Deep Snow, Unseasonable Freezes, Record Heat, Tornado Busts: March Weather Madness Reigns

A scene from the blizzard in northern
Michigan, via Facebook, Michigan
Storm Chasers

 The big storm that was harassing the United States is mostly gone, but its left damage, weird weather and the risk for more problems in its wake. 

BLIZZARD

The blizzard lived up to its promise, as forecasts for somewhere in the neighborhood of three feet of snow verified in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and in Wisconsin. Harbor Springs, Wisconsin was buried beneath 40 inches of new snow. Cheboygan, Wisconsin saw 38 inches of snow, while Wausau picked up 30.9 inches. 

This all got whipped up into massive drifts as strong winds blew throughout the storm. 

Marquette Michigan picked up 36.3 inches of snow new snow. That makes this month's total there so far 54.4 inches. I think I'd kill myself instead of shoveling my driveway with that amount of snow!

Before the storm was even finished yesterday morning there was 47 inches of snow on the ground. They haven't had less than two feet of snow on the ground since January 4. Talk about never-ending winters!

Video showed vehicles stuck for miles in the snow on an Interstate highway near Green Bay, Wisconsin fPeople in those cars said they'd been stuck for five hours or more. Green Bay had its deepest single-day snowfall since at least 1889, with 17.1 inches on Sunday. The city's storm total came to 26.6 inches.

In Illinois, snow wasn't nearly as deep, but strong winds sent tractor trailers on icy Interstates spiraling into ditches. 

SEVERE WEATHER

The good news is that there were no major tornadoes anywhere on the East Coast yesterday. Ahead of the storm, the atmosphere seemed primed for strong tornadoes in the Mid-Atlantic states.

Thankfully, that isn't what happened.

Some thunderstorms formed early in the day near the North Carolina coast. That siphoned some of the heat and moisture needed to produce rotating supercells and tornadoes. There were a couple of tornado warnings in Maryland, but none touched down. A couple of weak tornadoes were reported in North Carolina. 

We did see 485 reports of wind damage, mostly involving fallen trees and power lines. And even better news: No severe thunderstorms or tornadoes are forecast anywhere in the U.S. during the next week. 

WILDFIRE

A final capture before a trail camera was destroyed in
the big Nebraska fires. The camera owner was able to
recover an SD card from the melted camera.

Strong winds to the south and west of the massive storm that blasted the Great Lakes region helped fan the largest wildfire in Nebraska history. 

Collectively, four fires in central and western Nebraska have burned around 750,000 acres. As of yesterday, there was 0% containment, though updates this morning indicated the fires were now partially contained. One person has died in the fires.

One of the four fires, the Morrill Fire, is the largest in the state's history. At last report, it had burned through nearly 573,000 acres. An update this morning indicated it was 18% contained. 

Most of Nebraska is in drought. Dry, windy weather. A red flag warning is up for Nebraska today, and a fire weather watch is in effect tomorrow, when it is expected to turn windier and even drier. 

Brush fires and wildfires have afflicted the Plains through the second half of winter and now into March. The region has been persistently dry and frequent wind storms have fanned the flames.  

FROSTY SOUTH 

Early season crops and gardens across the South are taking a serious beating from frost and freezing temperatures. The huge storm's strong north winds and an accompanying strong dip in the jet stream brought wintry air far south. 

Last week brought record breaking high temperatures to the South, and that really got plants going after a chilly winter with plenty of freezes. This morning's subfreezing temperatures were surely a big setback. 

Huntsville, Alabama went from 71 degrees just after midnight yesterday to a burst of snow just 10 hours later.

By this morning, several places in East Texas and Louisiana saw record lows . In Shreveport, it was 25 degrees, besting the old record of 27 degrees. Longview, Texas reached 27 degrees, breaking the record low by a degree. 

Birmingham, Alabama got down to at least 27 degrees, which breaks the record low for the date of 28 degrees.

