Enjoy Today, Stormy Days/Nights Coming To Vermont

A nice sunset Tuesday evening foretold a very nice late
March day in Vermont, but don't get used to that. 
Lots of unsettled weather is on the way. 

 I hope Vermont maple sugar makers got a good night's rest last night. I have a feeling there's going to be a great run today. 

Temperatures got down into the upper teens and 20s last night. This afternoon, it'll be in the 40s, with a few spot 50 degree readings possible in the warmest valleys. The sun will be out most of the day, so that's a recipe for a great, needed sap run.

The rest of us should enjoy today's weather, too. because this will be the nicest day we've had in awhile. And it will be awhile before we have conditions this pleasant again. 

A series of storms and relatively cold shots of air are on the way. While none of the storms and cold days appear as it they'll be any kind of record breakers, we'll have to wait to see some classic spring weather. At least after today. 

THURSDAY

The first storm tomorrow will be almost completely rain. Although it will be on the mild side, Thursday will not be a nice day with rain most of the time and a stiff south breeze in sone spots. 

Rainfall for most of us will be about a quarter or a third of an inch.  Areas along and north of Route 2 could see a half inch or more. 

Even with melting snow, this won't be enough to cause any real flooding, but you'll see stream and river level rise with this one. Just a muddy, wet, typically icky March day. 

FRIDAY:

We'll get a bit of a break between systems Friday, though it will be slightly on the chilly side. Highs will only make it into the 30s to low 40s, which is a bit cooler than normal for late March. 

WEEKEND

It still looks like we'll have a  messy storm that will act in many ways like the last few. 

Like the last several storms a strong system will head into the Great Lakes Saturday, then begin to weaken over southern Ontario and Quebec.  Meanwhile a new storm would form along the coast, helping to lock colder air in. 

If this were hitting a few weeks ago, the storm would be mostly snow, and we'd see potentially a decent 6 to 12 inch dump from this. 

Just one of many varying predictions of a storm on
approach toward New England. This map is depicts
how things would look Saturday morning. 

But it's late March, and it's warmer.  Lower elevations have a better chance of seeing at least some rain, while higher spots see mostly snow. Nobody's really guessing on projected snow accumulations yet. 

The biggest question in the valleys is, will this be mostly a cold rain, or mostly a slushy snow? Or an even split?

Hopefully how this works out will be better defined as we get closer to the event. But we do have a risk of slick roads Saturday and Saturday night, especially in higher elevations.  I don't think there's a big flooding risk, even if low spots see mostly rain. 

Even if it rains it will be too cold to see any rapid snow melt. And it'll be snowing in the mountains, so we won't see any runoff from higher elevations. 

The weather will slowly improve on Sunday.

BEYOND THE WEEKEND

Longer range forecasts are always iffy. That's extra true in the spring when the seasons are transitioning.  Old winter weather patterns are fading, and summer weather systems are still a distant dream. It basically means anything is possible. 

Around Tuesday, the computer models disagree on whether a new storm system will exist in the Northeast or not. Never mind whether it would be strong or weak, or what kind of precipitation it would generate. 

Flip a coin on that one, folks. 

In general, I don't see any real nice spells of spring weather coming at least into early April. But the warm weather will get here eventually. I think. 

Vermont Weather Week Ahead: Not As Wild As Last Week, But Still "Interesting"

After a brief snow squall, a cold wintry sun tries to fight
its way through the clouds in St. Albans Sunday morning.
Warmer weather is on the way, though. 

 As is customary, I like to start Sunday with a look ahead, at least as best we can, at the Vermont weather week ahead.  

For those of you adverse to winter, a couple pieces of good news: For one, unlike last week,  nobody in Vermont will get 40 inches of snow this week. In fact, only a little snow will fall, and many of us will see a dusting at most.

The big snow winners will be in the central and northern Green Mountains, where the remnants of lake effect snows from New York could pile of several inches of fluffy snow.  That's a far cry from fell last week, though! 

The second piece of good news for those anxious for spring is that today has a very good shot at being the coldest day until next winter. 

Normal highs in Vermont valleys are now in the low 40s, and rising day by day as we head into spring. It's gradually getting harder and harder to stay below freezing all day. 

Today, though, we'll stay at January-like levels, with temperatures for many of us not getting out of the mid-20s. Gusty northwest winds bring wind chills into the single numbers and teens. You'll see spots of sun, but also snow showers, especially north of Route 4 and in the mountains all the way down to and past the Massachusetts border.

A few snow showers might be briefly heavy, so you'll want to watch for sudden problems with low visibility and slick pavement on the highways here and there today. As drier air moves in this afternoon and evening, the snow showers should lighten up somewhat. 

