Sort Of A Stormy Easter Morning In Vermont, Gets Better Later

I know it's disappointing to wake up on Easter Morning to find it rather stormy out - rainy enough to soak and ruin your Easter bonnet and windy enough to blow it away. 

The first part of April is never pretty, and that was the 
case this Easter morning in St. Albans, Vermont. After
an expected throwback to winter, the progress of spring
will accelerate later next week 

But who the hell wears an Easter bonnet anymore? The Easter egg hunts might have to be postponed a bit, too, which might be a bummer.

But since this is all about ME!!!!!!, I personally like waking up on raw and wet Sunday morning in a cozy house. I can hear the wind blown rain clattering faintly on the metal roof, and the dull roar of winds still blowing through leafless trees, the gray skies, all starting the day quietly, contemplatory. 

We did - as expected - end up getting winds just as strong as the gusts we had Friday morning, but they came in the hours just after midnight, when we were less likely to notice them. The wind advisory that was in effect was justified.

Winds at the sandbar on Route 2 in Milton got to 59 mph. Jay saw gusts to 53 mph; Morrisville, 51 mph and Panton, 49 mph. There were plenty of gusts statewide in the 30s and 40s mph. Not enough to cause widespread problems but enough to rattle the shutters. 

Early this morning, roughly 2,800 homes and businesses had no power, mostly in the northern Green Mountains. 

REST OF TODAY/TOMORROW

The rain that moved in before dawn is now tending to suppress the wind somewhat. That rain should mostly move out by shortly after noon.  We'll end up with a third of an inch of new rain, give or take, so we're safe from any flooding. This afternoon will actually be OK, with temperatures hovering near 50, with breaks of sun and southwest breezes.

At least as measured in Burlington, there have only been two Aprils without so much as a snow flurry in Burlington (1941 and 2005).  This year won't join those two illustrious Aprils.

First of all, there's already been a snow flurry on April 1.  And more are probably on the way.  Progressively colder and colder air will start coming in this afternoon and night, setting the stage for some spring snow showers. 

Tomorrow will be chilly, but it won't be the worst of it. High should make it to the upper 30s northern highlands to upper 40s warmest southern valley floors.  There could be a few snow flurries in the mountains. 

THE COLD PEAKS

As the cold air continue to pour in Monday night and early Tuesday, more snow showers should blossom. For now, anyway, forecasts have measurable snow statewide by the end of the day Tuesday, though I have my doubts about this for warmer southern valleys. 

Tuesday will be a throwback to winter, with many of us receiving a dusting to an  inch of snow. Some  northern towns will probably never get above freezing on Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday night will get into the teens to low 20s. Spring will be on temporary hold.  Don't worry, happens every year. 

SPRING RETURNS

Strong high pressure, which initially will contribute to our nippy April weather, will warm us up as it passes nearly overhead and then off the east coast Wednesday.  By Wednesday afternoon, it'll get well into the 40s, which is still a little cooler than normal. But the strong April sun will make it feel much better.

After that, we get a huge break. April can be notoriously tempestuous, but the second half of next week and next weekend look anything but. High temperatures in the 50s and low 60s will get spring flowers and plants and tree buds going, and no notable storms are on the way. 

Sure, this Easter morning is gray and brown and muddy and ugly, as early April is in Vermont. But that promise of spring keeps getting more and  more real. 

Little Change In Stormy Vermont Weekend Outlook: Wind, Rain, Thunder

A gusty overcast early Saturday morning out on my
St. Albans, Vermont weather deck introduces 
another rather stormy weekend in the Green Mountain State.

 After a gorgeous Friday surely endorsed by the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing, we're stuck in kind of a stormy weekend.  

Now, we get the not so nice weather. Overall, the forecast hasn't changed much since yesterday. Here's the rundown

SATURDAY

The storm system causing this and its warm and cold fronts are more typical of the type of thing we get in the spring, not summer, so the forces driving the weather are stronger than you'd expect in the summer. 

Summer patterns are pretty laggard and slow. Spring weather patterns tend to be more vibrant and changeable.

So it is with this one. The departing high pressure system that gave us our nice Friday and the storm causing all the bad weather in Canada are both strong for this time of year.

Which means the wind between the two is strong. It was already gusty in the Champlain Valley early this morning, and it will be a windy day across most of Vermont.

Lake Champlain and the surrounding valley will be windiest, with gusts over 40 mph. We could see wave heights go as high as four feet on the lake, so today is not the time for a nice excursion out here in a small boat or kayak. 

Even though showers had already arrived in parts of Vermont by dawn, it wasn't really humid out there. That will change fast as those south winds drive muggy air northward. 

