March Was World 2nd Warmest, Possibly Signaling New Hot Push, U.S., As Expected Shattered March Heat Records

March, 2026 was tied for the second warmest on
record on Earth. With an El Nino coming,
the month's temperatures could be a signal
that unprecedented hot times could
be on their way.

 The global temperatures in March were back to their old tricks, going back to second hottest on record after several months of "cooler" months that were only in third place in the hottest months list.

Even hotter, more dangerous times might be ahead in the coming months or year or two. 

Actually this March barely squeaked into second place. It was virtually tied with March, 2024. The National Centers for Environmental Information continues: 

"All March global temperature departures ranking in the top 10 during the period 1850-2026 have occurred since 2015. This month marked the 50th consecutive March with a global temperature departure above the 20th century average."

The March, 2026 global temperatures might represent an ominous reversal in ever-so-slightly cooler trends we saw over the past year or so.  La Nina, which tends to cool the global climate, put a stop to a month after month stretch of almost continuous record global heat in 2023 and 2024.

Starting last June, most months were the third warmest on record. That's scary enough, since La Nina could barely put the most unnoticeable dent in the effects of climate change. The effects of La Nina might have peaked this past winter. December, January and February were all the world's fifth warmest, respectively. 

La Nina has faded and it loos like El Nino - which generally warms the global atmosphere - might be developing. It could be a strong one, and that could send the world's temperatures skyrocketing to new, dangerous heights by next year. 

The higher the global temperatures, the higher the risk of killer heat waves, worst droughts, increasingly torrential floods and more intense, less predictable storms. 

THE DETAILS

As always in this age of climate change, cold spots were hard to find in March.  However, there was a notable very cold area in Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada. That area was much colder relative to average than we usually see in these monthly reports. 

The only other slightly chilly areas I could find on the NCEI maps were small areas in northwest Africa, Antarctica, the extreme southeastern Pacific ocean and northwestern Siberia.  And what is now almost a perennial area of coolness hovered over an area of the North Atlantic a little south of Greenland. 

Also, although March as a whole in Australia wasn't cold, a sharp frigid snap at the end of the month shattered decades-old March temperature records in many cities, NCEI reports. Two Australian cities reported all-time record lows. 

The most wild hot spot relative to average was the contiguous United States. I'll have more on that below. Other really notable hot spots relative to average were in the entire Arctic (north of that Alaskan cold spot), northern and eastern Europe, large areas of Asia and spots across Africa and Antarctica.

Year to date, the first three months of 2026 is so far the fourth warmest year on record. It's almost certain this year will be among the top 10 warmest on record and likely among the top five. 

As is usually the case for March, Arctic sea ice extent reached its maximum extent of the year on the 15th. It wasn't that extensive. The ice covered 5.52 million square miles, statistically tied with last year for the smallest maximum in the 48 years satellite have been keeping track, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. 

UNITED STATES

The contiguous United States was exceptionally 
warm in March, breaking records from 
coast to coast. We'll see if it's a harbinger
 of a torrid summer. 

As we have been reporting, March, 2026 was ridiculously, insanely hot in the Lower 48. Now we have the final receipts.  

NCEI tells us: 

"The average temperature over the contiguous US (CONUS), in March was 50.85 degree F, 9.35 degrees F above average, ranking as the warmest March in the 132-year record. This marks the first time any month's average temperature has exceeded 9 degrees F above its 20th-century baseline. It also includes the warmest 12-month period on record for the CONUS (April, 2025-March 2026)"

Even more remarkably, the nations average high temperature during March was 64.4 degrees, an incredible 11.4 degrees above the 20th century average. That super warm March average daily maximum was actually 0.9 degrees warmer than the average April high. 

 Ten states had their warmest March on record. They were all large states in the southwestern United States, so those made up about a quarter on the United States. Included those ten, 35 states had one of their top 10 warmest Marches on record. 

Put another way, more than 500 counties, covering more than one quarter of the Lower 48 and affecting about 79 million people, recorded their warmest March on record, NCEI tell us. 

The "coldest" state was Maine, but even they were well above normal.  Maine had their 33rd warmest March out of the past 132 years. Vermont was one of a handful of other very warm but not super warm states. The Green Mountain State had its 19th warmest March. 

Mostly because of the continuing record high temperatures in the Southwest and Rockies all year so far, January-March is also the hottest on record. 