Freeze warnings are up again for tonight from eastern Arkansas all the way to the Carolina coast. 

WESTERN HEAT BUILDS

As noted in a previous post, the Southwest is entering an unprecedented stretch of extremely weird March heat. 

Each day from tomorrow through Sunday in Phoenix will feature high temperatures between 102 and 107. Those highs each day will be at least seven degrees above the current record highs, which is absolutely bonkers. 

Highly unseasonable extreme heat warnings are going into effect in the Desert Southwest. This heat wave is more dangerous than most because people aren't climatized to the heat yet. Plus, the deserts are overrun with tourists who are there to enjoy what is normally a cooler time in the deserts. Plus, extra tourists were attracted to a super bloom of flowers in Death Valley and the Mohave Desert. 

Despite all these weirdnesses around the nation, the odd weather is settling down for now, with the glaring exception of the Southwestern heatwave.

i'm sure the atmosphere is just recharging for more fun and scary and gobsmacking weather times ahead.  

Yes, The Vermont Cold Is Awful But It's Been Worse

This little comic work for this month, that's for
sure. But other Decembers in Vermont have
been even worse. 

 I was among many Vermonters last week grumbling over the coldest beginning of December in 36 years.

 It's cold again this Monday morning, and it'll stay cold until a brief, snow and perhaps brief rainy interlude Wednesday. 

Then, we go back into an extended period of cold. 

It's true that this is so far turning out to be the chilliest December in many years. It's disheartening to go outside and have your face hurt, it's so cold. 

Here in St. Albans, it's been days since Henry the Weather Dog, a native of balmy South Texas, has gone exploring and hunting outside like he enjoys. Instead, it's been quick trips outdoors, then a frantic dash back indoors. 

I can't blame the little guy. 

I guess one way to endure the this cold early winter is to understand it could be worse. It has been worse. And I've got plenty of receipts to prove it. 

As usual, I can point to even worse weather in the past. What follow is a fairly exhaustive list of December cold spells that will have you reaching for yet another thick blanket to huddle under. 

Christmas, 1872    

This was perhaps the most brutal Christmas Day Vermont has seen.  As children opened their presents early that morning, it was 40 below in Randolph, 43 b below in Lunenberg, and minus 41.5 degrees in Woodstock.  

December, 1917

The early part of the month was cold, as temperatures went below freezing on the second and failed to get above 32 again until the 19th. After some relatively  mild weather over the Christmas holiday, the bottom really dropped out of the temperature in the days leading up to New Yoears' 

The high temperature in Burlington on December 29 was 16 below, at 12:01 a.m. From there temperatures kept dropping down to as low as 23 below. Next morning, it was 25 below, and rose all the way to 13 below on the afternoon of the 30th.  It stayed well below zero until New Year's Dauy

Over in St. Johnsbury, the cold was even more insane during December, 2017. The "appetizer" cold waves earlier in the month were bad enough. It was 12 below that year on December 12; then 26 below on December 12 and a frigid 29 below on December 16. 

But the cold on the final days of the month in St. Johnsbury were beyond ridiculous. It was 43 below on December 30. By New Year's Eve, it had warmed up to a balmy 40 below. 

December, 1933

Nobody thought it could get colder in Vermont than Christmas week, 1917, but they were proven wrong in December, 1933.

The month as a whole was quite chilly, but not as bad as 1917. But the final days of December, 1933 made up for that relative lack of early month cold. 

Most famously, this cold wave brought Vermont its coldest temperature on record. It got down to 50 below in Bloomfield, in the Northeast Kingdom.  In St. Johnsbury, it was 42 below on December 30, 1933, almost as bad as 1917. 

The northern Champlain Valley was impressively cold, too. St. Albans reached a remarkable 36 below on December 30. Down in Burlington, it was 29 below December 29 and 30. 

