Cold, Rainy Day In Vermont Keeping Us Indoors, But Giving Us A Needed Soaking

National Weather Service radar showed rain moving southwest
to northeast from New York into Vermont as of 9:45 a.m. 
today. So as you can see, we're in for a wet day. 
That rain-free area in southeast Vermont should
get wet later today. 

 I'm posting this morning's update late than usual because I decided to sleep in today. 

It's a perfect day to do it, with a steady rain drumming on the roof and chilly air outside. Might as well relax for a change, right?  

The wind and thunderstorms and power outages from yesterday have faded. 

Most of the power outages were in eastern Vermont.  Gusty winds ahead of the showers and thunderstorms knocked trees to power lines in places like Barre and Thetford. 

As mentioned yesterday, trees are suddenly getting heavier as thousands of leaves on each tree sprout and grow. 

That many leaves are heavy when taken together. If you have a large tree in your yard and have to rake and remove the leaves in the fall, you know what I'm talking about. 

If a tree was weakened during the winter, the new leaves and the wind can combine to knock them down. We'll see more random trees break or fall here and there as the leaves continue to grow. 

A few brush fires developed in eastern Vermont before the showers, too. A tree fell on a power line in Newfane, sparking a brush fire there. 

There won't be any brush fires in Vermont today. Here are the details

TODAY

It was raining everywhere in Vermont as of 9 a.m. except in far southeastern Vermont.  A cold front is creeping across the state at a snail's pace while a wave of low pressure rides along the front. We're still looking at storm totals from yesterday afternoon to this evening of around an inch, with more in some spots. 

There's a good chance that Burlington, Vermont will break a very old record for the today's date. The wettest May 6 on record is 0.85 inches set way back in 1894. Those forecasts for an inch of rain today would break that record. 

Southeastern Vermont will see less rain, with maybe a half inch expected. Which sucks, because that's the driest part of the state. It would have been nice if they'd get more rain out to this. Spoiler: There will be more rain chances after today. 

The rain will start to dwindle first in northwest mid to late afternoon and that trend of rain ending will then spread southeast in the evening. 

Highs should stay in the 40s north and hold in the 50s for the most part south, so it's a cold, wet May day. Get your indoor projects done today!

THURSDAY/FRIDAY

Both days will be cool for the season, but not bad. This weather pattern always has us under a threat of a shower, but if any develop either of these days, they should be light and isolated.  Forecasters are also expecting a fair amount of sun  mixed with the clouds both days. Highs should only be in the 50s to low 60s, which is cooler than average for this time of year.  

WEEKEND

Things could change, but it's looking unsettled. One little storm looks like it will go just to our south, so most of the rain will hit southern New England. But, we'll have clouds and a good chance of showers. Especially in southern Vermont. It won't be a big dump of rain down there, but it add a little more water to the fields and gardens down there. 

A slightly stronger storm will approach Sunday. At first, That will probably warm us up well into the 60s. If we're lucky, the rain will hold off until Sunday night. 

There's still lots of questions on the speed, path and intensity of that storm, so we don't know how much rain we'll get. 

After that, it's back to the relatively cool, unsettled weather we've had most days lately. 

April Wildfires Rage In U.S. There's Even A FIre Threat Here In Vermont

Screen grab of a report from WPTZ of a brush fire that
got out of control in Shelburne Wednesday. Much
of the state has a high fire danger today. Elsewhere
in the U.S. much, much worse wildfires have been raging

It's been a terrible wildfire year already in the U.S. and it continued to get worse on Wednesday. 

Fires raged in Georgia, Florida and other states. It's a continuation of a fiery spring in the United States. 

So far this year, through April 17, the nation has seen 20,915 wildfires, the most in recent history and far above the average of 13,597 through that date, the National Interagency Fire Center reported. 

As of April 17, 1,748,490 acres have burned, far above the average of  875,957 through mid-April.  With drought raging in much of the nation, the fires will only get worse as we head into the summer. 

The last few days have made things even worse.

In drought-stricken southern Georgia, at least 50 homes were destroyed by wildfires.  Hundreds of people have been evacuated. Much of Georgia is under mandatory burn bans for the first time in the state's history. The fires are mostly in southern Georgia and northern Florida, where an intense drought is worsening. 

In northern Floria, firefighters battled more than 130 wildfires that burned 39 square miles, NBC News reported. 

Further north, a smoky haze engulfed Atlanta.

In Colorado, a fast moving fire southeast of Colorado Springs prompted evacuation. 

Today, fire alerts run from New Mexico and northwest Texas all the way to eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota.

VERMONT FIRES

Here in Vermont, things are not nearly as dire as they are in Florida, Georgia, Colorado and other places beset with big wildfires.

But April and early May represent peak wildfires season here in the Green Mountain State. Mostly because said Green Mountain State is not that green yet. Last year's dead brush and leaves, exposed to the sun through leafless trees, dry out in a flash. Even a day or two after rain or snow. 

We've already a few dry episodes with fires this spring. This year through yesterday, 28 Vermont fires have burned 143.6 acres, according to data from the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. 

 Just yesterday in Shelburne, WPTZ reports that somebody called the town's fire department for a burn permit after already setting the field alight. The fire department turned down the request. 

Meanwhile the fire got out of control as winds gusted to as high as 25 to 30 mph. Firefighters from three departments got the fire contained after it burned about a half acre. No word from the report as to whether the property owner was cited. 

Officials are warning of potential fires today, especially in lower valleys. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington has issued a special weather statement warning of fire danger in the Champlain and lower Connecticut River valleys and the valleys of southwest Vermont. 

Very dry air and gusty winds could really spread fires today. Now is not the time to burn your brush pile, or flick a cigarette out your truck window. 

Dry weather will continue through the weekend, which keeps the fire danger going. But winds starting tomorrow will be lighter than the 25 to 30 mph gusts we'll see today. 

GREAT WEATHER!

A daffodil enjoying some early morning sunshine
today in St. Albans, Vermont. We have great
spring weather coming for the next few days
but there is a high fire danger, especially today.

Aside from the fire danger, we have just launched into a spell of great spring weather. Skies should have at least a fair amount of sun daily through Sunday or Monday. April showers bring May flowers, but so does April sunshine. 

Cool weather, especially today and tomorrow will be invigorating for those of you who want to go out and get yard work done. 

Highs today and tomorrow should mostly be in the low and mid 50s

We will have freezes tonight and tomorrow night as readings  fall to between 25 and 30 degrees both nights. This won't be cold enough to endanger spring plants like the sharper, colder spell we had Monday and Tuesday morning. 

At least around my area in northwest Vermont, most of my spring plants survived Tuesday morning's frigid temperatures. They'll do fine this time, too. 

But if you are hardening off more tender plants on your deck or whatever, bring them in tonight, tomorrow night and maybe the night after that, too. 

The weekend will turn a little warmer, with highs near 60, which is about normal for this time of year. It looks like skies will be partly to mostly sunny, so we have a fantastic weekend coming up, fingers crossed. 

The Vermont Maple Festival is this weekend in St. Albans, so it'll be a perfect weekend for that, too! 

Coldest Vermont/New York April Morning In A Decade; Spring Returns This Afternoon. Believe It Or Not, Fire Danger By Tomorrow?

