Vermont Snow Over-Performed Today. So Did The Evening Return To Spring

A wintry spring scene today in St. Albans, Vermont. 

 I was on to something Saturday evening and I should have stuck with it even more.

I said in an afternoon post that sometimes, the weather situation we were finding ourselves in could surprise with the extent of the snow we could face today.  

Sure enough, the snow in northern Vermont today was more widespread and briefly heavier than many had forecasted. 

It snowed for more than three hours here at my roughly 675 foot elevation here in St. Albans, Vermont. It occasionally snowed hard, accumulating to a total of 0.3 inches and at least temporarily smushing down my daffodils. 

All the flowers recovered when the snow quickly melted by mid-afternoon and the sun made an early evening appearance. 

Snowflakes made their way as far south as Burlington. Web cams in mid and high elevations of Vermont showed heavy snow with perhaps a good two or three inches of snow. It looked like some of the heavier snow bands produced rates of an inch per hours, which is pretty good. 

Looks like the Sunday snow killed this patch of 
daffodils in St. Albans, Vermont, but when the 
snow melted and the sun came out late in the day
these flowers recovered very nicely.

By late afternoon and early evening today, the contrast in weather across Vermont and eastern New York is stunning. 

As of 5 p.m. it was still snowing and raining with temperatures in the 30s in most of northern east of the Green Mountains and north of Route 2. 

In Highgate, one of the first weather stations to see the late date clearing, the temperature went from a chilly 38 degrees at noon to a reasonable 52 degrees at 5 p.m. 

Usually, the high temperatures for the day is in the late afternoon, but at least in western Vermont out highs will come just before sunset. I wouldn't be surprised if the northwests tip of the state reaches 60 degrees.

Sunday's snow was by no means the biggest snow on record for so late in the season. Not even close.  

The most memorable in recent memory was on April 27-28, 2010, when more  when 10 to 20 inches of wet snow hit many areas north of Route 2.  Spring leaf out was much more advanced that year than it is this year.

So leafed out trees collapsed under the weight of the heavy snow, causing widespread power outages and tree damage. Glad we didn't have to put up with that today!

Historically, huge snowstorms have occurred much later than today's trifling snow. On May 20, 1892, high elevations of south central Vermont had up to 30 inches of snow with nearly a foot in the valleys. 

As we said in previous forecast, as of this evening, the snow is ending and we're back to our regularly scheduled spring.