 December 1940

This month wasn't particular cold, but got off to a very rough start.  Most record lows around the Champlain Valley in early December are in the single numbers below zero. But on December 3 the temperature reached 15 below in Burlington. The next day, it was 17 below. 

There are no record lows colder than that in Burlington until you get to December 20, just two years after this cold spell. In 1942, it got to 20 below.,  

On December 4 and 5, other Vermont record lows include 34 in Enosburg Falls; 31 below in Chelsea; 31 below in Bloomfield. St. Johnsbury reached 27 below on December 4, and 16 below in Rutland. 

Christmas, 1980

This was a very similar holiday to the cruelly frigid Christmas of 1872, that I described above. A sharp cold front passed through on Christmas Eve, depositing three to six inches of snow in most places, ensuring a white Christmas.

But that cold front was a powerhouse. By 12:01 a.m. Christmas Day it was 5 below in Burlington. That would be the high temperature that day. The temperature reached 20 below at 7 a.m., and then rose only to minus 14 between 3 and 4 p.m. It got down to 25 below at midnight to set the record for the coldest Christmas on record. It was 26 below on December 26.

Stiff north winds kept wind chills Christmas Day in the minus 30s and 40s.  

Other actual temperatures in Vermont included 38 below on top of Mount Mansfield, 35 below in West Burke, minus 31 in St. Johnsbury and  minus 28 in Newport; 

 December, 1989

By the late 1980s, were were just starting to really feel the effects of climate change. Winters were getting warmer and less consistent. But 1989 proved you can still get brutally cold months, even with an overall warmer world. 

The month's average temperature was 7.5 degrees, breaking the previous 1917 coldest December record by 4.7 degrees. That's an incredibly large margin by which to break a monthly temperature. It was the sixth coldest of any month in Burlington, and the first time one of the top 10 coldest months was in December. 

The cold in December 1989 was not as intense as it was in 1917 or 1933, as the coldest temperature for the month in Burlington was an unspectacular 18 below. 

But the cold in 1989 was incredibly consistent. Nineteen days in Burlington featured subzero temperatures. Every day from December 1 through 30 was at least 11 degrees below normal. Every 25 daytime high between December 8 and 30 was 25 degrees or under that. 

Funny personal anecdote:  I badly broke my ankle in late November that year. During the middle of that frigid December, I was in downtown Burlington. We had just gotten nearly a foot of snow in a mid-month storm. It was freezing cold that day, of course! 

Back then, you had to put quarters and such in parking meters.I couldn't climb the snowbank on crutches, so I gave an expensively dressed, middle aged woman a quarter to put in the meter for me. She took the quarter and walked away triumphantly as if I gifted her a diamond tiara. 

I hope she spent that quarter well! 

 COLD DECEMBER, COLD WINTER?

The records are mixed on whether a cold December means the rest of the winter will be frigid. 

The cold December of 1917 introduced a frigid winter. To this day, the winter of 1917-18 is the coldest on record in Burlington

The winter of 1933-34 was also unusually cold. February, 1934 is still the coldest on record, at le4ast as measured in Burlington.  

After December, 1980, January of 1981 is the seventh coldest on record, But February, 1981 is the warmest on record.

As for the cold December, 1989, things turned around immediately in January.  January, 1990 is the second warmest on record. February that year was on the warm side, too. 

Bottom line, I have no idea what the rest of the winter will be like. 

Tumultuous U.S. Weather Pattern Has Started, Could Get Worse: Storms, Temperature Whiplash

Some flip flops in the weather patterns will keep
meteorologists hopping for the next few 
months. After cool weather in the East,
there's some hints of warmer air 
in the second half of the month. 

Almost every year, in the late fall and winter, we get spells in which the weather pattern flips around in a big transition or even bunch of transitions.    

When that happens, our weather in the U.S. can get wonky. 

We've just entered one of those transformations  in recent days. So expect some weather weirdness, which could get more extreme once we get past Thanksgiving. 

