some expected glimpses of sun, especially in the first part of the day. 

We're still looking at a new storm for New Year's Eve and Day.  It'll be a frustrating storm for snow lovers, because its path would normally be perfect for laying down a nice Vermont snowpack to replace what we lost in the heat wave we just had. This system will basically follow a path from New York City to Boston to Portland, Maine on New Year's Day. 

But alas, there won't be enough cold air around, so deeper valleys still look like they'll have a cold rain for most of the storm.  Higher elevations have a better chance of seeing some snow. 

Once the storm gets past us, it'll help introduce a long period - probably lasting at least two weeks - of cold air.  That storm will probably stall for a few days in eastern Canada, dumping more snow on Vermont mountains, but leaving valleys with little new snow. 

So expect a thin snow cover in the valleys for at least the first few days of the upcoming long January cold spell.  High elevations should get a decent share of their snowpack back. 

 Subsequent storms might come along to allow the valleys to join the January snow party, but it's too soon to tell how that will play out.