A Vermont Spring Boost, Then Winter For Some Of Us, Then Back To Spring

More and more crocuses keep appearing as spring
continues its progress in Vermont - despite some snow
in the forecast this week. After the chill Wednesday and
Thursday, we'll see weather that will allow spring
to continue to green things up in Vermont.

 We finally got to enjoy spring on Monday and in some places last night as mild air blessedly returned. 

It got up to 66 in Burlington Monday afternoon, which isn't all that unusual for this time of year, but it still felt good. 

The only drawback: I was being pestered already by black flies in my yard last evening. That problem will only get worse as we make our way through spring

Meanwhile, areas west of the Green Mountains, especially in the Champlain Valley, stayed warm overnight. 

Readings there never got below 50 degrees. Those kinds of mild nights this time of year really tend to advance the forces of spring. 

Eastern Vermont, which has struggled more with spring this year, was much chillier, with early morning temperatures mostly close to 40.

I found yet another sign of spring. An area of thunderstorms move through parts of southern Quebec near and southwest of Montreal early this morning. And there's the chance of a few scattered garden variety thundershowers around Vermont this afternoon as we hang on to relatively mild temperatures for most of today.

Since thunderstorms are mostly a warm season thing, I'll take it. 

WINTER INTERRUPTION

We're still looking at a wintery spell yet again in Vermont Tuesday night through Thursday morning, but for most of us, it won't be too bad.  And to be honest, it won't last all that long.  It's slowly getting harder and harder to get wintry weather as we head into late April. Hallelujah! 

Many valleys look like they could get a thin scrim of slushy snow early Wednesday morning and again Wednesday night. But valley highs on Wednesday will be in the 38 to 45 degree range. Pretty miserably cold for this time of year, but still, hard to keep snow around with this temperatures.  

The first blooming daffodil of the season appeared this 
morning in my St. Albans, Vermont garden 

The northern and central Green Mountains look like the big winners, still with this. 

 Accumulations way up high -  above 2,500 feet - still look like they will be in the four to 12 inch range, which might keep the door open for some very late season back country skiing. 

The amount of precipitation people in Vermont will see this week will vary widely. 

Rain and melted snow through Thursday morning will probably amount to only a tenth of an inch or so in the Champlain Valley to nearly an inch around Jay Peak

CONSISTENT SPRING?

A shifting weather pattern after midweek is going to bring Vermont so better spring weather, and you'll see things gradually but steadily continuing to green up as we head into the weekend and next week.

True, some days will be on the cool side, others mild. Some days will be bright, others a bit rainy. But as it looks now, it appears we'll have weather that actually feels like spring pretty much every day maybe starting Thursday afternoon but really getting underway Friday. 

As noted, things will bounce around a little, as is typical in the spring  Saturday looks potentially mild and occasionally rainy.  Easter Sunday at this point is looking cool and brisk and bright, but not frigid with afternoon highs in the 48 to 55 degree range.

It will warm up again after that.  I still don't see any ridiculous early season heat in our future for the next week or two. But daily highs consistently in the 50s and 60s starting Friday and continuing at least through the following week and beyond will be pretty easy to take. 

Yes, it could snow again in Vermont this spring even after we get through this week. But the chances of it happening are finally beginning to diminish. 

 

Longing For Color: Photo Shows Exactly Why We Look Forward To Spring

A beautiful spring evening in my St. Albans, Vermont 
back yard. Photo taken on May 5, 2023.  Click on the 
image to make it bigger and easier to see. 

The snapshot photo in this post was taken in my St. Albans, backyard on the evening of May 5, 2023.

As far as composition and artistry and all that, the photo isn't much. But this time of year, I can't help just staring at it. 

The colors! As we are in this especially drab, gray, relatively snow-free winter, you're going to want to click on the photo, make it bigger and stare lovingly into it. 

The greens, with the speckled blue sky and the pops of yellow from the daffodils just bring such joy and, I don't know, ahhhh.

In three months or so, we will be free from this imprisonment of monotonous gray, brown, and dirty white.  With any luck, by early May, our surroundings will look something like the photo in this post. 

By the way, if you want more spring images to warm your heart, I've added a video to the bottom of this post. 

Anyway, sure we had blue skies for a change on Sunday, which were extremely welcome. But by February, we all wait desperately for the color that true spring brings. 

Click on the photo to make it bigger and easier to see. The late afternoon/early evening light and shadows in the photo bring out every possible shade of green. It helps that the tiny new leaves have that tender new born sort of bright baby green. 

You can see that the lawn could stand a mowing, but that tall grass looks so luxurious.  If I'm not mistaken, Jackson the Weather Dog that evening spent quite a bit of time rolling around in that grass. Which was a great idea. So I joined him. 

Whether you admit it or not, you would have done the same. 

 Check out that sky.  Sure, the beautiful blue skies on Sunday were a nice switch from the weeks of gloomy overcast we had, but Sunday's sky was still a cold, winter blue. 

The springtime blue sky in the photo has a benevolent, warm feeling to it. The scattered clouds complete the painterly feel of the atmosphere. They also have a vaguely unstable look to them, as if promising some springtime showers. 

You might guess from the photo that I like daffodils. Those pops of yellow just make me happy every spring. I have varieties that bloom early, mid-season and late to keep the show going. 

My only regret is I only have about 600 or so daffodils planted on my property. I wish I had thousands. Worse, I ran out of time to plant additional ones this past autumn. Well, there's always next year.  