The weirdness began in age days ago. 

We started out with dozens of record lows in the southeastern United States last week, thanks to air that came directly from Greenland to normally balmy places like Georgia and North Florida. 

Wilmington, North Carolina  experienced their earliest in the season snow flurries on record.  Lumberton, North Carolina had 0.1 inches of snow, their earliest measurable snowfall on record

Then the heat turned on in the Great Plains over the past couple of days. 

On Saturday, cities in Texas and Oklahoma reported their hottest November temperatures on record, including 93 in Frederick, 92 in Lawton, and 90 in Ada, Hallmark, Allburton and Sand Springs. 

The temperature reached 92 in Wichita Falls, Texas, and 90 in Lubbock for new November records. 

On Friday, Minneapolis reached a record high of 72 degrees. It was the warmest on record for so late in the season. Des Moines and Ames, Iowa both reached 74 degrees for record highs. Perhaps the weirdest high on Friday was 83 degrees in Yankton, in southeastern South Dakota. 

That's awfully far north for 80 degree weather in mid-November. 

The next odd thing was the storm over the weekend in southern California. Los Angeles had two inches of rain over two days. The normal rainfall for the entire month of November there is 0.8 inches.

There were widespread reports of minor flooding, mud flows and downed trees, but the damage was not as bad as some feared. 

UP NEXT 

The weather pattern across the Lower 48 will experience large changes over the next few days and weeks. 

It won't be all that exciting at first. Over the next few days, fairly routine weather systems will cross the nation this week, not enough to generate big weather headlines. In the middle of a weather pattern adjustment, storms can get a little disorganized and lack power as a result. That's what's generally happening now. 

Then things could get interesting. 

But that warmth in the Northeast might not last. NOAA
is hinting at colder weather again over the Northeast
in the first half of December. 

It looks like we're in for two big pattern changes, and that can blow up some big storms this time of year.  

Long range forecasts for the second half of November suggests a possible switch from chilly to somewhat above normal temperatures here in the Northeast, though the NOAA forecasts are hedging a bit.

The West would turn cool.  Between the two extremes, some of the computer forecasting models are trying to sniff out a fairly large storm around Thanksgiving. 

It could even be one of those Great Lakes "gales of November" storms made famous with the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald. 

But we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. Trying to forecast a storm this far in advance is kind of a fool's errant. Anything - or nothing - can still happen. 

DECEMBER CHAOS? 

Those milder temperatures, even if we get them, might not last much past Thanksgiving weekend. Even longer range forecasts suggest a return to cooler than normal weather for the first half of December. Those December forecasts also lean slightly toward above average precipitation, which might translate into another snowy period. 

I'm seeing hints of the first truly Arctic air mass of the season cross the border from Canada into the United States toward the first of December. Again, that's set in stone, but early December is the time of year somebody in the northern United States starts to see below zero temperature.s 

There's yet another wrinkle in the long range forecast beyond Thanksgiving. 

It's complicated, but here it goes:

Something called a Sudden Stratospheric Warming Event is taking place high in the atmosphere over or near the Arctic. This happens from time to time in the winter, but this one is oddly early in the season. 

For whatever reason, a layer of the atmosphere 6 to 31 miles up, above where weather happens, it disrupts the polar vortex.

As you might remember, the polar vortex is a huge whirl of cold air that usually stays up north, fairly close to the Arctic.

When the polar vortex is strong, it tends to keep frigid air bottled up far to the north of the U.S. and Europe. 

A sudden stratospheric event weakens the polar vortex and can displace it. The jet stream gets wavy and wonky, and you can get extreme cold and winter storms in parts of  North America, Europe and Asia.

The click bait out there is telling us we in the U.S. can essentially expect practically a new ice age as a result of this by mid-December. 

Don't hold your breath that one. 