The dew point, a measure of how humid it feels out there, were in the comfortable 50s this morning and will end up close to the awful upper 60s by late afternoon and evening. 

The increasing humidity will change the character of the showers, too. They'll go from widespread and fairly light during much of the day to perhaps more patchy and locally  heavier tonight. 

Though patchy, there should be lots of showers and possible storms around tonight. That brings in the risk of locally heavy rain. 

There's still a low, but not zero chance of local flash flooding overnight. Especially in the Adirondacks and in the mountains of central Vermont. The vast majority of us, though, will not have enough rain to cause any worries. 

The pre-dawn hours aren't usually the hour for strong storms, but one or two storms in this set up could be relatively gusty and accompanied by lightning and real gullywashers before sunup. Most of us won't see anything like that but a few of us might.

SUNDAY

The humidity will be awful when you get up tomorrow, but don't worry it won't last too long. A cold front will clear out the yuck toward evening.

As is usual, most thunderstorms with the front will actually focus a little ahead of it. Thunderstorms ahead of a cold front usually reach their peak intensity when the sun's heating is strongest, in the afternoon and evening. 

There's a marginal chance (dark green) of a couple 
severe storms in Vermont Sunday, but a 
better chance further east (in yellow).

The cold front timing is such that in Vermont, the best chance of storms is late morning and midday -m before they can get to their top strength. Still, a couple of them might be severe as they simultaneously move eastward through the state and get more intense.

A storm with damaging wind gusts could form anywhere in Vermont, but they probably will be few and far between in the northwest. The southeastern part of the state has a better chance of seeing severe storms. 

There were tornadoes reported in New England last Sunday and again Wednesday night in New England. We might do it again this Sunday, as there's a non-zero chance of a spinup in much of the region.

In Vermont, the chances are of a tornado look pretty much zero at this point, except perhaps in the far southeastern tip of the state. The best chances are further east. 

The cold front itself should move through later in the afternoon with its own batch of scattered showers and non-severe thunderstorms. 

Another burst of refreshing air should be in place by Monday before it starts to turn somewhat humid again during the week.  

2023 Was Hottest Year On Record In Burlington, Vermont. One Of The Wettest, Too `

Spectators watch near record flood waters in the Winooski
River blast past Winooski on July 11, 2023. Not only did 
the past year bring lots of extreme weather to Vermont,
it also turned out to be the hottest year on 
record, at least as measured in Burlington. 

 It's official. 

For the first time since they started keeping track of these things back in the 1880s, Burlington, Vermont had its first year with an average temperature of 50 degrees.  

That beats the old record for hottest year, set in 2012, which came out to 49.9 degrees. 

Even more remarkably, this makes it the fourth year in a row that was among Burlington's top 10 record hottest years.  The years 1953 and 1898 are tied for the 10th warmest years in Burlington, but all of the top nine years have been since 1998, just a quarter century. 

By contrast, 1978 was the last  year to score in the top ten coldest, and that year barely made #10.

Climate change is really re-writing the weather history books in Vermont, as well as the rest of the planet. It's not just Burlington, after all. When the data is all in, it's widely expect that the entire globe will have had its hottest year on record in 2023.

In fact, some climatologists believe 2023 was the world's hottest year in the past 125,000 years.

Back here in Vermont, climatologists say that in general, Vermont's is not only getting hotter. It's becoming wetter through climate change, though that wettest will be interrupted by at times more serious drought. 

That trend bore out big time in 2023.  Burlington had its seventh wettest year on record, with 44.78 inches. This is despite largely missing out on the torrents of rain in July and the area experiencing a spring drought.   

The correlation with climate change and wetness in the Burlington weather records isn't as strong as it is with temperatures but it's there.   Six of Burlington's top 10 wettest years have happened since 1998, but only one of the top ten driest years happened in that time frame (2001, to be exact).

Over the course of 2023, Burlington saw daily record highs broken or tied on 10 days. That included the hottest temperature on record for all of October, with 86 degrees. Only one record low was hit, on May 18. 

Last year, I didn't think we'd have a fourth year in a row with a top 10 hottest temperature. Although I've been proven wrong this year, I do wonder if 2024 will be among the hottest on record in Vermont. Maybe, but doubtful, though the world is expected to break 2023's mark for hottest year, or at least come close to it. 

Here in Vermont, if 2024 isn't another top 10 warmest year, it will very, very likely be warmer than normal. Even with climate change, it's still possible to have the occasional cooler than average year thrown in over the next few decades. But they'll be increasingly few and far between.