There was one particular cold spot in the United States: Alaska. The state had its fourth coldest March out the past 102 years. The last time Alaska had a March that cold was in 1972.

The heat, relative to average, diminished a little in the United States in April, so I'm guessing we'll get a break in the month after month reports of record warmth. 

The United States also had its eight driest March on record. In general, the states that were the warmest in March were also the driest. California had its driest March on record. Eight other states in the Southwest and Southeast had one of their top ten driest Marches.

The only really wet areas was around the eastern Great Lakes. Michigan had its third wettest March. Here in Vermont, March precipitation was right around average.  

It'll be an interesting to see whether March was a prelude to an extraordinarily hot summer, or just another month that really went off the rails. 

Vermont (Mostly) Dodges Another Storm Bullet As Big Hailers Strike New England/New York

You gotta watch those thunderstorms that come in straight from the north. 

A thunderstorm near Sheldon, Vermont earlier this summer.
Severe storms and lots of hail hit parts of 
central and southern New England Monday but
the region is nearing the end of its summer
severe storm season. 

Often the weather systems that cause storms to move north to south can create more havoc than the traditional west to east moving thunderstorms we often see in the summer. 

Given the cold air aloft, Monday's storms were impressive hailers, covering the ground with tons of quarter sized or bigger stones in several communities in central and southern New England, and in parts of the southern Adirondacks and upper Hudson Valley of New York. 

Some of this hail was big enough, and powerful enough to probably keep insurance adjusters busy the rest of the week. 

We in Vermont largely sat out this icy storminess, though far southern Vermont had some moments. Parts of southeastern Vermont was under a flash flood warning for a time. Video on social media showed lots of half inch diameter hail,  pouring down on a property near Readsboro, Vermont. 

Half inch diameter hail was also reported at Woodford State Park, east of Bennington. 

Elsewhere, things did get out of hand. Video from somewhere in Essex County, New York - that's the large county in the southeastern Adirondacks on the other side of Lake Champlain from Addison County Vermont - showed inches of hail covering the ground with obvious damage to plants, and reports of damage to cars and trees blown down by wind. 

Another social media photo showed so much hail on a road in Hancock, New Hampshire (east of Keene) that it could have used a snow plow. 

The storms extended all the way down to Bourne, Massachusetts on Cape Cod which was hit by large hail and flooding. 

Northern Vermont entirely escaped the storms. Some scattered storms rolled southward along and east of the Green Mountains during the day but nothing severe hit up there. The Champlain Valley actually had a lovely day.

Before dawn, though, isolated storms dumped up to two inches of rain over the Lake Champlain Islands, and caused briefly strong winds in Georgia. 

LOOKING AHEAD

Things are much calmer today as that weather system has departed.  We'll have one more sunny, warm summer day today before the next cold front sweeps through late tonight and tomorrow morning. 

Nothing scary with this next front except for maybe brief heavy downpours in spot. 

Cooler, drier weather follows. These increasingly cool gushes of air as we approach September is a sign that  Vermont and New England's rough summer severe thunderstorm season is beginning to wind down. 

We can still see severe thunderstorms for the next few weeks, of course. But as we head into autumn, it gets harder and harder to see the very warm to hot, humid air that can be fuel for strong thunderstorms. 

As the cold fronts come in, you're going to be less and less likely to see strong thunderstorms ahead of them and more likely to see just a period of rain instead. 

Given the flooding we had in Vermont, and the severe storms and tornadoes that repeatedly raked New York and New England this summer, it really is probably good riddance to those intense summer storms. 

Vermont Morning Lows Today Near Or Even Colder Than Forecast, One More Frigid Night Before Warmup

These daffodils in my St. Albans, Vermont yard, upright
and perky yesterday, slumped to the ground after
last night's hard freeze. Even if they somehow 
survive, they'll get hit just as hard again tonight. 

Those temperatures really did bottom out this morning in and near Vermont with some impressive low temperatures.  

Final figures weren't in yet when I wrote this after 8 a.m. But up in the Northeast Kingdom, Gallup Mills got down to at least 16 degrees and Eden reached 18 degrees.  

Morrisville reached 19 degrees and Montpelier got down to 20 degrees. Montpelier's low was close to a record low, but not there. The current record low for today's date is 17 in 1965 and that will stay. 