A wintry April scene in my St. Albans, Vermont yard
this evening, but by noon, most of this snow will
be gone, and we can get back to our regularly
scheduled spring. 

As expected, we had some winter cold to start this clear April morning, and some areas around Vermont and New York really got into this January-like spell. 

Saranac Lake, New York was down to a wild minus 3 this morning, which the latest in the season subzero temperature I've seen in the region in decades..

I did find one later in the season subzero reading in Saranac Lake. It was 3 below there way back on April 12, 1926.

Here in Vermont, I saw that it had gotten to at least 3 above zero at Lake Eden, so it's   a cold hollow or two in the Northeast Kingdom could have touched zero early this morning. 

Elsewhere, Montpelier got down to 14 degrees, tying their record low for the date, first set in 1982.   

Burlington did not come close to its record low, which is 11 degrees back in 1972. It got down to 16 degrees, though. The last time it was colder than that was a decade ago when in reached 14 degrees on April 5, 2016.   

I noticed the birds, which have been making a racket most mornings, have been pretty silent this morning. I think gardens might have lost their shot at magnolia flowers later this morning. However, the daffodil, crocus and hyacinth shoots that have been poking up should survive this just fine. 

Also, spring staples such as lilacs should also be fine, as the buds are still currently pretty tight and small. 

TODAY:

With the strong April sun out there, temperatures should rocket upward super fast this morning, topping out in the 40s this afternoon.  That's still a little cooler than average for this time of year. But light winds and that sun will make it feel even warmer than it is. 

Where there's snow on the ground, it'll melt very fast, except in the shade. The humidity today will be at rock bottom.  It's hard to melt even a little snow in the shade when it's this dry, so the dark corners of your yard might still have snow on them at the end of the day. In the dry sun, the snow should disappear in a flash. 

FIRE DANGER?

This seems far fetched, given that many of us are started the day with snow on the ground, but by tomorrow, we'll actually have a  fire danger here in Vermont. 

In today's super low humidity, the snow will basically evaporate in the sun. Many areas of Vermont don't really even have snow on the ground this morning, especially in the Connecticut River Valley, so the moisture on the ground will dry quickly. 

There's no real greenery yet this time of year, so all those dry grasses and weeds and such are just kindling waiting to burn. Tomorrow, the sun should stay out, the humidity will stay very low, and the wind should pick up. 

In the Champlain Valley, winds by tomorrow afternoon should gust to 35 or even 40 mph. Elsewhere, most places should see gusts in the 20 to 30 mph range. That's more than enough to spread even a small fire across the dry landscape. 

It might seem awfully sudden to go from snow to a fire hazard, but that's really common this time of year. High pressure systems from Canada are particularly dry this time of year. It's also a windy season and, as noted, things on the ground haven't greened up yet. This is pretty much peak fire season in Vermont. 

We've already had one large fire this year in Ferrisburgh that burned through 100 acres or so on March 31,  So we're already off to a not-great start this year.   

SPRING

On the bright side, spring weather will continue. It should get well into the 50s tomorrow. If a cold front holds off long enough on Friday, we could see some 60s.  It does look like a little rain might come through during the day or evening on Friday - those traditional April shower.

After a somewhat cooler but definitely not cold Saturday (highs in the low 50s), we could have a day or two threatening the 70 degree mark early next week. 

Unprecedented Heat From March Still Has Climatologists, Others, Losing Sleep At Night, But It's All A Scary Sign Of The Times

March was so hot in the western and central U.S. was so
extreme it's still keeping climatologists up at night.
These kinds of "unprecedented" hot spells and 
extremes are now becoming regular occurrences
in this age of climate change. 

There's patches of record warmth remaining in the United States as we make our way through the first week of April, but the extreme, whackadoodle heat of March has subsided. 

Scientists are still agog from March, which is easily going down in history as among the most extreme, over the top, seemingly impossible climate-related events hot spells ever seen.  The heat wave completely rewrote the March weather record books in the western and central U.S. 

It was the kind of event that keeps climatologists up at night.  Especially since these "impossible" events are coming along in a steady stream now. Each one bigger than the last. And each one potentially more deadly. 

We're lucky this one hit in March, months before summer. Had it happened in July, who knows how many deaths would have been created by just the hot days themselves? Even so, the heat set the stage for a potential summer of out-of-control wildfires and deep water shortages. 

Already, fires are burning months before they should. A raging wildfire threatened homes in Moreno Valley , California last week. It was the kind of fire you see in parched late summer and early autumn and not moist March. But the rules have changed. March is the new summer, apparently.  

Nebraska just experienced their largest wildfires in history, burning an area larger than Rhode Island. 

And we've probably only just begun with the fires.

THE EXTREME MARCH HEAT

It's hard to know where even to begin with the accounting for March's heat. 

AccuWeather gives just a glimpse of the breadth of the March heat wave: 

 "During the unprecedented mid-March heat waves in the central and western United States, more than 8,200 daily records and more than 2,000 monthly records were broken at weather stations across the West."

Incredibly, 17 states set new March record highs.  And these are large western and central states, not smaller Eastern states where it's a bit easier to accumulate numerous record highs. Many of these states broke monthly record highs, only to have those records broken in subsequent days. 

The nation saw its hottest March temperature on record at 112 degrees. It came close to setting the April national record of 113 degrees.

No fewer than 16 western cities not only broke their all-time highs for the month of March, they also broke or tied the mark for April, which is beyond insane. 

On March 19 alone, nearly half of the 900 or so long term U.S.. weather stations in the Global Historical Climatological Network set or tied daily record highs. 

More than four dozen major reporting stations with data since at least the 1960s had their warmest March in history.  Major cities that had their warmest March on record, - most of them by a wide margin - include Dallas, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

Once all the numbers are crunched, it looks like Colorado will end up with a March that was three or four degrees warmer than any other in the past 130 years or so. For a state to break its statewide record for hottest March by a degree is wild. By three degrees ----there's no words for it. 

We still don't have confirmation as to whether March, 2026, is the nation's hottest on record. That will come in a week or two. But it was at the very least as warm as what was considered the impossibly hot March of 2012.

CHAIN OF EXTREMES 

Climate change doesn't just warm up the world uniformly. It sets traps. Springs surprises. 

As Yale Climate Connections notes: 

"Since climate change is also fundamentally disrupting atmospheric circulation patterns, we now have mega-unprecedented extreme events occurring with regularity. These circulation changes allow the biggest regional and local heat extremes to intensify by a much larger margin than the roughly 1.4 degrees Celsius increase in average global temperature since preindustrial times."

Honestly, climate change contributes to new extremes every weeks, or so it seems. But the standouts - the weather events that make climatologists and other scientists deeply worry about the future  - seemed to begin almost exactly 14 years prior to this March's heat.

In March, 2012 most of the heat focused on the central and eastern United States.  Thousands of daily record highs were set, as were hundreds of all time record highs for March.  Among those thousands of record highs, nearly four dozen were broken by at least 22 degrees, which is beyond insane. Four record highs were smashed by 30 degrees. In a handful of cases, the low temperature on a particular date on March 12 was warmer than the record high.

 "An initial assessment led by Martin Hourlong at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratories concede that human-produced warming likely contributed on the order of 5% to 10% of the magnitude the heat woven March 12-23, 2012, The report added: "the probability of heat waves is growing as (greenhouse gas)-induced warming continues to progress," notes Yale Climate Connections. 

