Another Snowy Vermont April Morning Underway; But Compare To Some Aprils, This Is Easy

Traffic cam grab from Route 11 in Winhall, a high 
elevation town in southern Vermont, shows 
seemingly midwinter conditions early this morning. 

 So far early this morning, the April snow in Vermont is working out about as forecast.

A band of at least moderate intensity snow had moved into far southern Vermont at dawn and was pushing northward. 

It was a really wet snow, especially in the valleys, as temperatures as it snowed were around 33 or 34 degrees. It's piling up more quickly up in the slightly chillier hills and mountains. 

As it is, we do see snow covered roads, especially in higher elevations of southern Vermont this morning. 

So you might want to be careful if you're traveling around the southern half of the state today. Especially if you're headed for the hills.

We might see a few scattered power outages, too ,as the wet snow piles up on trees and power lines that criss cross along higher mountain roads. 

Winter weather advisories remain in effect for the southern half of Vermont, except for the western portions of Rutland and Addison counties, which will get little snow out of this. People in the advisory area can expect two to six inches of sloppy snow, the most in the mountains, of course. 

The main show with this storm will be this morning in southern Vermont. Bursts of moderate snow will continue, but later today, the band of precipitation will head north, leaving behind a gloomy afternoon of light rain showers, with some wet snowflakes in the high elevations 

As impressive as this band of snow and some rain looks on radar, it's still expected to fade as it works its way northward today. Pretty much everybody in Vermont will see some rain and snow today, but it will be pretty light and inconsequential up by the Canadian border.

It still might be cold enough to snow - especially  above 1,000 feet in elevation in central and parts of northern Vermont, but that will only amount to a coating to a slushy inch most places. It'll be close, but it looks like any light rain in the Champlain Valley probably won't mix with any snow. But no promises. 

In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a blockbuster snowstorm. It's April, so you'd think we'd avoid the Big Ones, but not necessarily. 

 If you're not happy with today's snow, it could have been worse. Much worse.

APRIL SNOWS COMMON

Could be worse. After a warm April in which trees 
started leafing out, more than a foot of snow fell
on St. Albans, Vermont, causing severe tree
damage and widespread power outages in
town and across northern Vermont. 

We have many, many examples of Vermont Aprils that were much snowier than this year. A cold, gusty snowstorm dumped 10 to 20 inches of snow on southern Vermont on April 6-7, 1982. 

A year after that, on April 16-17, 1983, a snowstorm dumped 15.6 inches of snow on Burlington.

 Then it kept snowing off and on for five days after that. That month ended up with 21.3 inches of snow in Burlington, the snowiest April on record.

An almost identical storm to 1983 hit in April, 2000, depositing a four-day total of 19.1 inches of snow on Burlington. 

Even unusually warm Aprils can get snowy. April 2010 featured record highs in the low 80s early in the month. Then on April April 27-28, 10 to as much as 23 inches of snow fell across northern Vermont. In the valleys, the trees were already starting to leaf out due to the early spring. As a result, the wet snow caused a lot of tree damage and many power outages. 

Then, just four days after that snow ended, temperatures rose into the low and mid 80s.

April and early May can really be fickle, huh?

By the way, this month's snow has been mostly avoiding Burlington. So there, at least, April snowfall this year will be below normal. So far only 0.4 inches of snow has fallen this April in Burlington. Normal snowfall for the month is 4.1 inches. 

It's also nearly impossible to get through a Vermont April without snow, even in the Champlain Valley. In the past 140 years or so, only two Aprils - 1941 and 2005 - have gone by in Burlington without so much as a snow flurry. 

And in 1941, there were snow flurries on May 1 and 2 in Burlington. 

END TO THE SNOW?

There is light at the end of the snow tunnel, so to speak.  The end of the snowy regime this April is coming but we'll have to wait several days for Vermont to fully escape the flakes. 

It will warm up briefly on Monday before we get hit by another cold snap later Tuesday and Wednesday. That one still looks like it will spit out some more snow showers, especially north.  The Tuesday night/Wednesday thing at this point looks a little bit similar to a week earlier, when the northern Green Mountains received several inches of snow.

This next one doesn't look quite as impressive as last week's, but I wouldn't be surprised to see at least a few inches of  additional snow in the mountains by Wednesday. 

Now, on to tthat hopefully snow-free future: After next Wednesday, I'm still not seeing signs of a big springlike warm up. I also see frequent chances of inclement weather through the end of the month. But, fingers crossed! It looks like each little storm to close out the month will come as your standard April showers, not late season snow blitzes.  

Then again, I can't tell you how things will work out in May.  I have seen it snow in May, so there's that.