Over in New York State, the perennial cold spot Saranac Lake got down to a wintry 12 degrees. That wasn't a record low, either. In 1956 it got down to 10 degrees at that frigid spot in the Adirondacks.

Plattsburgh, New York, managed to set two record lows. It was 25 degrees there, just before midnight let night, setting a record low for April 24. Then it got to 23 degrees around dawn this morning for another record low.

Data in Plattsburgh only goes back to 1945, so there's a good chance it might have been colder there in past years, like during an intense cold snap in late April, 1919.

It's too soon to tell how much garden damage there is, but even hardy plants appeared to suffer, at least in my yard. Daffodils, perky and upright yesterday, are now slumped to the ground as if in mourning. I don't yet know if they'll recover, or shrivel up and die. Especially since they have another rough night ahead of them. 

TODAY

Dry air will be sort of our friend today. After the cold front passed yesterday, it stayed mostly cloudy, holding temperatures in the 30s all afternoon for central and northern Vermont, at a time of year when readings should have been in the upper 50s to around 60.

Today will be a little better because of that dry air. (Spoiler: The arid air will be our enemy tonight, though, more on that in a moment). 

More daffodils that collapsed in last night's hard freeze
in Vermont. 

The dry air will encourage wall to wall sunshine.  Sunshine heats up dry air much more quickly than humid air. 

Temperatures were already surging upward as of 8:15 a.m. today. That should bring us well into the 40s by afternoon. A few warmer valleys might touch 50 degrees. 

True, that's still quite a bit colder than average, but better than it felt Wednesday afternoon. The high sun angle helps too. It won't be that windy

Tonight will be clear and frigid again as that cold high pressure sits right overhead. Very dry air also loses its heat quickly once the sun goes down. Light winds and clear skies assure that any heat gathered today will drift right off to space.

So it will be as cold at dawn Friday as it was this morning. Yep, teens in the cold hollows, 20s for the rest of us. 

COLD TO END

Friday will be much nicer with highs well into the 50s. Another night of clear, dry air Friday night will ensure another subfreezing night for most of us, but it won't be as cold as the previous two nights.

We're still looking at a substantial warmup over the weekend and early next week.  Highs are still forecast to hit 70 or better possibly Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Nights starting Sunday night will be even warmer, relative to average. Many of us will see lows in the 50s. There's even a chance a couple of record for warmest minimum temperature for the date could be set. Which would be a big switch from what we're experiencing now.

It looks like it will be pretty showery Saturday night through probably at least Wednesday, but it certainly won't rain all the time. No complete washouts, anyway.  

Greenland Ice Loss Worse Than Thought, Says New Study

A new report says ice loss from Greenland - already 
known to be bad - is even worse than thought.

 Climate scientists and others interested in climate change really monitor Greenland as one measure of how bad things are getting as the world warms. 

That's why you disproportionately read about Greenland in the news, and in this here blog thingy. 

Well, here's another one, 

It turns out Greenland has lost more ice than people thought. Even if  the original lower estimate was pretty huge. 

Per the Washington Post: 

"Researchers had previously estimated that the Greenland ice sheet lost about 5,000 gigaton of ice in recent decades, enough to cover Texas in a sheet 26 feet high. The new estimate adds 1,000 gigaton to that period, the equivalent of piling about five more feet of ice on top of that fictitious Texas-sized sheet."

According to The Guardian, if you include the ice loss found in this study, the Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30 metric tons of ice per hour due to climate change. 

The additional ice loss researchers found came from the glacier's edge, where it meets the water. That portion of the glaciers float on the water. Any floating ice that melts won't raise sea levels like ice loss form inland portions of Greenland ice. Inland ice melt runs downhill into the ocean, raising its level. 

 The ice floating on the waters around Greenland is like the ice cubes in your gin and tonic. If the ice melts in your drink, the water level won't rise, but you won't get as much punch from the gin, as it will get diluted.

The ice loss on the edges of the glacier - on the water - has some similarities to your now ice free, diluted gin and tonic. 

The melting ice dilutes the amount of salt in the North Atlantic. That can mess up the ocean currents that bring relatively warm water - and air - to western Europe in the winter.   

The big Atlantic Ocean circulation is known as the Atlantic Meridonal Overturning Circulation, or AMOC.  Worst case scenario would be this circulation collapsing completely due to too much fresh water gumming up the system. 