I have lots of photos of my springtime gardens. My excuse for having the photos is it helps me plan improvements to the property. 

But frankly, I spent an embarrassing amount of time in February looking at those photos as entertainment. Just to take my mind off winter. Even winters as mild as this one has been.  

I know many people like winter. There's a lot of reasons why people would. But those green spring days and evenings  are absolutely heavenly. If there is a heaven, I hope it looks something like what's in the photo.

Video: Spring images from 2023. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Suddenly Green, But Also Black Flies Invade: Spring In Vermont

I swear most of those trees behind the spruces in St. Albans,
Vermont had virtually no green yesterday.
Amazing wha a mild,rainy night can do this time of year. 

 It almost felt like I slept for days or even weeks, not just overnight when I got up early this morning in St. Albans, Vermont. 

The mild overnight rain that had been predicted materialized. After some relatively balmy weather yesterday, the rain went to work on the trees and I'm suddenly in a green landscape. Trees that had been bare yesterday are covered with little green leaves this morning .

Things did change big time overnight. 

The rapid advance of green should continue with today's rain.  Relatively cool air Thursday through Saturday might slow the process a bit, but the warmest weather so far this year coming up next week should advance "foliage season." 

What's not to love about all that? It really is my favorite time of year. 

This being Vermont, though, there's always a drawback. I've seen the first stirrings of the dreaded black flies in the past couple of days. Those little buggers will explode into annoying swarms over the next few days. 

Today's rains will give them a boost as they hatch, and the warm air coming will create clouds of them, I hate to say.  You pray for windy weather during black fly season, because gusts tend to make it harder for them to bother and bite you.  Unfortunately, a good chunk of that upcoming warm spell will have very light winds. 

Black flies do prefer cloudy days, so with sunshine anticipated, that will help.  I'm told black flies don't like light colored clothes like pastel green, or orange or yellow, so consider your fashion choices during black fly season. 

Ah, but we're used to these little devils anyway. Happens every year. The peak of black fly season usually goes from about Mother's Day to Father's Day, with the mosquitoes taking over during that time period. I guess bugs enjoy a Vermont spring, too.

Bug spray with DEET usually eases the problem, at least for me. No biggie.

The only insect I'm truly concerned about this year is gypsy moth caterpillars. You'll remember last year there was a huge outbreak of them which defoliated so much of Vermont's Green Mountains. Although the name of these horrible pests has an ethnic slur, so we'll call them spongy moth caterpillars from here on out. 

There's a good chance they'll be back this year, which makes me nervous since they stripped a hill in back of my house bare last summer.  The caterpillars stopped just short of defoliating my property, and I fear they will nail us this year. I'm sure a lot of other people are a bit worried about this, too.  Not sure what to do about it, but I hope we have a miracle and they don't turn out too bad.

Today's damp weather is what we need, as this weather encourages a fungus that kills spongy caterpillars. But this is just one day of rain. We're in for a long stretch of dry, nice weather. 

Which is what we all love in the springtime.  But like I said, it's Vermont. Even wonderful things have their downside here. 

Snapped Tree Gets An Odd, Dying Advanced Spring; Rest Of Us To Enjoy Slow Greenup

This tree in Burlington, Vermont snapped in last week's
snowstorm. The sun-warmed gravel it was resting on
caused the tree to leaf out before all the others. 
However, the tree obviously won't survive.

 I thought the photo in this post was slightly interesting, so I figure I'd share it and what went on.

The tree in Burlington snapped under the weight of heavy snow last Tuesday, with the bottom part of it hung up on a fence and the top resting on a gravel parking lot. 

The warmth of the sun on the gravel in the days following the snow warmed the treetop up considerably. so it leafed out before any other tree in Burlington did. 

Of course, it was a dying gasp of greenery, since the tree is dead and will presumably be removed soon by whoever owns the parking lot. 

Other than honeysuckle shrubs and maybe a few willows, trees had not leafed out at all around the Champlain Valley as of Sunday. 

The National Phenology Network tracks the spring advance of green-up. In the map red areas are where spring is running ahead of average and blue is where it's running behind. White means spring hasn't hit yet, or the advance of spring is right around normal.  At least the greening of the earlier plants, like honeysuckle. 

Red is showing up in parts of Vermont on the map as of Sunday, as those earliest shrubs and plants are trying to leaf out. So spring is still earlier than average so far, but is not running as far ahead of schedule as last year. 

None of the bigger trees in the area showed signs of green as of Sunday. But some trees on Sunday   appeared to be on the cusp of greening up. A warm day today will probably coax a touch more greenery. Not to mention encourage your daffodils, tulips and forsythia to keep blooming. 

The National Phenology Network shows the Northeast
having an earlier than usual schedule for early
leafing plants. Vermont is just beginning to see 
green, and is a little ahead of normal. 

A mild night and a seasonably mild day Tuesday should encourage a little more spring growth, but things will stall for the rest of the week under a cool, breezy and cloudy weather regime. 

Daytime temperatures Wednesday and Thursday will stay below 50 degrees, which is a good ten to fifteen degrees cooler than average.

We could get some showers late tonight and the first half of Tuesday, but amounts will be very light. Unfortunately, we're due for light rain, and yes, snow showers Wednesday and Thursday. It won't be anything like last Tuesday, though. Light accumulations should be limited to higher terrain

The next chance of anything resembling springlike weather will come about next Sunday or so..