Still, we figured we wouldn't see another March, 2012 in our lifetimes again. Until we did.

The March heat of 2012 came at the tail end of a La Nina, and led to an extreme, punishing drought across the nation's middle that summer.  We're in the same situation now. It might not be just the western mountains that are running out of water. 

Much of the central and southern Plains are already in serious drought. Will this key crop growing area further dry out? There's already plenty of other stresses out there with food production - political instability, tariffs, war, a feckless president.  

We are set up for a rough summer, and March probably just made it much, much more rough. 

WATER SHORTAGES?

Colorado's snow pack ended the month at less than a quarter of average. Eighty-nine of 94 snow pack measuring stations were at record lows by the end of March. 

It's not just Colorado. It's virtually all of the West. Per the Guardian: 

'This year is on a whole other level.' say Dr. Russ Schumacher, a Colorado State University climatologist, speaking about the intense heat that began rapidly melting the already sparse snowpack in March. 'Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning."

On April 1, media went out to join California water officials to take a measurement of the water content of snow at a spot in the Sierra Nevada. Normally, the group would be standing on five feet of snow. This time, they were standing on a muddy field, flecked with melting remains of snow patches. 

Snow water equivalent is a measurement is the amount of water of that would melt out of the snow that's still on the ground.  This figure is now terrifying throughout the West. 

The overall snow water equivalent in the Sierra Nevada on April 1 was just 18 percent of average for this time of year.  In the Great Basin, snow water equivalent was just 16 percent of normal. In the lower Colorado River basin area, including most of Arizona and Nevada, it was 10 percent. The Rio Grande, which covers New Mexico, Texas and Colorado was at 8 percent. 

Because of a record warm winter, the snow pack was far below normal before March arrived. Everyone hoped for a "March Miracle," as some bad years in the past were relieved by cold, stormy Marches. Not this year. Not by a long shot.

If this were just one bad year, we'd be OK. But the six lowest April 1 snowpacks in California have happened since 2007. The state thought it was finally catching a break in January as it fully emerged from drought for the first time since in a quarter century. 

Reservoirs are pretty full in California, thanks to warm rains in recent winters that filled them even though the state couldn't build a decent snowpack. So at least for this year, the problem for most of that state would be intense wildfires but not necessarily widespread water shortages. 

Elsewhere, things are not nearly so serene. 

In the Colorado basin, Lake Mead is 25 percent full. Lake Powell was only 33 percent or so full at last check. Both lakes usually rise somewhat in the spring due to snow melt. It doesn't look like that's really happening this year. 

Water managers area already urging conservation in the West. 

Salt Lake City has called on residents and businesses to start conserving now, with a goal of cutting overall water usage by 10 percent, Also, as the Guardian reports:

"Across Colorado, there are local orders that list lawn watering, and in Wyoming, residents were warned that full restrictions on outdoor irrigation could come come as early as May."

Farmers and ranchers across the West are also having to make hard decisions and big adjustments with smaller allocations of water and a recognition that supplies will be strained. 

TIMING

What if a heat dome like the one we just saw in March hit during the middle of summer? And hit in a place not accustomed to extreme heat. 

We found out in late June and early July, 2021 when an unprecedented - here's that word again - intense, heat settled into southwestern Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

 All-time heat records in the Pacific Northwest were not just broken, they were obliterated. Portland Oregon reached 116 degrees. Salem, Oregon was 117 degrees. Rainy, cool Seattle reached 108 degrees.

The heat of 2021 was even more punishing in British Columbia, Canada. On June 29, 2021, the town of Lytton, British Columbia reached 121 degrees, the hottest temperature ever recorded anywhere in Canada. By a long shot. Before this heat wave, the hottest it had gotten anywhere in Canada was 113 degrees back in the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. 

The next day, Lytton burned down in a massive wildfire brought on by the scorching heat and drought. 

The 2021 heat wave is estimated to have caused at least 1,400 deaths in Canada and the U.S. 

What if a heat dome like that in 2021 settled into the heavily populated eastern United States and southeastern Canada? And what if it lasted a month, not a week? Nobody is prepared for such a nightmare. 

However, we'll find out soon enough. Perhaps this summer. Or the next. And it won't be pretty. 

 

The King Of Tough Winters Outdid Itself This Year. Fairbanks, Alaska Endured Most Extreme Chill In 60 Years.

A scene from Fairbanks, Alaska, this past
winter. Yeah, they're crazy up there.
This past winter, and through March
so far, has been among the coldest
on record there. This in a city that's'
already insanely cold in the winter,

Alaska winters are always more challenging than they are in most of the Lower 48, and this winter has really made Alaskans suffer. 

If you wanted a frigid endurance test this winter, Fairbanks was your city. 

Fairbanks is pretty much right in the middle of Alaska. Frigid air settles in there, and it gets to 40 below most winters. Sometimes 50 below. One time, in 1934, it was 66 below in Fairbanks. 

Obviously, it takes a special breed to live there. This winter, I imagine some members of that special breed want to call it quits on Fairbanks. The intense cold was just unrelenting. 

THE STATS

December was a whopping 18.5 degrees colder than average, with a mean temperature of, ugh, 22.8 below. People in Fairbanks woke up to 12 days in the minus 40s that month. 

January was a welcome "break" for Fairbanks as it was only 6.1 degrees colder than average with a mean temperature of minus 14.4. It did get down to minus 50 on January 4 though. That day had a lovely high temperature of 46 below. 

February also wasn't super cold, either, at least by Fairbanks standards. However, February was also the wettest and second snowiest February on record in Fairbanks, with 38.7 inches of snow. Precipitation melted down amounted to 2.53 inches. 

All sorts of records and near-records were set with this intense Fairbanks winter, according to the National Weather Service office there, which released this statement:.

"With Fairbanks having record 52 days at or below -30F;  31 days at or below -40F and 66 days where temperatures did not get above 0F, the average temperature from December 1st through March 22nd sits at -14.7 degrees. This marks the 2nd coldest ever such period in Fairbanks history since 1904, the coldets the interior (central Alaska) has seen in 60 years (since 1966) showing just how cold not only this winter has been but alls the start of spring."

Those 31 days at or below minus 40 is the fourth most on record. 

Tuesday was also the 144th day in a row that stayed below freezing. That's the second longest such stretch on record and the longest since the winter of 1971-72.

Fairbanks is usually a very dry place in the winter. When extreme cold settles in, it's even drier, with very little snow during the course of the season. Not this winter. The heavy snow in February was just part of the story. 

Fairbanks has had 92.6 inches of snow so far this season, a respectable 12th  most on record. The deepest snow depth this winter was 38 inches. which is the 14th deepest on record. 

Warmer times are coming to Fairbanks, finally. By next week, high temperatures should be in the low 30s with lows in the single digits. That might seem horrible for April, but for Fairbanks, that's exactly average for this time of year.  

OTHER CITIES AND BUCKING A TREND

Other Alaskan cities have had a tough go of it, too. 

Juneau, Alaska endured 82 inches of inches of snow during December, nearly 50 inches of it in the final five days of the month. over just a week or so in late December. Juneau reached a new snowy milestone this week,   Snowfall for the season there reached a whopping 201.2 inches, the most on record. 