The reality is it's possible we could get a strong cold wave, or some nasty winter storms. Or we might not. Maybe the really cold air will go toward Asia or Europe. Or the polar vortex won't get all that messed up. If that happens things might not get unbelievably wonky. 

The bottom line is, the weather has gotten more interesting in the past week, and it will probably stay on the more interesting than usual side for the next few weeks. 

What "interesting" means is TBA.  

The Stats On Christmas Past: This Year Pretty Tame Compared To Previous, But We're Bucking Holiday Warming Trend

Snow tumbles down from pine trees on Christmas 
Day, 2017, which is the last time measurable snow
fell on Christmas in most of Vermont. 

I guess it's a blessing that the weather this Christmas Day in 2024 is unremarkable. It's a little on the cold side, but nothing extreme for late December. There's no storms around, and winds won't be blowing particularly hard. 

If the forecast is correct, the high temperature today in Burlington will be around 23 and it looks like the low this morning was 14.

  There likely will be no snow or other precipitation around, aside from possible snow flurries near Lake Champlain and maybe in the northern Green Mountains. 

Christmas, 2024 will be an exception to a trend.  Just like the rest of the year, the holiday is gradually getting warmer in Vermont thanks in large part to climate change. 

Under the warmer, "new normal" the expected high temperature in Burlington today would be 32 degrees and the low would be 18.   On averaged, we'd see 0.7 inches of snow, melted down to the equivalent of 0.08 inches of rain. 

In making my case for our new "tropical" Vermont Christmases, this post is a little statistics heavy, but it's telling as to how things change. We'll also take a look back at Christmases that, unlike this year, brought us some pretty extreme weather. 

SANTA ON THE BEACH

A festive Church Street, Burlington, Vermont
in a Christmas season several years ago

The warmest Christmas was in 2020, when Burlington reached 65 degrees.  At 8 a.m. that day, it was 64 degrees in Burlington and 65 degrees in Highgate.  

That made Highgate the warmest place in the Lower 48 of the United States at that hour.  Hotter than Key West, Miami, Phoenix or Los Angeles, even. 

The warmest low temperature on Christmas Day was 45 degrees in 1964. That was one of just 15 Christmases in which the temperature never got below freezing for the whole day, midnight to midnight.  Four of those balmy Christmas nights have happened just since 2014 

Fifty-seven Christmases since 1900 have gotten above freezing for at least part of the day, . Here's another sign that climate change is making itself known. Twelve of the past 20 Christmases have gotten above freezing. 

The fact that this year's holiday temperature will remain below 32 degrees is yet another exception to the recent rule of toasty holidays. Yet today's chill would have been pretty much de rigueur in past decades.  

TRADITIONAL COLD AND SNOW

Since 1900, we had temperatures at or below zero temperatures on 21 Christmases. It has only reach 0 once in Burlington on Christmas since 1993. (It was 0 in 2013)  

The coldest was in 1980, when it was a very unpleasant 25 below. The coldest high temperature on Christmas was minus 5 also in 1980. That day, the -5 high was at 12:01 a.m., the temperature continued to fall all day.  Despite blue skies, the deep cold and north wind made the day miserable. By the early morning of the 26th, it was 26 below in Burlington,  31 below in St. Johnsbury and 35 below in Sutton, Vermont. 

The most snow on the ground on Christmas morning was in the brutal winter month of December, 1970. Snow depth on the holiday was 32 inches in Burlington and 43 inches in Montpelier. The last time there was more than 10 inches of snow on the ground Christmas Day in Burlington was in 2007.

The snowiest Christmas in Burlington was 1978, when 16.8 inches fell. I was in high school at the time and I remember it as actually quite a nice day - if you weren't driving. It snowed really  hard all day, but winds were light and temperatures were comfortably in the 25 to 30 degree range. 

Southern Vermont's snowiest Christmas was in 2002. Woodstock was slammed with 27 inches of snow.. Woodford reported 20 inches. About a foot and a half came down on Rutland. This storm completely missed northern Vermont. Burlington received barely an inch of snow that day. 

