April In Vermont Was Warmer Than Average, Calmer Than Usual (With An Asterisk)

Every April has its wintry setbacks and April, 2026 was
no exception. Here, snow accumulates on forsythias 
on April 19 in St. Albans, but.......

The numbers are in for April''s weather in Vermont and we enjoyed a warmer than average month with near normal precipitation. 

Compared to many past Aprils, this one was pretty easy for most of us. No extreme snows, no statewide wild windstorms. Temperatures were only occasionally out of whack. 

At Burlington, the average temperature was 47.6 degrees, or two degrees above the "new" normal.  I keep calling it that because normal these days is based on the average of 1990-2020. By those years, the effects to climate change had already kicked in, so "averages" are nowadays warmer than what we saw in the 20th century. 

Looking back at 142 years of records in Burlington, by my calculation, it was the 38th warmest April on record. Nothing extreme, but still balmy. 

Other weather stations in Vermont tended to show that April was two to three degrees warmer than average, as well. 

Rainfall in April was about as normal as you can get.  I checked Burlington, Montpelier, St. Johnsbury. Rutland, Woodstock and Bennington, and all of them were with 0.29 inches of the average for the moth. Burlington had 2.95 inches of rain, just 0.12 inches below normal.

While there were days with wide temperature differences across Vermont, we didn't have the extremes we've seen in many recent Aprils. The month's low of 16 degrees in Burlington was the coldest since 2016, But I was able to find 30 Aprils in the past 128 years that had temperatures as cold or colder than that. 

Over in ice box Saranac Lake, New York, it got below zero on April 8. That tied the record for the third latest in the season subzero temperature 

The one moment when weather got volatile in Vermont was during the middle of the month. A weather front pretty much stalled west to east across the middle of the state. Summer-like weather prevailed in southern Vermont while the north stayed relatively cool.

The contrast set up some thunderstorms. One of those storms, a supercell, produced an EF-1 tornado in Williamstown on April 16. The top winds in the brief tornado were 90 mph, which damaged a barn, a house, outbuildings and trees. It was the first Vermont tornado since 2023 and the first April twister on record for the state.  

....the flowers survived and went on to keep blooming
when warmth and sunshine returned later in the month. 

There were also a few reports of golf ball sized hail with that supercell.  Other strong to even severe thunderstorms roamed through southern Vermont on April 14, 15 and 16. 

A sharp, brief cold wave struck on April 20-21, causing some snow to fall. A hard freeze probably damaged some garden plants, but the freeze didn't really interrupt the progress of spring. 

The weather turned dry at the end of the month, which is the worst time of year for that sort of thing. The dry vegetation from last year hadn't greened up yet, and the strong April sun was able to penetrate forest floors because trees hadn't leafed out yet.

At least 15 fires burned around 100 acres in Vermont between April 22 and May 1. That includes a large forest fire in the hills near Ripton that consumed over 50 acres.

MAY OUTLOOK

The April outlook from NOAA before the month started indicated equal chances of warm or cold, and above normal rainfall. It looks like equal chances should  have been applied to precipitation, since rainfall in April was so close to normal.

But to give NOAA another chance, their May outlook calls for temperatures to trend near to slightly cooler than normal for the month. NOAA gives us equal chances of wetter or drier than average month.