Anchorage, Alaska has had at least 20 inches of snow on the ground since January 27. This month, through Wednesday, March 24 is running 13.1 degrees colder than normal. Through Wednesday, it hadn't been above freezing since February 6, 

Normal high temperature in Anchorage this time of year are in the mid-30s, and the city usually has a handful of above freezing temperatures every month of the year.  It's finally forecast to get above freezing in Anchorage Sunday or Monday.

 This winter has been an anomaly in Alaska. Under the sinister spell of climate change, pPaces closer to the North Pole have been warming much faster than mid-latitudes under. The period from December 1 to March 22 this year is the second coldest on record.

Last year, in 2024-25, that same period was the absolute warmest on record in Fairbanks. Anchorage also had an unusually warm winter in 2024-25

"Impossible" Extreme U.S. March Heat Made Possible By Climate Change

Map depicting where record highs were set last Friday.
Pink dots were where all-time high temperatures records
for March were broken. Climatologist are very hard
pressed to recall when, if ever, all time monthly
highs were established over such a large area. 

Climatologists are absolutely stunned. 

The temperature over the past few days in the western and central U.S have been beyond insanely high the past few days. Worried scientists say this would not have been possible without climate change. 

The heat has frightened millions of non-scientists in the West, too. . This could be a harbinger of never before imagine heat in the future. 

It's only March.! Read through the following reports of record heat and tell me if these temperatures  even seem possible this time of year. 

RECORD HIGHS OBLITERATED

On Thursday, the national record for hottest March day was broken when it reached 110 degrees not far from Yuma, Arizona. That beat the old national record by two degrees 

Then Friday not one but four weather stations not far from Yuma, Arizona reached 112 degrees, breaking the national record for hottest March day that was set the day before. 

The record was only one degree from the national record for hottest April day.  The old record was set the day before.

The 112 degree readings were on both sides of the Colorado River, so California and Arizona set new statewide records for hottest March day on record.  

A total of thirteen states from California to South Dakota had their hottest March day ever. To be clear, these aren't just individual cities, these are statewide records. 

Theses include places that are often wintry this time of year. Vermillion, South Dakota reached 97 degrees. Three locations in Wyoming got up to 90 degrees. Luverne, Minnesota was at 88 degrees.

After a record warm winter and now this March heat wave, a few spots in Montana, a few plants are showing signs of new leaves, - 30 days ahead of schedule. Parts of South Dakota and Wyoming are also running nearly a month ahead of schedule. 

Northern Mexico is also experiencing record March heat, too. Hermosillo, Mexico reached 108.5 degrees, setting a new national record for hottest March day. The old record was 105.6 degrees. 

Back in the United States, in higher elevation Flagstaff, in northern Arizona, the hottest ever March temperature there was 73 degrees, set on March 17, 2007. Then this month came along. Last Tuesday, Flagstaff tied that record. On Wednesday, it beat that record by three degrees. Then on Thursday, the temperature in Flagstaff reached 84 degrees. 

That broke the 2007 March record high by 11 degrees. It also broke the all time April record by four degrees. 

In the infrequent case in which a weather station breaks an all-time record for a given month, it seldom break the record by more than a degree or two. On very rare occasions, a new high might exceed the old mark by three or four degrees. But 11 degrees? And breaking the following, warmer month's record by four degrees?

Flagstaff wasn't the hottest place in this heat wave, but it was probably the scariest. 

PHOENIX

Meanwhile down in the desert in Phoenix, the record books were rewritten in a similarly frightening fashion. But it's dangerously hot there. 

Prior to this year, the hottest it had ever been during March in Phoenix was 100 degrees.

Daily highs on March 18 through yesterday were 102, 105, 105,105 and 102 degrees, all obviously record highs The next six days in Phoenix are all forecast to be somewhere between 98 and 102, and each would be record highs. That's 11 consecutive record highs, which is insane, a word I keep using. 

Phoenix seems to have entered a new era of extreme heat under climate change's spell. 

Eleven consecutive record highs are almost unheard of, but not quite. An American city had 21 consecutive days with record highs in September and October, 2024. That city was Phoenix, and that stretch set a record for most consecutive record highs in any U.S. city ever .

The all-time record highs for September and October were also set in 2024 .

All but one of the 10 hottest years in Phoenix have been since 2012, and the top five hottest have all been since 2014. The two hottest years in Phoenix were last year and the year before.  This year is off to a start that would break that record for hottest year once again. 

EFFECTS

World Weather Attribution has already examined the ongoing heat wave and has concluded it would have been virtually impossible without climate change. 

The winter was also record warm in the western half of the United States. This is the second consecutive month in which an all-time record high was established for an entire month for the entire nation. That new record was 106 degrees in Falcon Dam, Texas. 

The record warmth in the West resulted in a paltry snow pack in the mountains. Now, this heat wave is melting what little was left.This summer, water shortages could affect the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River. 

Wildfires are already burning way ahead of the normal season in the western U.S. Unless there's a long and sustained change to a wetter weather pattern, the fire season in the summer of 2026 could also get very scary, very fast.

We here in Vermont are not participating in this particular, record smashing heat wave. Back in 2012, we were enveloped in another March heat wave that shattered records in the eastern two-thirds of the United States. More than 7,000 record highs were established in the U.S. during that mid-month spell.

Here in Vermont, Burlington had five consecutive daily record high temperatures, including an unprecedented three consecutive days that reached at least 80 degrees.

At the time, the March, 2012 heat wave was considered almost a once in a lifetime experience. We'd never see more widespread hotter March temperatures than that.

And here we are, easily outpacing 2012. 

It's an ominous sign for us and the rest of the world. 

 

One Widespread, Ominous U.S. Heat Wave Fades, Another, Much Hotter One Threatens West

The western U.S. is gearing up for what is expected to
be never-before-seen March heat over the next
week to 10 days. This will exacerbate drought and
water shortages in the region. After record heat
in the East, it will cool down some. 

Temperatures are cooling down today in the Midwest and East after a remarkable March heat wave that set hundreds of new record highs from the Plains States all the way to the East Coast. 

Now, meteorologists are already talking about another heat wave set to begin in the western U.S. That heat wave might well be easily one of the most extreme out-of-season heat waves ever seen. 

More on that in a minute. 

Climate change has turned the normal "false springs" of thawing weather and warm early season sunshine into something a little worrying. . 

Already this year. much of the western United States had by far their warmest winter on record. Even in the colder eastern U.S., brief warm spells set records. 

Now, we had the heat this week. Hundreds of cities saw record highs broken, over roughly half the United States. The record heat extended over a remarkably large area, from Oklahoma and Texas, through the South and Midwest and along the entire East Coast. 

Temperatures reached to near 90 in the Southeast, with one report as far north as Virginia 

Several places broke records for warmest for so early in the season.  Those include New York City (80 degrees), Georgetown, Delaware, (83 degrees), Baltimore, Maryland (85 degrees) and Burlington, Vermont (73). 

Some records were broken by wide margins. Up in Millinocket, Maine, it got to 70 degrees, beating the old record high for the date of 54 degrees. 

The unseasonable warmth set the conditions for an outbreak of severe thunderstorms in the Midwest. Abrupt thawing in northern New York and in Vermont created ice jams on rivers which caused some flooding. 

The expansive heat wave of the past week has ensured this was the warmest start to March on record for the U.S. 

