Enjoy Vermont Spring Now, Because It Will Come To A Temporary Halt Late This Week

Some hyanicith and daffodils enjoying spring this
week in a St. Albans, Vermont garden 

Saturday was another gorgeous spring day in Vermont, though it did, as expected, cloud up quite a bit in southwestern parts of the state. 

We have basically three and a half days more wonderful spring weather coming up before the season comes to a grinding, though obviously temporary halt at the end of the week. Weather systems often stall in the spring. 

We're lucky enough now to be stuck under sunny high pressure. By the second half of the week, we'll be mired beneath a cold pool of cold air aloft, which means clouds, very chilly air, some rain showers, and yes, mountain snow. 

 I'll do the spoiler now: The halt to spring won't wreck your garden plants and trees, but it will stop the buds from popping and more flowers from bursting for a least a couple days. 

Let's get into the details

TODAY

The disturbance that dove southeast through New York State Saturday, giving much of that state a damp, rainy Saturday is heading off into the Atlantic Ocean. That Canadian high pressure that's been giving us the cool, generally sunny weather the past couple of days is taking over again. 

It's a big one, extending from Nunavut, up in the Arctic of northeastern Canada a little west of Greenland, all the way down to New England. 

Canadian high pressure is usually chilly. And the northern part is. The forecast high in Iqaluit, Nunavut today is 9 degrees, compared to a normal high of 20.  Yep, it's cold up there in the Arctic, Captain Obvious  tells us.

However, way down here in tropical New England (practice your southern accents, y'all), the strong late April sun is cooking the air mass and making it warmer and warmer. That's why Saturday was a little warmer than Friday. And why today will be a little toastier than yesterday. 

So we'll have quite a lot of sunshine with highs generally in the low 60s today. The Northeast Kingdom will be a little cooler in the upper 50s while southern valley floors probably reach the mid 60s. 

MONDAY AND TUESDAY

The spring sunshine train will continue as that high pressure holds firm.  It'll turn even warmer both days as we get well into the 60s. A few places will flirt with 70 degrees. That's 'actually only somewhat warmer than normal for this time of year. (Normal highs are near 60 degrees) We'll take it! 

The only problem with all this is the fire danger. It's very dry and very sunny, with very low humidity. Too many verys there but you get the point. Winds should be pretty light today and tomorrow, which will help. Even so, light winds don't prevent fires. They just don't spread as fast, but they do spread. 

A brush and woodland fire in Milton looks like it spread pretty quickly yesterday afternoon, and firefighters were on the scene for about four hours putting it out. 

It'll get windier on Tuesday, so that will be the day to really watch out for woodland and field blazes. 

WEDNESDAY

A transition day as we begin to flip toward the new, definitely less pleasant stuck weather pattern. Sunshine should fade behind clouds and there might be some rain drops toward the end of the day. Highs will still reach the 60s.

THURSDAY

This will be the rainiest of the days as low pressure becomes established overhead or at least nearby. Hard to say how much rain we'll get, but early projections suggest a half inch. So not all that much, but at least it will wet the ground down and end the fire danger. 

FRIDAY/ NEXT WEEKEND

The cold pool of air will sit overhead during this time, keeping us mostly cloudy and definitely cold for this time of year. Highs Friday and Saturday might not get out of the 40s for many of us, which is why I'm saying spring will come to a stop. Plants don't like to grow when it's in the 40s. At least we won't have any real freezes to hurt anything as nighttime temperatures should stay mostly in the 30s during this nippy spell.

Much of the time should be rain free, but there will always be a risk of light rain showers at any time. But especially in the afternoons and evenings as the April sun makes the cold air less stable. 

And yes, it will be cold enough for snow in the highest elevations. Not much, but some. And even in the valleys, a particularly robust shower might bring down some extra cold air, and you'll end up with something called graupel. 