After a rather cold night tonight, things get better.  

Most valleys, except for some of them north of Route 2 on Tuesday, will to 40 or above each day Monday through the end of the week. (Northern valleys might have to settle for highs in the 35-39 degree range on Tuesday).

The weather should be fairly quiet, and great for sugaring in the first half of the week. 

The second half gets questionable. Storminess seems to want to come in, or at least some precipitation. 

Although Vermont big snowstorms are possible into mid-April, it is getting harder and harder to snow as we get into the second half of March. It's just getting too warm. 

It's looking like whatever comes in the second half of the week will be mostly rain.  The computer models disagree on how much rain and the timing of it. 

If it's just light rain, the snow will just continue to melt in an orderly fashion and there would be nothing to worry about. If it's a heavier rain, we'll need to watch for some flooding from that rain and melting snow. 

 

Upcoming Cold Snap To (Slightly) Revive Ski, Maple Sugaring And Mud Seasons

Back to the National Weather Service/South Burlington
snow prediction map after a long break.  Light snowfalls
are expected as a late season cold snap comes in, but the
mountains could pile up several inches of snow at least
between now and Monday afternoon

 Many of us here in Vermont are into spring weather, but are always ready for the inevitable disappointments. 

As advertised, spring is going on hiatus starting tonight.  It will stay away for a few days, but never fear, it will return. Eventually. 

There's been remarkably little snow on the ground this month, considering we often receive large snowstorms in March. The ground has been continuously snow-free in Burlington, for instance, since St. Patrick's Day, which is unusual.

By tomorrow, though, the ground will once again be snow covered. In the valleys, it won't be much, with most of us expecting one to three inches, with less in the Connecticut River Valley. 

The set up, though, favors what might be a decent snowfall in the central and northern Green Mountains through Monday. 

That Arctic front is still due to come through Sunday.  Ahead of it, it will be cold enough for some wet snow in most places and the mostly light snow will continue through much of the day.  With sharp northwest winds blasting, the western slopes and summits of the Green Mountains will see a more enhanced snowfall. Which will last there well into Monday.

Current National Weather Service forecasts have isolated amounts of up to six inches of new snow in the Green Mountains, which isn't odd for this time of year, but still a noticeable addition of fluff in this snow-starved year. 

I actually think some favored places might receive more than that six inches of snow by Monday afternoon. I'll go out on a limb and say there's a chance super favored places like Jay Peak and the Mount Mansfield summit could come in with a foot of snow. 

This will freshen up the ski slopes for a little while. 

It's going to be wicked cold, though, for this time of year. Things will freeze up really solidly out there again, as we'll have two nights of temperatures in the 5 to 15 degree range, with highs Monday only in the upper teens in the cold spots and mid-20s in the banana belts. 

This substantial cold will probably recharge the maple trees for more sap runs, but I have to wonder if it's too late for places like southern Vermont lowlands and the Champlain Valley.

It's been a very warm month, with too many nights that stayed above freezing.  I'll have to research this more, but I wonder about the quality of the sap coming from the trees right now in the warmer spots. It could be at least partly a season of lower grade (but still delicious!) maple syrup. 

Still, I think the cold snap will add a little new life to sugaring season.  

It's also been a hell of a mud season, which I'll have more on in an upcoming post. In some places, the mud has gotten a little less bad as more of the frost comes out of the ground.  This cold wave will freeze things back up.  Obviously, the frost in the next few days won't go as deeply into the ground as it did during the subzero spells of January.

It will prolong mud season, though.  Newly frozen ground will have to thaw again later next week when it warms up.  

We'll ruefully be singing that Brad Paisley song "Mud On The Tires" for a while longer, for sure. 

Feeling The Season Way Ahead Of Schedule Agaiin

Really early for this. Yesterday, March 23, I got to work 
expanding a perennial bed while daffodil shoots 
were poking up nearby. Springs in general do seem
to come a lot earlier than they used to.

 This is anecdotal, but honestly, spring keeps coming so much earlier than I remember as a kid in Vermont. 

The setbacks to the season seem harsher as a result, but there's no denying spring ain't what it used to be  - like in my childhood memories of spring in Vermont during the 1960s and 1970s. 

I was out in my yard in St. Albans, Vermont yesterday. What I was seeing was probably what right about April 10 looked like a few decades ago. It certainly didn't seem like March 23. 

Lots of early perennials were poking up, some already two inches or so tall.  The yard was completely free of snow and the grass in protected corners seemed to have a new sheen of green.  Robins were engaging in ongoing turf wars. The ooze from mud season was just starting to ease a bit. I was actually able to begin work on expanding one of my flower beds. 