A shift in the weather pattern is now bringing cooler air into the eastern half of the U.S., but is setting the stage for a dangerous, way-before-its-time heat wave out west.

WESTERN HEAT 

The expected heat wave in the West will be even stronger and more dangerous than the one now ending in the East

Per the Washington Post:

"There are many potential firsts for March on the horizon: It could reach 100 degrees in Los Angeles next week, after record-breaking 95 degree heat on Thursday and Friday. 

In Phoenix next week, temperatures could exceed 100 degrees several times. It could also reach the century mark in Las Vegas."

Phoenix could actually reach 105 degrees next week, which looks plausible given the expected intensity of the heat dome. If that happens, not only would Phoenix break its record for hottest day in March, it would tie April's  hottest recorded temperatures. 

 Record highs for the entire month of March could fall in Salt Lake City, Denver, Reno and other western cities. It's fairly rare to break a monthly record. It's especially rare to set one in mid-March, as temperatures are obviously normally warmer at the end of the month. 

This is insane. 

The impending heat wave is raising alarms about drought and water shortages this summer. Much of the region is already in drought. The snowpack in the mountains is paltry, as what little snow that fell often melted.

Now this heat wave will melt snow at very high elevations, the way heat waves do in June.  That would leave little runoff to keep rivers running and reservoirs with at least some water for the summer. 

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this heat episode contributes to serious water shortages this summer.

Utah State Climatologist Jon Meyer said the state's snowpack is at record low levels and Utah's reservoirs are only at about 40 percent capacity.  "All this means we are likely to see some very tangible water supply cuts and conservation efforts by the state this year," Meyer told the Washington Post. 

The early heat waves make me worried about summertime. We've had our share of record heat during the summer in our climate change regime. Some of it has been unprecedented heat in recent years.

Will this be the summer when things really get out of control?

 

If New England Isn't Snowy Enough For You, Try Buried Newfoundland

A ridiculous amount of snow on the ground
in St. John's Newfoundland after a 
month of record snowfalls. 

People in much of New England can be forgiven if they're not happy with the one, two or even three feet of snow on the ground at the cusp of March. 

If you want really big snow, head up to Newfoundland.

As the Toronto Star reports:

"Eastern Newfoundland has been pounded by series of storms that self so much snow, residents were posting on social media looking for help getting out of their homes and driveways. On Wednesday, some of the snow piles lining driveways in Paradise were as tall as houses."

THE STATS

As of yesterday, St. Johns, Newfoundland had received 178.2 centimeters, or 70.2 inches of snow in February. That's almost six feet of snow. 

This breaks the record for snowiest month on record, which had been 173  (68.1 inches) centimeter in December, 2000. The previous snowiest February, which was 170 centimeters or 66.9 inches back in February, 2006.  

February's snow in St. John's was relentless. The Weather Network reported on Friday: :

"St. John's Airport has recorded measurable snow on 22 out of 26 days so far this moth. Six of those days witnessed 10+ cm  (3.9 inches) of snowfall, with Feb. 2 notching 43.6 cm (17.2 inches of accumulation alone."

St. John's has had 385 centimeters  (151.6 inches) of snow so far this winter.  On average, they can expect another 98 centimeters (38.6 inches) of snow between and when summer finally arrives. 

If there is a bright side, St. John's is very unlikely to have a record snowy winter. That title belongs to 2000-01 with 648 centimeters (255.1 inches). 

Gander, Newfoundland has had 446 centimeters (175.6 inches) of snow so far this winter As of yesterday 109 centimeter (42.9 inches) of it was still on the ground.  

LIFE IN THE SNOW

St. John's has a population of about 110,000, with a total of 212,000 in the overall metro area up there. The city is used to snowy winters, but February, as noted above, has been insane.

Social media from St. John's was full of images of snow stacked against doors to the point people couldn't leave their homes; 

We saw how cities like Providence, Rhode Island and Fall River,Massachusetts had trouble finding places to put the three plus feet of snow they were clearing fron streets. It's exponentially worse in Newfoundland. 

St. Johns just recently got permission to dump snow in its harbor, which is usually big no-no due to environmental concerns. Normally, snow can be pushed off many streets onto lawns, where it will melt in the spring. 

But there's no more room to put snow aside like that. St. John's  has to do the tedious job of hauling it away to the harbor or snow dumps in and near the city. 

The work is expensive too.  St. John's has signed snow removal contracts to the tune of at least $3.5 million.

 Videos:

The snow in St. John's is insane, as you can see by this news clip. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Another news report from Newfoundland. I'm getting a backache just watching everybody shovel snow onto snowbanks nearly twice as tall as they are.  Again, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below click on that. 

And let's take a drive though the town of Paradise, near St. John's after the storms. Also some drone shots to add perspective. As always click on this link or if you see the image below, click on that. 

The Pace Of Climate Change Is Accelerating. Will El Nino Make Things Worse?

The pace of climate change on Earth has quickened in
recent years. Will the faster pace get even faster, or
will things revert back to a more manageable pace.
That will have a lot of repercussions as how
we deal with a hotter planet.

 Now that it looks more likely an El Nino will set in later this year, scientists are debating how hot it will get. 

The three most recent years have been by far the world's hottest on record. El Ninos tend to make the world even hotter.

That's not good news. 

Since we're starting from such an already overheated position, will a new El Nino put us on a  dangerous new trajectory in which the world will heat up at a new, faster pace. 

Or was it a hiccup, and we'll revert to a somewhat more relaxed but still scary increase in global heat?

Both options are bad, but the rapid heat up version is obviously most frightening, as we'd quickly enter a world where heat waves blow far past anything previously recorded and storms would make Hurricane Melissa look like a refreshing tropical shower. 

In the past decade or two, the past of global heating has accelerated. Which makes people wonder if we are at the start of an era when things really spiral out of control.

WHERE WE ARE

A Washington Post analysis found that although the Earth has been warming for a century or more, the fastest rate of warming has been over the past 30 years. 

Per WaPo

"For about 40 years -- from 1970 to 2010 - global warming proceeded at a fairly steady rate. As humans continued to pump massive amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, the world warmed about 0.19 degrees Celsius per decade or around 0.34 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Then, that rate began to shift. The warming rate ticked up a notch. Temperatures over the past decade increased by close to 0.27 degrees  C per decade - about a 42 percent increase." 

In matters of climate, a decade is a really short period. So this new intense rate of warming might be a big deal. Or it could be a blip caused by factors other than fossil fuel emissions.

Ominously, a number of climate scientists are leaning toward the idea that this is a real acceleration that will last, especially since it's been so robust.

 "There is a greater acceptance now that there is a detectable acceleration of warming," said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather.  

Many people in the eastern half of the United States can be forgiven if they think climate change is sputtering, since it's been so cold there. 

However overall, January was the world's fifth hottest on record. (I'll have more details on January in a separate post). 

While the eastern U.S. froze, many other parts or the world were ablaze with unseasonable heat. Much of the western third of the United States has had a record warm winter. Nuuk, Greenland ran an incredible 20 degrees warmer than normal during January. And are plenty of other examples. '

In other words, the recent cold weather was just a temporary fluke. 

EL NINO URGENCY

This idea that climate change might be accelerating isn't all that new. The buzz began in earnest when 2024 became the hottest year on record. This, after 2023 absolutely obliterated 2016 as the previous worldwide record for hot year.

