"Backwards" Showers Complicate Vermont Mother's Day; Wetter Spell Ensues

Today's the third day in a row we're contending with "backwards" showers here in Vermont.

Shower clouds fighting with the sun over St. Albans,
Vermont Saturday. That's the pattern we've had all
month. It's the pattern we'll see on Mother's Day today,
and also what we'll see in much of the upcoming week.

They're moving generally east to west, instead of the usual opposite direction. Upper level low pressure kind of near Buffalo is pulling those showers westward.  

Like in past days, the closer you are to that sort of storm near Buffalo, the more likely it is to rain. 

Which is why Adirondacks have been wet the past few days, western Vermont has had hit and miss showers, and folks east of the Greens have been mostly dry. 

The upper low near Buffalo meant business: It spun off a tornado that struck a church occupied by 60 people in Finleyville, a town in western Pennsylvania. Only minor injuries were reported.  By the way, absolutely we'll see absolutely no severe weather from this thing here in Vermont. 

At least a lot of us had a clearing interval for that northern lights display Friday night, right?

MOTHERS DAY

You'll be dodging rain drops today. The showers are more numerous than they were the previous couple of days. 

Not everyone will get wet - they're still hit and miss - but there probably will be more hits than misses. Especially west of the Greens.

Some of you who get wet will get very wet. The showers are just inching along westward. I swear the most lethargic turtle in the world can outpace them.  If you get caught under a shower, it might last a good hour in spots.

The bottom line is, the rainiest places could get more than a half inch of rain, while places a dozen or fewer miles up the road from those soggy spots might end up staying dry. 

According to some climatology provided by the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, Mother's Day weather is usually on the iffy side for us.  A "normal" Vermont Mother's Day features highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s with at least a trace of rain on 60 percent of those days. 

Which means this year's iteration of Mother's Day is pretty typical. 

The National Weather Service notes that at least a trace of snow has fallen on five Mother's Days since 1914, the most recent being in 2020.

I'm happy to report it will NOT snow anywhere in Vermont today. 

LOOKING AHEAD

We'll revert back to the more general west to east flow of weather starting tomorrow.  The storm in the eastern Great Lakes will fade, replaced by a new system coming in from the west.  It'll push a sort of warm front through Monday night with some showers and maybe a rumble of thunder.

We're almost guaranteed some rain in at least parts of Vermont Tuesday, but I'm not sure if there will be a lot or a little. Some computer models push things through slowly, and allow a little warmth and humidity to build up.  If that happens, it would be far from oppressively warm, but we'd have lots of showers and scattered thunderstorms. There would be some heavy downpours. 

However, if things zip right on through, as some models indicate, it won't rain all that much. Stay tuned.

All month so far, we've been in a pattern that features lots of weak systems coming through with frequent but generally not dramatic showers, and temperatures that have been more or less close to normal for the season. 

That pattern looks like it will continue for the foreseeable future. It's hard to time out when the showers will come through and how heavy they might be over the next week or two. But we'll keep dodging raindrops here and there. 

And avoiding an early introduction to summer heat, something we've had in most springs in recent years. 

Mother's Day Flowers, And A Few New Leaves And Buds

 It's Mother's Day, so most of us give our mothers flowers to mark the day. 

Crocuses emerging in late March, St. Albans, Vermont

In terms of weather, it's been a tumultuous spring, with early heat, drought, then snowstorms, frosts, and rains. 

There was even a tornado thrown in there!  

But, hearty Vermont flowers and plants and trees made it through as always, so this post is just an assortment of blooms, buds, new leaves and the like to celebrate our mothers. 

All these flowers are strong, a lot like Vermont women and mothers.

I guess you have to be tough to be a mom, or a flower, if you live in Vermont. 

Enjoy the day moms! 

Billowy spring clouds and a few early daffodils
on April 19

A hyacinth enjoys some April sunshine. 

Daffodils dance in the breeze on a sunny late 
April day in St. Albans, Vermont

More spring daffodils

Mother's Day Weekend: Not Bad, But Bring The Fleece

Mother's Day weekend last year, part of my perennial 
gardens in St. Albans looked like this - snowed on
and kinda frozen. But this year.....

 Every spring, my sisters and I like to pick a day to do yard clean up at my mother's house in West Rutland, Vermont.  

So we're going Sunday.  It will be a bit of an event for me. Even though my mother lives not far from me -  a two hour drive 

I have not seen her in person in more than a year. That's due to Covid. Didn't want to risk it, given she's 92 years old and has lung problems. 

But the whole family is now vaccinated against Covid, so we figure it's safe. (We interrupted this blog post for this PSA:  If you have not yet been vaccinated against Covid, do it!!! It's safe ad the Vermont Health Department is falling all over itself to make it super easy).

Anyway, many of you have Mother's Day plans, and this weekend in Vermont will be.....not bad. 

It'll be unlike last year's Mother's Day weekend, when it snowed during an otherwise relatively mild month. 

This year, it isn't going to snow, but her might be a few raindrops here and there. Not many, though. 

We're trapped in a southward dip in the jet stream, which usually means cool, showery weather.  We'll have the cool temperatures, but the timing and positioning of the weather disturbances within this dip in the jet stream suggests Mother's Day - and the weekend as a whole - will be mostly dry. '

....it's cool out there, but the same perennial garden as
above has recovered from those April snows, and is 
unaffected by a very light frost this morning. It's
also further along than it was at this point last year. 

A weakening disturbance could set off some scattered showers Saturday and Saturday night.  Any sunshine in the morning should get largely cut off by mostly cloudy skies in the afternoon. 

Sunday should be chilly for this time of year, but certainly not frigid. That means highs in the 55-60 range instead of the normal mid-60s for this time of year. 

The sun will be in and out of the clouds. A few showers might pop up, especially mountains and north, but they should be both light and brief. 

We're stuck in a pretty long term chilly weather pattern, so don't expect any summer-like weather anytime soon.  We won't see any 70 degree temperatures again for awhile, that's for sure. 

Long range forecasts call for mostly cooler than normal weather through about May 20, if not beyond that.