Measurable snow has fallen on 37 Christmases since 1900. Snow enough to measure has fallen on Christmas only once since 2005.  (There was 3.5 inches on December 25, 2017).

BIG EVENTS

There's been a couple Christmases that marked the start of some pretty big weather events. 

In 1969, Burlington residents awoke to a frigid Christmas morning with a low of 16 below and nine inches of snow on the ground.  Snow depth that morning was closer to a foot and a half elsewhere in Vermont due to a large snowstorm that hit on December 21-22. Skies grew increasingly cloudy and snow broke out toward evening. 

This marked the start of one of Vermont's most severe winter storms on record. Burlington received 29.7 inches of snow, which had been the largest snowstorm in the city's history. (Since then, the Pi Day Blizzard of March, 2017 and a lake-enhanced snowstorm of 33 inches on January 2-3, 2010 eclipsed that mark).

In the 1969 storm, an incredible 45 inches of new snow buried Waitsfield.  Snow depths across much of central and western Vermont reached three to four feet with drifts as high as 30 feet. Most roads shut down, and pretty much the only traffic in Vermont for a time was snowmobiles. 

Eastern Vermont got moderate amounts of snow which changed to a devastating ice storm.

In 1917, Christmas Day brought a brief respite from what had been an incredibly cold December. It reached 41 degrees early in the day before a sharp cold front sent temperatures plunging through the day.

By midnight it was 13 degrees, but the temperature kept going down to create one of the Vermont's most intense cold snaps on record. Daily lows in Burlington from December 27 to January 3 were -12,  -16, -23,-25,-19, -13,-15,-12

On December 30, 1917 ,it was 43 below in Bloomfield, 42 below in Cavendish, minus 41 in Northfield and minus 40 in Chelsea. 

The winter of 1917-18 is Burlington's coldest on record to this day, with an average temperature from December 1 to February 28 just 12 degrees. 

Christmas, 1933 was similar to 1917. Burlington started off mild, with a reading of 43 degrees. Temperatures once again plunged all day, and through the next day. The mornings of December 29 and 30 reached 29 below in Burlington, still the second coldest temperature on record in Burlington.

Bloomfield reached minus 50, which still holds the record for Vermont's coldest temperature ever recorded.

Let's just thank our lucky stars that we have no extreme weather coming up right after Christmas this year. Just chilly through Friday, then unfortunately some rain or freezing rain by Sunday. 

Far Fetched But Possible It Turns Out: Northern Lights Can Cut Your Winter Heating Bill

Geomagnetic storms, which cause northern lights, might
lower your fuel bill, believe it or not! 

 Since our brains might be still on celestial mode, given the wonderful eclipse we had this week, another event in the sky is making some science news.

Northern Lights.  None are in the immediate forecast, but hope springs eternal. 

In any event, this is a good excuse to lay out some new science that seems very strange, but quite possibly true:

The northern lights can lower your winter heating bill.

It's a convoluted, Rube Goldberg kind of process, but here goes, courtesy of an article in the Washington Post: 

The sun spews charged particles toward Earth, especially when there's a solar flare, basically an eruption on the sun. 

Those charged parcels bang into the extreme top of the atmosphere, where it excites molecules, which emit light. Those lights are the aurora borealis. 

Those particles eventually start falling toward Earth very slowly, and create molecules of nitric oxide and other chemicals. Once these fall into the stratosphere gradually over weeks and months. The stratosphere is where the ozone layer is, and those molecules can destroy ozone. 

If you destroy ozone in the stratosphere, it can cool that layer of the atmosphere. If scientists are correct, solar flares and the aurora can prevent something called a  "sudden stratospheric warming."

When that happens, it can disrupt the the polar vortex. The polar vortex, you might recall, is a swirling pool of intensely cold air in the atmosphere that lives in various places, usually in the Arctic during the winter.