I also highly doubt we'll ever have another year that ends up in the list of top 10 coolest, unless something dramatic and unlikely happens, like a massive volcanic eruption on the scale or bigger than the 1815 Tambora eruption. That caused temporary cooling, and gave us in Vermont the famous "Year Without A Summer in 1816

Tomorrow, I'll have a review of some of the many weather extremes Vermont endured in 2023.

 

Quiet New Year's Eve Vermont Weather To Aid Any Noisy Celebrations

Another reason to cheer this New Years. Weather in
Vermont on New Years Eve and Day is going to
be quiet and not especially cold. 

 If you were out on the Vermont roads over the Christmas holiday, there really wasn't any travel trouble to speak of, aside from that ever-present fog. 

Now we have kind of a happy two-fer. If you're going out on New Year's or New Year's Day, it's clear sailing. And I mean clear, because the fog will finally be gone.

This Saturday morning, the rain finally turned to snow, at least in some parts of Vermont. A few of us have a dusting of snow on the ground. 

The northern Green Mountains should be in the light snow most of the day, so they'll pick up a couple inches of powder. Not much, but I'm sure they'll take it.

For us valley dwellers, you won't see much of anything at all 

The big bonus is the fog is clearing up.  As of 8 a.m. it was still a little murky out there in spots, but it's much better.

That takes us to New Year's Eve.

And.... there will be no weather, really to report. The day Sunday will be dry, except maybe a few morning flurries up in the mountains. It'll be colder, too, with many of us not getting above freezing for the first time in over a week. 

Cold is a relative term, though. A high within a few degrees of 32 is still pretty good for this time of year. 

As the festivities ramp up tomorrow night and before midnight, temperatures should gradually fall through the 20s. Again, not bad for this time of year, especially since there isn't going to be much wind to add to any chill.

For comparison, the normal high on New Years is 30, with a low of 12. Average precipitation is 0.1 inches for the day, which average snowfall of 0.8 inches. So overall, this New Years will be vaguely warmer, but also drier than normal,

No snow, no ice, no rain, no fog this year on New Year's Eve.  Just the usual dangerous drunk drivers. So please be careful on the roads and make sure you have a designated driver if you indulge. 

PAST NEW YEARS WEATHER 

This will be Vermont's coldest New Years since 2018, but that's not saying much. It's been really warm at the start of each of the past five years. Last January 1, we had the warmest minimum temperature for the opening day of the year - 38 degrees. The previous evening, as Vermont approached midnight, people enjoyed outdoor temperatures at about 40 degrees, give or take. Pretty damn mild.

That probably wasn't the warmest New Year's Eve, though. On December 31, 1965, temperatures were in the 50s well into the night. And it was still in the 50s in the early morning hours of January 1, 1966. (The rest of January, 1966 was quite cold and snowy, however).

We've had a lot of cold New Years in the past, the most recent one being 2018.  It was 15 below in Burlington hat morning, so surely below zero hours earlier at the stroke of midnight

Digging deeper into stats from the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, the New Year's holiday has had many weather extremes in Vermont compared to other holidays,  The coldest, snowiest most wintry January 1 in Burlington was 17 below in 1970. (Most record lows this time of year are in the 20s below zero).

Of course that 1970 January 1 chill set the stage for what would become by far the coldest month on record. There was 28 inches of snow on the ground that 1970 New Years Day, the calling card of a tremendous post-Christmas storm in 1969. 

New Year's 1918 is also in the running for coldest New Years. We'd been in the ice box for days. Temperatures had crashed on Christmas Day, 1917, with temperatures in the teens and 20s below zero daily from December 29 through January 3. That included 94 consecutive hours below zero in Burlington, ending at noon January 1, 1918,

Yeah, I would have just huddled by the fire and forgotten about any celebrations that year. 

The stormiest New Years Day had to be in 1945. That year, 1.46 inches of rain and melted snow fell. That day also featured 1.2 inches of snow. So it was probably pretty messy out there. That's just Burlington, though. 

Overall, for Vermont the wettest end to the year was in 1948. The last couple of days of December, 1948 featured significant flooding in southern Vermont with as much as seven inches of rain falling in Bennington County on December 30 and 31 that year. 

Burlington's snowiest New Year's Eve was in 2000, with 8.2 inches of new snow. New Years Day, 1961 started the year with 14.5 inches of fluff. 

We're had a tumultuous weather year in 2023. Let's hope the quiet start to 2024 portends an equally docile weather year in Vermont. We deserve it! 

 

U.S. Had Warm, Wet, Strange Winter; Just Like Here In Vermont

 It wasn't just us here in Vermont who had a really warm, kinda wet winter. 

