Sunday Morning Clouds To Clear, Allowing Vermont Rapid Thaw To Continue. HUGE Question Marks Wednesday

Snow cover in my St. Albans, Vermont  back yard
during a sunny interval early Saturday afternoon.....

 The thaw is on, and it's impressive to see how much snow disappeared from my St. Albans, Vermont yard in just 24 hours. 

Most of the warmth yesterday was west of the Green Mountains and at high elevations where the warm air was really able to flow in on strong south winds.

 In Burlington, winds gusted as high as 49 mph Saturday as temperatures reached 50 degrees with sunny intervals overhead.  

Some of us experienced the remnants of what had been strong to severe thunderstorms in western New York. Here in St. Albans, I had a brief gush of particularly strong winds and a brief downpour last evening.  

Some valleys in eastern Vermont stayed in the 30s to around 40 as the south winds couldn't scour out the chill. The snow cover helped create a temperature inversion of shallow cold air, which the winds aloft couldn't overcome.

Springfield was really socked in, as the inversion created a dense overcast, fog and drizzle, They never got past 39 degrees The missed out in the periods of sun western Vermont saw. 

It stayed warm overnight, except in those eastern valleys so the melt continued. The first real ice jam of this thaw formed in the Mad River.  That river is prone to this sort of thing. A flood warning was up for parts of the Mad River Valley this morning due to some water backing up behind the ice jam. 

TODAY

.....and the same backyard view at around 9 a.m. this
morning. We lost a LOT of snow!

What the south winds couldn't do yesterday the sun will today. That is once the sun comes out later this morning.  

Looking at satellite photos, there's quite a few clouds upstream. That makes me less optimistic than many forecasts I've seen calling for a mostly sunny afternoon. I might be missing something, but we'll see.   

But in any event, at least some sun will come out, and that sun should break up any remaining inversion in eastern Vermont.

Almost everyone should even out in the mid 40s to low 50s this afternoon. It was almost that warm in western Vermont early this morning, but a weak flow of cooler air will slow the rate at which we'll warm up.

MONDAY/TUESDAY

There's our sunshine and warmth. Well, at least partial sunshine. It looks like a few clouds will streak the sky Monday, but that won't stop us from getting well into the 50s. Maybe low 60s in a couple spots.  It'll also be kinda windy in the Champlain Valley.

This warm spell has already created record highs in dozens of cities in the central and eastern parts of the nation.  We'll see many more record highs early this week. 

Here in Vermont, it'll be close, but probably no cigar.  Tomorrow's record high in Burlington is 70, so we won't reach that. Tuesday's record high is 63, and I'm doubting that one too, as we're still looking at the risk of slightly cooler air coming down from Quebec.

Still, the record high tomorrow in St Johnsbury is just 60 degrees, so that could be threatened if it gets a little warmer than forecast. And Montpelier's record high on Tuesday is also 60.

Lately, our warm spells have been over-performing, so who knows? Maybe we'll be surprised. 

WEDNESDAY

Speaking of surprises, the computer models are still at odds for Wednesday and how an incoming storm might affect us. One scenario is the storm going to our west, running up over central New York and heading toward maybe Montreal.  That would keep the warm air in Vermont until the cold front arrives Thursday morning. 

That would mean a road of heavy rain before the cold front and some possible flooding. Other scenarios bring the storm further south across New England. That would allow colder air to arrive ahead of the storm. That means at least northern Vermont would end up with mixed precipitation and some snow. 

So, we don't know if our brief heat wave will end Wednesday morning or Thursday morning. We also don't know what kind of weather we'll see at the end of our warm spell. The forecast I'd give now is not at all helpful for Wednesday and Thursday:  Rain, or snow or a mix with highs from the mid 30s to low 60s.

It's kind of annoying that we don't really know what kind of weather we'll have in three days, but that's the nature of March. It really is the most unpredictable weather month of the year.

Oh, and it looks like another storm might sweep through here Friday or Saturday with snow or mixed precipitation. That might be followed by yet another storm a week from Tuesday. Local meteorologists are really going to have to stay on their toes.