If the polar vortex is tightly wound and near the North Pole, winter weather in places like the United States and Europe is usually relatively mild. 

If the polar vortex is disrupted buy a sudden stratospheric warming, it can stretch, weaken and move to weird areas. When that happens, it very often opens the door to Arctic blasts invading North America, Europe and/or Asia. 

Cold waves in the mid-latitudes increase electric and other utility bills. Which means if solar eruptions and the northern lights are more active than usual, it might keep money in your wallet.  

Not Just Us: Winter Keeps Trying To Crash Spring's Party

The weather pattern is switching to a chilly, potentially
frosty one for the next two weeks at least, so our early
spring looks like it will go on hold, or worse, actually
suffer some damage. We'll see.

 Most of the last of this past week's snow is melting from New England high country today, as spring tries to battle back from that last wintry setback. 

Despite an early spring over much of the nation, winter in the past few days has increasingly tried to crash the party more and more aggressively.  That state of affairs will continue for the next week at least.  

So while spring will continue to try and assert itself, winter is going to win some last chance battles.  The weather pattern has really switched to a cold one for most of the nation east of the Rockies. 

By the way, those at risk for some stinging, damaging frosts and freezes include us here in Vermont, at least eventually. More on that further down in this post. 

Winter's echo began at the end of last week, as we well know. While we were getting our spring snowstorm in Vermont and the rest of New England, parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska were dealing with their own winter blast. 

Several thousand people lost power around Denver as several inches of wet snow collapsed some trees and wires.  Like here in New England, Colorado has had some pretty good warm spells this spring, so trees were beginning to leaf out. That's bad when there's snow, as the slush accumulates heavily on the leaves, forcing branches to break.

About seven inches of snow accumulated around Denver. That's not even close to their biggest April snow on record, but it was a set back. Wyoming and Nebraska also dealt with snow and slick roads Friday. 

More snow is likely in the Denver metro area Monday as a colder weather pattern settles into the eastern two thirds of the nation.

Believe it or not, a typhoon way out in the western Pacific Ocean near the Philippines is contributing to this weather pattern.  It was a Category 5 as of this weekend, the strongest you can get. As it heads north, it will help disrupt the weather pattern in a way that makes cold snaps more likely in the eastern and central United States. 

In the northern Plains, where temperatures were at record breaking readings as high as 90 degrees or so earlier this month, the early spring buds have been getting nipped by frost in the past few days. 

On Monday and Tuesday, temperatures are forecast to sink into the teens in North Dakota and 20s in South Dakota. A winter storm warning is up for tonight and Monday in South Dakota's Black Hills for more than six inches of snow. 

There will no doubt be frost and freeze warnings in the central and southern Plains and parts of the Midwest in the coming days. 

Freeze watches are already in effect for Monday night as far down as northern Texas and Oklahoma Monday night.  There could even be a little snow and freezing rain in the Texas Panhandle Monday night. 

VERMONT EFFECTS

For us in Vermont, a series of storms and cold fronts will eventually threaten crops and gardens around here. Possible worst case scenario: You know how the trees are starting to green up?  It could possibly get cold enough to wreck those tender new leaves, meaning trees would have to start over, turning a record early spring into a remarkably late one. 

That bad scenario is not cast in stone and probably isn't even likely, but it could definitely happen in the upcoming weather pattern. It's one that will last awhile, too.

The first cold snap will come later Wednesday and Thursday, but this first one doesn't look frigid enough to cause any damage. A nice rainfall looks likely Wednesday. That's a good thing, because despite all the rain and snow in recent days, we still need more. 

Thursday and to a lesser extent Friday look blustery and chilly in Vermont.  Thursday would feature highs not getting out of the 40s with rain and snow showers. Wednesday night through Friday night would get into the low to mid 30s. Most of us will probably touch the freezing mark, but it won't be cold enough long enough to cause any trouble with plants. 