Almost everybody east of the Mississippi River had one
of their warmest winters on record, new data shows,

The United States as a whole had that kind of winter, too.  Nationally, it was the 17th warmest and 21st wettest meteorological winter on record out of the last 128 winters, the NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information tells us. 

Meteorological winter runs from December 1 to February 28. 

Massachusetts had its warmest winter on record. Twenty-nine states - including Vermont  - had one of their 10 warmest winters. (Vermont's winter was flagged at #3 on the warm scale)

If you leave out December, twelve states, again including Vermont, had their all-time hottest January-February combo on record. 

A broad stripe of the nation from California, through the central and northern Plains, Great Lakes and on into New England had a wetter than normal winter. Wisconsin actually pulled off its wettest winter on record, and seven other states had one of their top 10 wettest. 

Vermont had its 31st wettest winter since 1895.

The storms in California meant that 98 percent of the state was in drought on January 3, but that number was down to 49 percent by February 28.  

A broad stripe of the nation from California through the
Great Lakes to New England had a wet winter. 

Of course, given the size of the nation, not everybody shared in the warmth. Or the storminess.

Seven states, all in the Rockies or west of them, had a cooler than normal winter, though none of them were in the top ten coldest. The Pacific Northwest and Florida were drier than normal, but again, not among the top ten driest. 

For most of the United States, the winter was warm far more often than not except for two brief but very dramatic cold snaps. A large scale one on Christmas week from the Rockies to the East Coast dropped temperatures by 50 or more degrees in many areas within 24 hours.  The cold snap contributed to an intense, lake effect blizzard in and around Buffalo, New York that killed 39 people.

Another intense, more localized brief cold shot in the Northeast, particularly in New England on February 3-4 plunged temperatures to record lows. But warm weather returned quickly.  

So basically, aside from the brutal storms in California and a snowy, but not super cold northern Plains and Great Lakes, America's winter lasted for less than a week in December and a couple days in early February. 

FEBRUARY

Along with the winter seasonal stats, the National Centers for Environmental Information also released their monthly report on the nation's climate for just the month of February. 

February was on the warm side almost everywhere east of the Rockies. Virginia had its warmest February on record, and 20 other states scored among the top 10 warmest Februaries out of 129 years of record.  

Like the rest of the winter, February was quite warm east
of the Mississippi River. 

The Rockies and Pacific Coast, on the other hand were chilly. California had its 20th coldest February out of the past 129 years. 

Here in Vermont, February was definitely on the warm side, but was only the 13th warmest out of 129 years of records. 

Overall, February for the nation as a whole was just ever so slightly on the dry side, despite the parade of storms that continued to smash into California all month. 

 February was very dry in the eastern half of New England, even if the overall winter was on the wet side. The Pacific Northwest was a little on the dry side for them, too.   Areas around the Great Lakes were quite a bit wetter than average during February. 

The month was also notable for three tornado outbreaks, on Feb 8-9, 16-17 and 26-27.  One other tornado, unusual for its strength for winter and its position so far north, hit New Jersey on February 21. 

Climate data for February and the entire winter for the whole world should become available in about a week or two. 

The Number Crunchers Confirm: U.S. Had A Very Warm January

Most of the United States was warmer than average
compared to the 20th century average in January, 2023.
All six New England states, plus New Jersey, 
reported their warmest January on record, 

 New numbers are in from NOAA, and they confirm that January was among the warmest on record in the United States. 

Officially, January was the nation's sixth warmest on record, according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. 

Six states - New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maine each had its warmest January on record.

It is unusual to have that many states record their hottest month. True, each of these states are geographically small, but it's still impressive.  Overall, 27 states had one of their Top 5 warmest Januaries. 

The map of temperature departures in the Lower 48 is also remarkable.  The entire nation was either warmer than normal or close to average, aside from isolated areas in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada range in California.

Five out of the six warmest Januaries in the United States since 18??? have occurred since 1990.  Winters have been warming faster than other seasons under the force of climate change, so the January, 2023 data from NOAA is definitely consistent with that. 

Not only was the station warm, it was also stormy.  

Nine atmospheric river events hit California between December 26 and January 17, causing major flooding and mudslides. The storms resulted in 21 deaths, 1,400 rescues and 700 landslides, as the report from the National Centers for Environmental Information indicates.  

Overall, the nation had average precipitation of 2.85 inches ranking it among the wettest third of the historical record. That's a good indication a lot of storms affected much of the nation.  

The only areas that were drier than normal were a stripe from the Pacific Northwest, through Montana, North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota; much of Texas and Florida.