A collapse of these large scale currents could really disrupt the climate of western Europe and parts of North America at the very least.  It would probably have worldwide effects, such as frigid weather in western Europe, some parts of North America turning much colder even as the world warms, while other parts of the same continent become hot and arid.

The good news is that most scientists don't see the AMOC collapsing anytime soon. But it is slowing down, so even that could cause lesser but still important weather and  climate headaches around the globe. 

Even if nothing at all happens to AMOC, all that ice melting off Greenland is of course bad news. The melt water raises ocean levels around the world. 

 Ominously, it's not just glaciers melting along the Greenland shores in just parts of that vast island. It's everywhere. "There's basically no part of Greenland that's safe from climate change," said Chad Greene, the study's lead author and a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Zeke Hausfther, noted on X, formerly Twitter, that the Greenland ice sheet has lost over 6 trillion metric tons of ice since 1970, or more than 700 tons of ice lost per person for every person on the planet today.    

Greenland is actually having a very cold winter. That doesn't matter very much because ice doesn't melt up there even in super warm winters. It's the summers we have to worry about. 

Last year, Greenland lost 196 billion tons of ice.  That's better than some previous years. There was a LOT of melting in 2023, but that was partly offset by lots of snow earlier in the year, which added some mass to Greenland before melt season started. Still the ice loss in 2023 was the most in four years. 

Still, the last year  Greenland actually to its ice mass was in 1996. It's been on a losing streak since. Which also means the rest of the world has been on a losing streak, too.

U.S. Had Near Average Temperatures In November, But Only If You Mix Extreme Heat, Cold

If you average out the Lower 48 temperatures as a whole
it was near average. But a very warm east and a very 
cold west canceled each other out. 

 It's always interesting to peruse climatological data for recent months, be it local, the United States and the world.

We've already explored in a previous post how Vermont did with November weather (warm and wet).  Now we have data for the United States as a whole.

The U.S. November average temperature was 41 degrees, or 0.7 degrees on the cool side. This puts November, 2022 in the middle third of the November records. In other words, it was not particularly hot, or particularly cold.

Except.

Averaging everything out glosses over the extremes the U.S. saw in November.

As NOAA announced on Friday:

"Maine saw its fifth warmest November on record. Florida saw its seventh warmest, and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont experienced their top 10 warmest Novembers on record.

Temperatures were below average across much of the West - Idaho ranked fourth coldest, Washington ranked sixth and Oregon ranked seventh - while California and Nevada had their top 10 coldest Novembers on record."

The U.S. saw a pretty clean dividing line between warm in the east and cold in the west. 

Rainfall was a different story, as it often is. Looking at a map of where precipitation was above or below normal, it's pretty splotchy.  I guess the driest areas relative to average were in the Southwest and central Plains. The wettest areas, again relative to average, were in parts of the Southeast and western Great Lakes.

The more interesting data is due later this week. We'll learn how November fared globally compared to other years. Early indications are it will be about the eighth or ninth warmest, but we can't be sure yet until we see the real data. I'll post about it when the report comes out in a few days. 

 

Draft U.S And World Climate Assessment States The Obvious: Climate Change Is Screwing With Us Already

Several big reports highlight the urgency for participants
in the UN climate conference in Egypt. I hit a few of the
highlights in this post. 

 A couple of big preliminary reports are telling us a lot of what we already know about the current effects of climate change, but they are still very much worth noting:  

The basic message from these reports: Climate change sucks. And it keeps sucking more and more. 

The first report is the United State's Fifth National Climate Assessment. The assessment on how climate change is affecting the U.S. and what is being done about it, must be compiled once every four years, per Congressional mandate. 

According to the draft report:

"Americans are feeling the effects of climate change in their everyday lives, as intensifying extreme events strain public services and outdated infrastructure.....As climate risks continue to increase in scale and frequency, multiple climate hazards and cascading climate impacts are disrupting essential societal systems in every part of the country."

The document says the U.S. has warmed about 68 percent faster than the planet as a whole, or 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the continental U.S. 

After a public comment period, updates and editing, the final report should be released next year. I'm not sure whether it will lead to any policy changes. But at least the Biden administration seems to be taking this at least fairly seriously. 