But as we went through 2025, a La Nina pattern that usually cools the Earth barely moved the needle downward. Last year was the third warmest on record, barely behind the previous two years. Now that La Nina is fading, we're starting at that high base line for when El Nino roasts the planet toward more records,.

The cooler La Nina was fading fast this month. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center last week said we'd go into neutral conditions soon (neither La Nina or El Nino). El Nino would probable wait until autumn to arrive. 

 Since El Nino is starting later this year, climatologists are beginning to make 2026 seems unlikely to become the hottest year.  

The UK Met Office is predicting 2026 will end up as second warmest, behind 2024. Which means it will be slightly warmer than the hot years of 2023 and 2025.

Hausfather thinks 2026 will be among the top four hottest on record.

 The year to watch is 2027 when, if trends continue, the unprecedented global heat could turn especially intolerable.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

So why didn't the La Nina we just experienced over the past year or so fail to cool the world down noticeably?

One explanation for the added warming is pollution controls. We've seen news on this before, too. Asian nations, and the shipping industry have cut back on sulfur pollution. Those environmental laws have removed particles called sulfate aerosols from the atmosphere. 

That allows the sun to shine stronger and brighter, heating the world even more.  

However, as WaPo explains, the missing sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere doesn't  explain all the recent warming.  Neither does natural variability.

Scientists, said they've noticed low-lying cloud cover has decreased. Those clouds reflect sunlight. Fewer clouds mean more heat. 

One question is why are the clouds disappearing?  Clouds tend to form around particles. A lack of sulfate in the atmosphere might mean fewer particles for clouds to develop. This could create a feedback loop. Fewer clouds mean more heating. That additional heat makes still fewer clouds form, and it all feeds on itself from there.  

The Washington Post explains the question

"If most of the current record warmth is due to changing amounts of aerosol pollution, the acceleration would stop once aerosol pollutants reach zero - and the planet would return to its previous, slower rate.

But if it's due to a cloud feedback loop, the acceleration is likely to continue - and bring with it worsening heat waves, storms and droughts. 'If there is a strengthening cloud feedback - a positive cloud feedback associated with warming - that's going to persist,' Hausfather said."

The  bottom line is, we're playing with fire. The faster climate change moves, the harder it will be to adapt to it, and the more damage and suffering we'll encounter. 

This should be a sign we ought to double down on reducing fossil fuel emissions, and quickly. Humankind has barely been able to manage the changing climate so far. If things go a lot faster than they are now, god help us.  

Florida Cold Worst In A Few Years. A Little Snow Thrown In, Too?

In this photo from Facebook, somebody Friday morning
wrote their state's name on window frost somewhere
in southwest Florida. 

Beach weather is on hold in sunny Florida as sharp cold fronts have dropped temperatures into the 20s in many locations, and are threatening a little snow near the Georgia border. 

Temperatures fell to as low as 18 degrees in Cross City, in northern Florida. Jacksonville had a record low of 22 degrees. Other record lows were reported in some cities in southern Georgia. 

Other cities that did not set record lows but still shivered included 24 degrees in Ocala, 30 degrees in Melbourne and Daytona Beach and 32 degrees in Orlando. 

Maybe they should have temporarily turned resort water parks to ski slopes?

A new cold front is expected to bring another bout of chill to Florida starting tomorrow. This one could deposit a little snow in extreme northern parts of the state.

Forecasters have been backing off on the amount of snow that might fall. If it does, it'll only be a dusting across parts of the panhandle near the Georgia border.

This won't be anything like last January, when a snowstorm shattered records along the Gulf Coast and northern Florida. As much as nine inches of snow fell in the Florida Panhandle. 

Still, two consecutive Januaries with snow in Florida would be something. 

The cold front that brought the incredible snow last year to northern Florida last year did not push significantly into South Florida.

This year, chilly temperatures covered the entire state. 

The temperature Friday morning in Miami was 44 degrees. It was not a record low, but it was the chilliest the city has been in three years. Fort Lauderdale reached 43, also the coldest in three years. 

This was enough for iguanas to rain down from the trees, temporarily paralyzed by the cold. Manatees huddled in big herds in bays and estuaries fed by warm springs to keep warm. 

The next cold front, the one that might bring snow to the northern tip of the Florida will give only a glancing blow to the southern parts of the state. It should be in the low 50s in Miami by Monday morning.  

2025 Was World's Third Warmest; Past Three Years In Top 3 Hottest

 Scientists confirmed this week that 2025 was the world's third hottest year since at least 1850. 

World temperatures compared to the long term 
average since 1850.  As you can see, virtually the
whole world was warmer than that average in 2025.
The blob of white in the Pacific Ocean represents
La Nina, which is supposed to cool the world
a bit, but didn't last year. The white blob
south of Greenland represents melt water from
that ice cap, which keeps the North Atlantic cooler,

As NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI tells us, 2025 was 1.17 degrees Celsius, or 2.11 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. Last year just barely missed tying 2023 as the second hottest year, missing it by 0.02 degrees Celsius or 0.04 degrees Fahrenheit.

At the start of 2025, climatologists said they expected the year to end up cooler than the previous two because a La Nina pattern had taken over for most of the year. La Ninas tend to cool the Earth slightly. 

That 2025 was a La Nina year and still ranked as third hottest is worrisome, since climate change clearly overwhelmed the expected cooling.

NCEI added that it's now becoming routine for years to end up warmer than the 20th century average by more than 1 degree Celsius:

"Notably, the 10 warmest years in the 176-year record have all occurred since 2015. Of the 10 warmest years on record, former record-holders 2015 and 2016 have dropped to eighth and fourth place, respectively. While 2016 was the first year to exceed the 1.0 degrees C threshold, that benchmark has since been surpassed in 2020 and again in the last three consecutive years (2023-25)."

Another benchmark the NCEI noted was oceanic heat content. In 2025 it was the highest on record, breaking the record set the year before. In fact, 2025 was the fifth year in a row in which oceanic heat content hit record highs.

This is important, since more than 90 percent of excess heat in the Earth's system is absorbed by the ocean. This extra heat content becomes fuel that would further bolster future global warming, and can create more intense storms than a cooler ocean would.  Hotter water also expands, which exacerbates sea level rise. 

NCEI also broke down the 2025 climate year in review into continents. 2025 was North America's fourth warmest year. Nine of the continent's ten warmest years have happened since 2006. The rate of warming in North America was 0.15 degrees Celsius per decade in much of the 20th century. Since 1981, that warming rate has more than doubled to 0.34 degrees Celsius per decade. 

Europe had its second warmest year on record. Asia was third warmest, South America was sixth warmest and Africa was seventh warmest.  The Arctic region had its second warmest year and Antarctica had it fourth warmest year in 2025.

Sources other than NCEI helped give a fuller picture of the extraordinary global warmth of 2025. Per Yale Climate Connections:

"According to Berkeley Earth, 9.1 percent of the Earth's surface had a record-warm year, including 10.6 percent of land areas and 8.3 percent of ocean areas. They estimated that 770 million people - 8.5 percent of Earth's population - experienced a locally warm annual average in 2025, The largest population centers affected by record warmth in 2025 were mostly in Asia, including about 450 million people in China."