I'm more worried about a second cold front next Sunday.  At this point, that one looks like it could drive some very chilly air into the North Country. It's way too soon to say exactly how cold it would get, but it's possible we could see temperatures fall well into the 20s at night, possibly near 20.

Normally in late April, such temperatures are not that big a deal, because fruit trees, gardens and decorative flowering shrubs aren't usually far enough along by now to be affected by that kind of weather.   

But the warm spring means everything is as far along as they normally are in mid-May.  If the forecast holds, we could see some real agricultural losses, and a disappointing absence this spring of leaves and flowers.

Some weather models overdo anticipated cold snaps this far in advance and that could well be the case here. So what I outlined above is a worst case scenario.  Chances are it won't be that bad. Time will tell. 

The weather pattern does not look like it will turn warm again for the foreseeable future. Those days upon days of temperatures in the 60s ad 70s we experienced aren't coming back through at least early May, I'm afraid. 

A Couple Of Places Where Spring Really Isn't Happening

The first daffodils of the season bloomed in my St. Albans,
Vermont gardens yesterday. That's very early for blooms
to appear in my neck of the woods. Thankfully, so
far, we're missing out on cold snaps affected other
places in the world.

As we here in Vermont continue to enjoy some lovely spring weather, it's really time to count our blessings.  A couple places in the world are having an absolutely horrible, January-like start to April.

I, for one, am glad we're missing out on that misery, at least for now. Western and central Europe, and parts of Alaska are having a hell of a time with it.   

I mentioned Europe's cold in a previous post but it's worth it to dive in further. 

EUROPE FREEZES

One example of how the weather whiplash there has hit is in Slovenia.  In late March, the country set an all time record for warmth with 78 degree. 

This week, that same nation hit an all time low temperature record or April with an incredibly low minus 5 degrees.

These are not the same sites in Slovenia, but still.

There were several reports of subzero cold in the Alps, reaching all time record minimums. In populated areas, Gospic, Croatia reached down to 10 above F, the lowest reading on record, according to the Washington Post. 

 

There is massive damage to crops and gardens across Europe with the record March heat followed by the record cold. 

Farmers encased vineyards in sheets of thick ice, hoping that will keep temperatures on the blooming vines closer to 32 degrees rather than in the teens and 20s, increasing their chances of survival.

This had been a beautifully blooming Magnolia tree in 
England before intense cold ruined it this week

The cold in Europe is forecast to ease, but not entirely go away over the next few days. 

ALASKAN MISERY

Ah, springtime in Fairbanks, Alaska, when there's more that three feet of snow on the ground and the temperature could drop to as low as 30 below on Saturday.

Wait, what?

This time of year in Fairbanks and the rest of central Alaska is never really balmy this time of year, but this is ridiculous.  

For perspective, normal high temperatures in Fairbanks this time of year are close to 40, with normal lows in the mid-teens. Not great, but whatever. 

Temperatures this week in Alaska are far from normal. They're absolutely brutal for this time of year, even by that state's standards. It was 34 below in Livengold and 33 below in Bettles, for example. 

The all time record low for Fairbanks in April is 32 below, and that record could be challenged Saturday. The high temperature in Fairbanks Friday is forecast to be just 4 above, which would be the latest in the spring the temperature failed to reach 10 above.

There was also 40 inches of snow on the ground in Fairbanks earlier this week. So even when a thaw eventually arrives, it will take a long time to get rid of that. 

It's been a long winter in Fairbanks to begin with.  The last time it was 40 degrees or above was last October 11, so now they've had the longest period of time on record with temperatures remaining below 40 degrees. 

The National Weather Service office in Fairbanks tweeted, "I think we can collectively agree that Old Man Winter needs to see himself out! At least until next season."

Some warming is expected in Fairbanks next week, with highs finally breaking the 40 degree mark Monday or Tuesday.