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization released a provisional State Of the Climate Report for 2022  

This is an annual report that summarizes the global state of climate change for the most recent year. Of course, 2022 isn't over yet, but a preliminary world report for the year was released early to emphasize to the UN annual global COP27 climate conference . That conference in Egypt is schedule to end this weekend. 

Like the U.S. report, the World Assessment for 2022 wasn't exactly loaded with cheery news. A main takeaway of this document is that not only are the effects of climate change getting worse, the rate at which things are going down the tubes has increased 

As I've noted in past posts, it seems every month this year has been fifth or sixth warmest on record on a global scale. (October was an exception, coming in a fourth warmest).

This provisional report says they indeed expect 2022 to be the world's sixth warmest year on record. The publication also says that the the years 2015-2022 will be the hottest eight year period since reliable records started around the mid 1850s.

As I've also noted in past posts, it's alarming that 2020 through 2022 have been so warm.  A Pacific Ocean pattern called La Nina has been present through most of this time.  La Nina cools large swaths of the eastern Pacific Ocean, which in turn tends to lower overall global temperatures a little bit. 

Which means this year and last should have been cooler than they were. The opposite pattern in the Pacific, called El Nino, tends to boost global temperatures a little bit. So it will be interesting when the next El Nino inevitably hits. Especially if it's a strong one, like in 1998. 

The report also notes that glaciers globally have taken a huge hit in 2022, especially in Europe, which endured repeated record heat waves over the summer. This year's European glacial loss has accelerated a decades long trend in melting. Switzerland has lost a third of its glacial ice since 2001.

Meanwhile, as The Weather Network reports, global sea level rise is accelerating, with devastating, dangerous effects:

"(Sea levels) continue to rise and are now an average of at least 100 millimeters (about four inches) higher than they were in the early 1990s. Also, the rate that the ocean surface is rising is accelerating. The rate over the past ten years has more than doubled from what it was 30 years ago, and roughly 10 percent of the total rise was seen in just the past two and a half years."

A four inch rise doesn't sound like much, but in low, flat coastal areas, of which there are many, four inches can really worsen flooding, especially when you mix in storms and storm surges. 

Look at it this way.  If a flood inundated the inside of your house with six inches of water, that would be terribly damaging. Then add another four inches to that, and the damage to your stuff is definitely compounded. 

Against the backdrop of these two reports, and many more released in recent weeks, the COP27 climate conference in Egypt continues into the weekend. to November 18.

It's a big global United Nations climate conference with the unwieldy name: The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change." It's a yearly gathering first started in 1995, hence the 27 in the title.

Yeah, I'll stick with COP27

It IS an important meeting, though. COP27 is a continuation of trying to reach global cooperation on reducing greenhouse emissions, financing climate action and adapting to the growing effects of climate change. 

It's a great opportunity to basically put world leaders in the same room to (hopefully!) collaborate on climate change solutions. 

I know everybody's eyes glaze over when we start talking about big UN conferences, but it's worth watch how this one works out. The more global cooperation the better. 

  

Blizzard Slamming The Northeast In (So Far) Amazingly Well Forecast Historic Storm

Screen shot of the blizzard in Plymouth, Massachusetts
this morning. This is a screen shot of a video from
@mikeseidel via Twitter. 

Blizzard day is here for much of New England and other parts of the Northeast. Just as advertised, this is turning out to be a historic humdinger. 

Torrential snow and increasing wind were already socking Delaware, coastal New Jersey and Long Island as of 6:30 a.m. and those conditions were mowing their way into eastern New England.

Forecasts continue to call for record snowfalls in some areas and dangerous blizzard conditions.  Nobody should be out driving in the blizzard zone today, which extends from Delaware to Maine. 

Even with the storm underway, there's always going to be slight adjustments in the predictions for this storm. We call those last minute adjustments "nowcasts"  instead of forecasts.

Overnight guidance and observations have nudged the snow area ever so slightly west, and perhaps intensified the already ridiculous expected snowfall rates in eastern New England. 

Since we here in Vermont aren't getting the worst of this, I'll offer the Green Mountain State rundown on this storm further down in this post.  There have been a few minor potential adjustments to the storm forecast here in Vermont.

THE STORM ITSELF

As a weather geek, it's been fascinating to watch this storm explode from a disorganized patch of showers in the Atlantic Ocean southeast of North Carolina to a blossoming mega-storm. 