Also, for only the third time since 1950, more than 100 tornadoes were confirmed in the United States in January. As the Washington Post reports, the springlike warmth and active storminess contributed to the 123 confirmed tornadoes during January, 2023,. Only 2017, with 137 tornadoes, and 1999, with 212 twisters, had more.

That tornado trend is continuing into February.  We already have reports of 12 tornadoes in the U.S. through February Saturday, February 11. The average for the entire month is 21, and forecasters are watching a potential tornado outbreak in the South this week,. 

Complete data for January has just come in, and I'll have a report on that tomorrow. Spoiler: Early ndications are it was yet another very warm month for the globe, It was likely among the top five warmest Januaries in Europe, though there was some intense cold in parts of China, Japan and the Koreas late in the month. 

July In Vermont: In "New Normal" Era, We Were Close To Average. But It Was Hot

Flowers in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens enjoy 
some humid late evening sunshine on a July evening

If you take into account the "new normal" we are under with climate change, the July that just ended could not have been more "average." 

In Burlington, the mean temperature was 73.3 degrees, just 0.9 degrees above what is now considered normal. 

 The National Weather Service updates what is "normal" once per decade. They take the average every year for the past 30 years and call that normal.

This year, each month is compared to all the months from 1990 to 2020.  Since those three decades were warmer than previous ones, the "normal" is warmer, too. 

For some context, even though Burlington was less than a degree above this normal, we still just barely missed out on scoring in the top ten list of hottest Julys. Number 10 had an average temperature of 73.5 degrees.

Also, had this July occurred around 1980 instead of 2022, it would have been considered 3.7 degrees hotter than average.  

In the rest of Vermont, as in Burlington, this July wasn't too far off the new normal in most places. Montpelier's records show this July was 2.4 degrees hotter than average there. St. Johnsbury said July, 2022 was only 0.4 degrees on the warm side. Bennington was 1.6 degrees above average in July.

Rainfall in July was near to somewhat below normal, depending upon where you were in the Green Mountain State.

Burlington logged 4.04 inches of rain, which is right at average. Technically 0.02 inches on the light side, but really, spot on. If the month seemed dry, it was because a lot of the rain fell in very short bursts. 

An odd cloud structure over Interstate 89 in Georgia, 
Vermont on July 23. The second half of the month
featured several rounds of storms, some severe
in the state. 

Half of Burlington's rainfall for the month fell in less than five hours, contained in brief but intense downpours on July 19 and 28.  

Rainfall in St. Johnsbury and Rutland was also pretty close to average. Other towns missed out on some of the downpours. Montpelier had 3.4 inches of rain in July, nearly an inch on the light side. Bennington was more than an inch and a half short on rain, with just three inches for the month against a normal of 4.65 inches.

The character of July weather in Vermont had two phases. The first half of the month was on the cool side, continuing the trend from June in which Vermont was pleasantly comfortable while most of the rest of the nation simmered in torrid conditions. 

The second half of the month turned decidedly hotter, though the full force of the heat waves still managed to avoid us. Burlington did endure six consecutive days in the 90s from the 19th to the 24th, ,and that was one of the city's longest heat waves on record.

Still, everyone in Vermont maxed out in the low 90s in July, which falls well short of the kind of all time record highs large swaths of the northern hemisphere have seen this summer. 

The hotter, more humid weather in the second half of the month created conditions favorable for severe storms. 

The oddball weather event of the month came on July 18 when a seemingly innocuous shower with no lightning got some real spin to it, and dropped two separate tornadoes on Addison County. Both were captured on film. 

The first twister, in Addison County, was an EF-1 with top winds of 90 mph. It damaged a carport, the deck on a home and numerous trees. The second, a weak brief EF-0 with top winds of 70 mph touched down in Waltham and caused little damage.

The Northeast Kingdom seemed to be ground zero for Vermont severe weather in July, with several days of damage reports. The worst of it came on July 21 when a rotating storm that carried a tornado warning swept through.

No tornado touched down, but high winds damaged lots of trees and power lines. Hail that in some cases was a little bigger than golf balls dinged cars and roofs. 

As we move into August,  it looks like the first half of the month will mostly have the same weather pattern we had in the second half of July. That means that intense heat lurking well to our west will send brief squirts of hot air our way. But before it gets too hot, weak cold fronts will usher the worst of it away.

If that comes to pass, we will have a warm, but not record hot early August. As always, there's no telling what the second half of the month will bring. But by then, we will be headed toward fall, and chances are you'll see a cooling trend as fair season arrives.