Carbon Brief added these stats to the 2025 mix: 

Sea levels reached record highs in 2025, and sea level rise has accelerated noticeably in the past three decades. 

Cumulative ice loss from the world's glaciers and from the Greenland ice sheet reached a new record high in 2025, contributing to sea level rise. 

Concentrations of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached record high levels in 2025.

Arctic sea ice saw its lowest winter peak on record and its 10th lowest summer minimum extent. Sea ice around Antarctica  reached its third lowest summer minimum extent. 

PREDICTIONS

The New Year has barely begun but experts are saying 2026 will bring us no relief from the recent climate changed-heat. 

Carbon Brief is saying 2026 will be the second, third or fourth warmest on record, very similar to the temperatures we saw in 2023 and 2025. 

Lingering La Nina might suppress temperatures a little in the opening months of the year, but an expected El Nino later in the year might bring 2026 to a hot finish, says the folks at Carbon Brief.

The Met Office in the UK is also saying 2026 will be among the top four warmest on record, and they're leaning toward this year being the second warmest year, coming in a bit cooler than the record holder 2024.

Berkeley Earth says the odds favor 2026 coming in at #4 on hottest year list, giving it a 51 percent chance of that happening. The odds that 2026 would come in 3rd place is 12 percent,; 2nd place 21 percent.  They give 2026 a 10 percent chance that this year will be the hottest on record. The chances that this year will be merely the fifth warmest or cooler are just 6 percent, according to Berkeley Earth. 

If you look at a chart of how each year's temperature compares to other years, you see that the world began warming rapidly at around 1980. 

But the past three years have been way, way hotter than anything seen before. Nations and regulators,  especially in Asia and in the world shipping industry have cut aerosol pollutants in recent years. These new environmental rules have allowed more sun to heat the Earth, since air pollution is blocking less of it. 

That could at least partly explain why the past three years have been so out whack with the heat. The question now is, will this much faster pace of warming that started in 2023 continue or will it level off a bit? Nobody knows for sure, but the question is important.

It's bad enough that the world has been warming so fast since the 1980s. If we've entered a new, faster pace of climate change, we're definitely not ready for it.  

Editor's Note: We'll soon do a followup post on how the United States did with climate in 2025, including an extraordinarily hot December in the western United States

Windy Vermont Continues As Nasty Storm Continues To Loom

Rainfall prediction map for Thursday night and Friday.'
Most of should get about an inch or so of rain. Combined
with melting snow, we could get some minor flooding.

 It got blustery again overnight, especially in the Champlain Valley, as Vermont's windy, cold month continues. 

The cold is about to disappear big time, if only briefly, but the winds will keep howling. Today is the 13th day out of the 17 this month in which winds have gusted to at least 30 mph in Burlington. I'm sure Thursday and Friday will also get above 30 mph. 

The high winds are hitting in huge parts of the nation today, which I'll get into more detail in another post today. 

But for now, let's focus on Vermont.

The south winds today are coming from a storm way up in central Quebec. Wind have already gusted to 40 mph in Burlington earlier today, and as of this morning was still going over 30 mph. Meanwhile, there's not much wind in central and eastern Vermont. 

The channeling effects of the Champlain Valley really help the wind blow. But almost everywhere in Vermont, whatever south winds hit will get us above freezing today for a change. 

The storm will drag a cold front through later today, but it doesn't have much moisture to work with. So, just a few rain and snow showers. Though a couple of the snow showers could come down hard briefly late this afternoon and evening in parts of northern Vermont, especially near the Green Mountains. But if there's any accumulation anywhere, it won't be much. 

The cold front will also create gusty west winds after it passes, with the highest gusts along and east of the Greens.

THURSDAY/FRIDAY

This will be our runup to our big storm. The wind will shift to the south and again, and start blowing even harder than it is today in the Champlain Valley. Some spots there will see winds gust to 35 mph. 

Temperatures will rise into the upper 30s and low 40s in the afternoon and keep going up overnight Thursday into Friday.

It now doesn't look like there will be much rain until midnight or after. The bulk of the rain will come between that midnight hour and noon Friday. There will be quite a bit of it, too. Current forecasts give us an inch or so of rain.

That, combined with the snow melt amid the warm temperatures does put the risk of flooding in play. It's still a little early to get a forecast as to how high water will get, but minor flooding definitely looks possible in some spots. 

Ironically, given the cold month we've had, we could easily see some record high temperatures Friday morning. For some reason, the current record high on Friday in Burlington is only 49 degrees, lower than most daily record highs this year. Most of 'em are in the 50s to around 60 .

Montpelier's record high Friday is also 49 degrees, so that might get eclipsed, too. St. Johnsbury's record high Friday is 60, so that looks safe. 

Don't get used to those balmy temperatures. It's back to winter Friday afternoon and probably on through the rest of the month.

We might have trouble with some snow behind the cold front Friday afternoon or evening along with water freezing on the roads. Stay tuned for those travel alerts Friday evening. 

After Friday, it looks like just weaker systems are on tap,  one on Sunday, the other on Tuesday or early on Christmas Eve. Neither storm would bring much snow, but they'll keep the gusty winds going. 

Snow Continues To Set Records In Vermont's Green Mountains

A snowy view of Vermont's Mount Mansfield from
January, 2021. This year, it's especially wintry up
there. As of Friday, there was 63 inches of snow on
the ground near the top of the mountain, a record
for so early in the season. 

 The ski and riding season is off to the best start in memory over Vermont's Green Mountains with another boatload of snow up there this past week. 

There is a hiccup looming in the snow parade, but for now (more on that in a minute) But for now, it's pretty wild up there. 

The snow depth near the top of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest peak, reached 63 inches on Friday, breaking the old record depth for the date of 56 inches. 

The 63 inch snow depth is the earliest in the season on record for so much snow.  Until Friday, the snow depth up there had never gotten to 63 inches any earlier than December 26. 

In a typical winter, there's 21 inches of snow on the ground up there this time of year. Mount Mansfield usually doesn't have 63 inches of snow piled up until early February.   

The folks up at Jay Peak near the Canadian border, said they received about two feet of snow in the 36 hours ending early this morning. Snowfall so far this season up there is 185 inches. Their Saturday snow report says that's the most they've ever seen for so early in the season. 

That Jay Peak report also gave us this statement:  "The amount of snow is starting to feel borderline terrifying, but it skis like a dream." 

It's rare for ski areas in Vermont to have all their terrain open this season, but all of Jay Peak's alpine and Nordic trails are open as of this morning. 

Elsewhere, both Smugglers' Notch and Stowe have already had more than 100 inches of snowfall this season so far.

This has really been a mountain snow blitz, with Vermont valleys kind of sitting this one out. Snowfall so far this season has been a little more than average in northern Vermont valleys and definitely nothing special in the low lands of southern Vermont. 

So far this season, Burlington has had 18.9 inches of snow, which is 6.7 inches ahead of normal as of Friday. St. Johnsbury has had 13.4 inches of snow so far this month, which means they're running a little ahead of average 

What makes the snow even more remarkable in the northern Green Mountains is the lack of thaws since Thanksgiving.  That's a rarity for December, especially in recent years when record or near record warmth has often hit during the last month of the year. 