The storm is an obvious bomb, meaning its still strengthening at a rapid rate. It's still forecast to pass near the "bench mark" southeast of New England at 40 degrees north, 70 degrees west, by later this morning and northward into the Gulf of Maine this afternoon and evening. 

Pretty much always with a powerful nor'easter an especially heavy band of snow sets well west and northwest of the storm center and this storm is no exception.

Meteorologists anticipated this and made forecasts with huge accumulations accordingly. So far, the heaviest snow has set up right where they were anticipated.

WHAT'S HAPPENING

This is a fast-developing situation, of course, in a heavily populated area of the nation, so the reports will come in fast and furiously today.  I'll update as warranted through the day.

In the predawn hours, an especially heavy band of snow set up right along the New Jersey coast.  Winds were increasing, too, and, as the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey noted, whiteout conditions were occurring and travel was impossible.

By 6:30 a.m., some areas of New Jersey near the coast were already closing in on a foot of new snow. The New Jersey coast snow band was expected to last into midday, so I wouldn't be surprised if reports of two feet of snow came in from there.  

Satellite view of the storm developing overnight. 

Going north if anything it gets worse. 

Those harsh and dangerous conditions spread rapidly north and enveloped Long Island before dawn and were reaching into eastern New England.  As the offshore nor'easter continues to mature, this band of snow was expanding and intensifying, in an early morning statement. 

I won't be that surprised if some spots have accumulation rates as high as five inches per hour on Long Island and eastern New England. 

Since the nor'easter is strengthening, so is the wind.  Before dawn, gusts as high as 66 mph in Delaware.   That will only get worse and quickly spread northward later this morning.   Later, higher wind reports started coming in up in New England: Gusts of 69 mph in Nantucket, 68 mph in Dennis, Massachusetts and 66 mph in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Wind gusts will probably go higher than that by the time we're done here. 

As of 6:30 a.m. the real heavy, blinding snow and wind were just getting into southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  Boston was still reporting just light snow but by the time you read this, that would have changed. 

Travel will soon be impossible in this area, if it isn't already.  Massachusetts officials were wise enough to ban tractor trailers from the roads in much of the state to help prevent the kind of trapped vehicle nightmare that hit Virginia at the beginning of the month. 

Travel bans are also in effect in surrounding states. Amtrak has suspended service in much of the region.  And I'll laugh my ass off if you even try to get a flight out of Logan in Boston today. 

New Hampshire and Maine will probably wait until this afternoon to see the brunt of this storm.  Things might be OK in Portland and Bangor now, but watch out.  It's you're turn once we get past noon

VERMONT IMPACTS

We're still not going to see huge effects from this storm. However, there's an interesting squeeze play happening.

On one hand, it seems like at least light snow might want to go a wee bit further west than earlier thought. Light snow had reached Rutland before dawn, for instance. On the other hand, the air feeding down from Quebec is super dry, so that air could easily squelch and evaporate any snow that wants to head west of the Green Mountains. 

Which will win?

For now, it's a steady state forecast for the day, with up to five inches of wind blown snow expected in the extreme southeast and northeast corners of Vermont.  The Connecticut Valley is still forecast to receive one to three inches.

At this point, I'm betting on the dry air winning out. The snow in Rutland later stopped as drier air kept filtering in.  That's a sign right there that it will be difficult to get snow, especially the more you get away from the Connecticut River.

Don't be fooled by today's radar images.  The radar will show snow extending across Vermont into eastern New York. A lot of that will be snow falling from clouds but evaporating on the way down due to that feed of dry air to the north. 

It isn't that windy in Vermont yet, because the storm is still so far south of us. But there's more squeeze play to talk about. Once the storm gets near New England, the pressure gradient between that deep, deep low pressure nor'easter and Arctic high pressure to the north will increase the winds. 

North/south oriented valleys especially will see gusts to 40 mph this afternoon. That with continued cold temperatures will make today raw and cold with low wind chills.

For those Vermonters who are bummed this storm is missing us, there's a glimmer of hope down the road.

Although there may actually be some thawing temperatures later in the week, a moisture-soaked system seems to be on its way around Thursday. It might just be cold enough in northern Vermont to squeeze out a bunch of snow.

That's not a done deal by any means, but it's something to watch.