Graupel is basically teeny tiny snowballs.  They are snowflakes that had super cooled water attach to them. So they're these little white sleety things that remind me of bits of packing material or styrofoam. 

So. Yay. 

BEYOND NEXT WEEKEND

It'll warm up a little after next weekend, but we're stuck in a chilly, unsettled weather pattern at least into the middle of May, and possibly beyond. There's a good chance you'll see an occasional sunny, warmish day thrown in from time to time, but generally speaking, it will be cool and showery much of the time. 

It's way too soon to figure out if we'll get some soaking rains out of this pattern, or just some annoying sprinkles. As far as I'm concerned, if it's going to rain, we might as well get some good drenching here and there to get the gardens and farm fields in shape for the start of summer. 

Time will tell, as it always does..

Lousy Stuck Weather Pattern To Unstick, Then A Much Better Stuck Weather Pattern To Hit

A burst of sunlight lights up a landscape of dark clouds
early this morning in St. Albans, Vermont. Our stuck, wet
weather pattern is scheduled to be replaced by 
another stuck, but better weather pattern. 

 Springtime for some reason is peak season for stuck weather patterns. 

The flow in the atmosphere often gets tangled up, and you end up with basically the same weather for days. 

What you end up with is usually luck of the draw. Sometimes, you get stuck in a wet, dreary pattern, other times you're "stuck" with brilliant blue skies in warm temperatures, like we had in mid-April. 

Last week, we were stuck under a showery regime, as low pressure to our northwest kept us unsettled. But at least we had long breaks of partly sunny skies in which we could get things done outside. That pattern untangled last Friday, only to get us stuck in a new spell of wet weather. 

This week's long spell of wet weather has been worse than last week, I suppose. The showers have been more frequent. The sun has been more scant. But we can look on the bright side. The core of the coldest air with this stuck pattern has been off to our south and west, in the Great Lakes and central Appalachians 

Some of those areas got quite a bit of late season snow out of this. In Vermont, we avoided frozen precipitation. Unless you include snow on the mountain peaks and pea sized hail accompanying heavier lower elevation showers. 

Now some good news: Over the next couple of days, this current regime will become unstuck and move on.  Quick on its heels will be another stalled weather pattern that will be.........not bad!

Big high pressure will settle in near Hudson Bay, Canada starting this weekend and continuing through most of next week. Low pressure will stall far off in northeastern Canada.

This will set up a pretty persistent northwest flow of air over us. 

On paper, this looks a bit ominous, but in reality, it won't be hard to take at all. 

In the winter, with this kind of pattern, it can stay pretty cold, with subzero temperatures.  You'd think with this set-up, we'd get some late season freezes and basically an end to spring, with frost-ruined gardens and such. 

NOT  this time, though.  Most of the snow has melted in central Canada and the high pressure isn't from the Arctic. It's pretty mild under that system. 

So, air temperatures through our next stuck weather regime will be pretty close to normal.  That means highs most days will make it into  the 60s, with possibly a 70 degree day or two thrown in for good measure. Lows are forecast to be in the mid 30s to mid 40s. Sure, there might be a touch of frost some nights in the coldest hollows, but that's perfectly normal and fine for this time of year. 

One bonus is there will be a fair amount of sun this weekend and next week. We won't always have crystal clear skies, but we'll definitely see enough sun to keep you - and the garden flowers and the pollinators happy.  

 Little, moisture-starved disturbances and weak cold fronts will keep coming down on us from Quebec during this upcoming regime. That might touch off a few periods of clouds and some widely scattered light showers. But the vast majority of the time will be dry, so you can get out in your yard and enjoy.

It's actually good that we've gotten all this rain and it's so soggy out there. That moisture will help us get through at least a week of mostly dry weather. 

The one negative in all this is the black flies. They are AWFUL this year!!!!!  I'm hoping the northwest breezes that will accompany the weather this weekend and next week will be strong enough to help keep those dreadful little buggers at bay.