I have no illusions it will just be flowers and butterflies and warm breezes through the rest of the season.  Brief excursions back into winter are inevitable, and are in the forecast. (Mondays lows should be in the low teens, highs in the 20s. Brrr!) 

Some springs are, and will always be warmer or colder, earlier or later than others. We'll even have a daily record low temperature here and there, though those are, and will be more rare than record highs. 

Spring, in general, is warmer and earlier than it once was.

I might eat my words, but we'll probably never again have an April like 1972, when only five nights in Burlington stayed above freezing and it got as low as 2 above, still the coldest reading for April on record.. (For comparison, so far this March, nine nights remained above freezing in Burlington).

We also, thankfully, probably will never have a May like 1966, when 11 of the first 14 days of the month saw subfreezing temperatures. 

I wonder, though, what the next weirdly warm spring month will look like.  Will we outdo March, 2012, when we had a week of temperatures in the 70s and low 80s? 

Will we someday have some of the first leaves on the trees in early April?  When I was a kid, the first trees to turn green didn't do so until early May. Now, that usually happens around the third week of April, at least in the banana belt Champlain Valley. 

Sometimes, global warming is referred to as "global weirding."  The extremes get, well, more extreme, or at least more odd.  We've certainly seen that in recent Vermont springs.

In late February, 2017, we saw temperatures in western Vermont reach the low 70s, far higher than anyone had seen so early in the season.  Then, two weeks later, the Pi Day Blizzard dumped close to three feet of snow on those same "mild" towns. 

On April 9, 2019, I saw trees around my  yard sag under the weight of freezing rain. In 2020, another warm spring was interrupted by a snowy Mother's Day.

Last year, spring was way early, with flowers blooming all around my yard on April 20.  By April 21 and 22, five inches of snow had smushed the flowers into the ground and blinding snow squalls swirled around my house.  Two days later, it was warm, snow-free, as if nothing wintry ever happened.

All these changes of course have far broader implications than me just saying "Gee whiz'" to myself in the gardens. 

This is another screwed up maple sugaring season. It started early, but I'm not sure all sugarmakers were ready for it in February.  Then a long warm spell last week probably at least deteriorated the quality of the season, at least for some producers.

Early springs lead to premature blooming of apple trees and grape vines and such. Those crops end up vulnerable to late frosts, which still regularly interrupt these milder springs. 

I've always been particularly in tune with nature, the change of seasons, how the landscape changes day to day.   At the risk of having my Vermont card revoked, winter isn't necessarily my favorite season. The honors go to spring.

The weird springs give me mixed emotions, but most of those emotions are tinged with misgivings. Sure, who doesn't love hints of greenery in a Vermont garden in mid-March?  But then you worry the flowers are coming up too soon, and will get wrecked, like my too-early lilacs did during last April's brief snow and cold.

Flowers around my house are the least of anyone's worries, including mine. Climate change is now affecting everyone.  It will hit is harder in the years to come. How hard is too hard?

 

This Year's Spring Weather Made Vermont's Annual Maple Sugar Harvest Suck

A truck collects maple sap gathered in St. Albans, Vermont
this past March 21.  The sugaring season was lackluster
due mostly to early bouts of unseasonably warm weather.

The recent bout of winter weather in Vermont notwithstanding, a very warm, very early spring really screwed up our all-important maple sugaring season. 

Most maple producers only made 40 to 70 percent of their average crop during this year's season, according to the Associated Press, sourcing from the Burlington Free Press

A much-too-premature bout of 70 degree weather in March plus low sugar content in the maple sap are to blame for the lackluster yield.   

Vermont's maple sugar harvest usually runs from late February into April. Record warmth from March 23 to 26 brought a premature ending to season, especially for producers in the warmer valleys of the Green Mountain State. 

In northeastern Vermont and in some higher elevations, where the sugaring season often lasts well into April, a long spell of more record and near record warmth between April 8 and 14 put the kibosh on the season. 

Though yields were down this year, it doesn't look like there will be a maple supply shortage. The Vermont Maple Sugar Makers' Association says one off year won't mess up supplies.  If we have several bad years in a row, then it becomes a problem.

Vermont is by far the nation's leading maple producer.  We normally produce about 2 million gallons of syrup, which makes up more than half of all U.S. production. 

Climate change is disrupting and altering Vermont's famed sugaring season. The Proctor Maple Research Center says sugaring season starts 8.3 days earlier and ends 11.6 days earlier than it did five decades ago. 

The season also tends to end earlier than it once did.  Though there have been some great maple yields in recent years, there have been a disturbing recent few years, like this one, in which erratic weather disrupted the season.