"Boring" Vermont Spring Weather A Welcome Change From The Usual Chaos

Daffodils enjoying another mild spring morning today
in their St. Albans, Vermont garden plot.

This spring in Vermont - pretty much this year so far actually - has been remarkably mellow, at least in terms of weather. 

Sure, we had a big February snowstorm, some weird mid-March warmth and a damaging ice storm at the end of March, but - knock on wood - we have not had a chaotic weather year so far in Vermont. 

No epic spring snowstorms, no record summer-like heat waves, no floods to speak of, and few wild swings from hot to cold. 

That's a nice contrast to the extremes and disasters we've seen in Vermont in recent years, and the many dangerous, deadly tornadoes, floods and wildfires many other parts of the U.S. have endured so far this year. 

April so far has been especially quiet in the Green Mountain State. 

Conditions in the past couple of weeks have plodded along with extraordinary ordinariness, if that makes sense. Temperatures and precipitation this month have been close to normal. Temperatures have never really gotten that hot or that cold. 

We've had only one day in Burlington so far this month that was more than ten degrees above or below normal. We sometimes have several April days that are 20 degrees warmer or colder than the average for the date

I know I've probably jinxed it with this post and we'll now face months of scary weather. But for now, I'm not seeing any big weirdness coming our way.

However, things in the weather department are about to shake up from the doldrums just a little. 

On the agenda is a low risk of thunderstorms today, a likely soaking weekend rain, and - perhaps - the first summer like day of the season in northern Vermont. (Southern parts of the state already had one summery day a little over a week ago).

TODAY

A little disturbance racing through late this afternoon and early tonight might be enough to set off some showers and maybe even a couple weak thunderstorms. Anything that develops will be hit and miss and if storms do get going, they not even be close to severe. It's just another reminder that we're getting into that warm season showery regime.

So far this month, when it has rained, for the most part each episode has featured only pretty light showers. There's been a couple of exceptions, but there's been no "wow" factor to any storms.

WEEKEND SOAKER THEN WARMTH?

Friday night and Saturday, it looks like we are in for a pretty good wetting. This one won't be extreme, either, but early indications are most of us should see a half inch of rain at least, with a few places getting an inch.

That amount won't break any records and absolutely won't cause any flooding worries, but it could be the wettest storm of the month for many of us. The gardens could use a good soaking, so that's OK. 

In northern Vermont, temperatures have not gotten above 70 degrees since mid-March. In the past decade or two, it's gotten rare to have an April without any 70 or even 80 degree weather, so this month is so far an oddity.

But as the month draws to a close, it looks like we might finally get a brief squirt of summer-like air. If the showers hold off long enough next Tuesday, places like Burlington could make a run at 80 degrees.

We shall see.

The only disconcerting thing I see in the extended forecast is the possibility of a cold storm stalling overhead or nearby around May 7. If that happened, we'd have a big interruption in spring and maybe even some snow.

I would rate this as highly unlikely, though. Such long range forecasts are seldom accurate, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.