This year's cold December weather has contributed to the deep snow cover in the mountains. In the valleys, snow cover is pretty substantial for this time of year, but not record-breaking. Two towns near Jay Peak, Westfield and Montgomery, had 20 inches on the ground as of Friday, which is a lot. 

Greensboro had 16 inches, but I couldn't find any other towns listed by the National Weather Service as having more than a foot of snow covering the landscape. 

OUTLOOK

There might be a little more snow today, but most places around Vermont should receive an inch or less. The mountains could pick up two or three inches, but this will be a minor little event. 

A few more light snow showers look like they'll come through Monday night.  But for the most part, nature's snow hose is temporarily just a dribble. 

The powder party in the mountains looks like it'll finally get interrupted around Thursday. By then, a well-anticipated weather pattern change will have gotten established. Instead of pushes of cold air from Canada, we'll have a  really fast, west-to-east flow across the United States.

This will allow squirts of warm air to come up ahead of storms zipping along in that flow. The first of these will probably come through here around Thursday, as mentioned. At this point,  it's looking like some rain will come with it, even in the high elevations. 

Details on this forecast are still a bit iffy, and subject to change, as always. But for now, it does look like the fast motion of the storm will mean the rain and the thawing won't last long enough to melt a huge amount of snow, and it probably won't really rain hard.  Plus, I imagine there will be a little snow at the tail end of the storm as a parting gift. 

After a brief cooldown, there might be another system next Sunday sort of similar to Thursday's zipping on through. 

Some of the computer models are hinting at a larger storm probably just after Christmas. But it's way too soon yet to figure out if there will indeed be a storm, and if so, what type. 

It seems there's some sort of good sized storm somewhere around Christmas almost every year. So this is a good reminder to bank extra time if you're traveling over the holiday in case the weather goes south. 

Yes, It Was Remarkably Cold In And Around Vermont This Morning. Also, Winter Will Rage On

Steam rising from Lake Champlain in the distance
on the coldest early December morning in 36 years.
Image is from hazecam.net

Midwinter cold settled over Vermont and surrounding areas this morning, giving us the most intense early December cold in years. 

A final accounting of this morning's low temperatures weren't in yet when I was writing this early today. But we know it got to at least minus 4 in Burlington, 8 below in Montpelier and St. Johnsbury and 10 below in Morrisville.

The cold extended easily into southern Vermont. Early this morning, Rutland, Springfield and Bennington were all at 4 below. 

Over in the traditional icebox of Saranac Lake, New York it got to 22 below. 

In this climate changed world it's harder than it once was to get this cold this early in the season. But it cam still happen. Obviously,.because we all experienced the joys of subzero cold this morning. 

The only recent example of this kind of cold this earlier in the season or earlier came in 2018, when Burlington got to 1 below on November 23, the earliest in the season subzero cold on record. Other than in 2018, it hasn't been this cold this early in Burlington since the notorious cold 1989. That's 36 years ago if you want me to do the math.   

Montpelier, with their 8 below this morning, set a record low for today's date. The old record was minus 7 in the frigid December of 1971. But the records at the Montpelier airport only go back to 1940. 

In places with longer term records, like Burlington, we missed the record low by a wide margin today.   The record low for today in Burlington was 12 below, set way back in 1886.  

COLD TO CONTINUE 

The worst is over for now, as weak, low-angle sunshine and a stirring of a south wind this afternoon will get us up to near 20 degrees.  That's still far below normal for this time of year, but at least it's not below zero.  Tonight will be "balmier" than last night, too.  Most of us will be in the single numbers above zero, which I suppose is an improvement over this morning.  

Ahead of the next system, we've got a damn heat wave for you on Saturday. By that I mean it could get into the low 30s. 

Enjoy while it lasts, because another Arctic blast is on the way after that. How fun! 

One weak cold front will come through Saturday night with a handful of snowflakes. That front will keep Sunday's high temperatures in the chilly mid-20s 

Then a stronger cold front arrives Sunday night with a packet of light snow. We'll have to watch and see if we get another round of snow squalls out of this. But this front doesn't look quite as able to generate snow squalls as yesterday's was.

 And if we do get the squalls, they'd come through before the Monday morning commute, not during it, so they wouldn't be as disruptive as yesterday's annoying mess on the roads. 

Highs will hold in just the teens again Monday, and most of us will probably go below zero again Monday night. I'm a bundle of joyous news this morning, aren't I?

Beyond that, things get a little more uncertain. Two small to medium sized storms look like they might come through here maybe around Wednesday and Friday.  The storms' paths are still in question. If they go by to our west, we might be in for some mixed precipitation. If they go to our south, but not too far to our south, we'll have more snow. 

It's still looking like most chances lean toward colder than normal temperatures most days at least to about Christmas. This is turning out to be the first old fashioned, wintry type December we've had in quite awhile. 

Not A White Thanksgiving In Vermont, Which Is Fine, But December Could Be Snowy (Results May Vary)

Latest snow forecast for the next couple of days. National
Weather Service has backed off a little on how much
snow wil fall in the Green Mountains. That heavier
snow you see in New York is lake effect 

The other day I brought up that silly children's song about going over the river and through the woods to grandmothers house. 

The premise of the song is that everyone was going to have a Thanksgiving feast at grandmother's house - who once again was stuck with all the work of cooking, hosting, cleaning etc. 

Some of the lyrics in that song go, "The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh/through the white and drifted snow."

Which begs the question, what snow?

We all know it can snow around Thanksgiving, but is this holiday that snowy?  

The ever-helpful National Weather Service in South Burlington has the answer, which is: Not really.

They looked back over the past 70 Thanksgivings and found that at least in Burlington, in 44 out of those 70 Thanksgivings, there was no snow on the ground and none fell from the sky. Five Thanksgivings started the day with no snow, but at least a little fell from the sky that day. Eighteen Thanksgivings had one to three inches on the ground and only three had a snow depth of more than three inches.

So most of the time, that sleigh would have been worthless on Thanksgiving, at least around Burlington. Other parts of Vermont, of course, might have more snow on this holiday. 

Plus, I'm being geographically narcissistic. Putting on my Captain Obvious hat, the setting for "Over The Hill And Through The Woods" could be anywhere it snows, not just here in Vermont.

There are places in the U.S. that could use a sleigh today. There's still plenty of snow on the ground in much of Minnesota, thanks to a storm a couple days ago. Blizzard conditions swept the Upper Peninsula of Michigan yesterday.  Lake affects snows are burying some shoreline communities around the Great Lakes today.

VERMONT FORECAST

At least in Burlington, this is going to be another one of those Thanksgivings with no snow.  It'll be partly sunny, and blustery, and there might be a few cold, light rain showers blowing by. 

Tonight, it will be cold enough for snow showers, so we have a shot at being the sixth Thanksgiving with no snow, but maybe some in the air. We'll see.

The snow showers will hit the northern and central Green Mountains tonight and tomorrow. Forecasters have backed off a little on accumulations. Still, the ski areas could pick up a few inches of snow, which is nice. Valleys should get just a dusting to an inch or two. 

We're still looking at another modest storm on Sunday which will probably send a little more rain through Vermont, with maybe some snow way up high.  

The weather pattern is still leaning somewhat toward cold, and stormy in December, at least according to NOAA. Although long range forecasts are notoriously sketchy, which means I can't promise anything. 

So no promises yet on whether we'll see a white Christmas or not.