Why Are There Still Southern Snowbanks? Latent Heat Takes Time

Old snow piles take forever to melt. 

Every spring, we in Vermont see dirty, sad monuments to the past winter. 

They're in the form of those dirty, ugly slowly fading piles of snow at the edges of supermarket parking lots and back behind strip malls. The piles are a remaining bit of late winter grossness while trees bud and flowers bounce happily in the spring breezes nearby. 

This spring, people in the the southern United States had the rare opportunity to experience these fading remembrances of winter and they were freaking out. 

Usually when it snows in the south, it's usually a wet, heavy slop that's so close to water anyway that it melts quickly. Or it's a quick shot of fluffy, usually a couple inches at most.

This winter, a huge swath of the South, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic States got basically snowy cement in January. It was a dense mess of snow, lots of sleet, all frozen together by a round of freezing rain. 

In February, southerners freaked out this mess wasn't melting, despite temperatures occasionally poking well above freezing. The conspiracy theories swirled. It wasn't melting, so it wasn't "real" snow. The government, the corporations, the oligarchs were doing.....something.

But there's reasons why that snow and ice didn't melt fast. We'll get to that in a minute. 

Then, the dirty icy "monuments" in the parking lots in the South remained well into March. That's normal for us in Vermont, but it's completely bizarre for people in Tennessee, or Virginia or even Maryland and New Jersey.   

The conspiracy theories started again. Snow always melts way before now! Something is wrong! say the worried conspiracists.  Even if people didn't believe the conspiracy theories, they still remarked about black piles of debris in Philadelphia in late March that were in fact leftover snow piles. 

Montclair, New Jersey residents are annoyed by lingering snow dumps in parks.  The snow was removed from streets in the winter, and left in the parks. As of earlier this week, much of the snow was still there, covered in grime and flecked liberally with trash. Big piles of "snowcrete" remained at the airport in Baltimore as April arrived. 

Now all these residents get to enjoy what we Vermonters do: On top of our mud season, the rotting piles of dirty snow  in parking lots and the grimy puddles surrounding them are as much a scene of spring as crocuses and budding trees.

Big old snow piles need a lot of what is known as latent heat of fusion to completely melt.  Latent heat of fusion is just the energy needed to turn ice from a solid into a water a liquid. That's not the same as temperature. It's not a matter of just heating up the ice. Energy has to go into the process of converting ice to water. 

According to the Boston Globe via Mental Floss: 

The piles are dense and heavy, especially since they formed in large part from sleet in addition to some snow. The piles were plopped there, become even more dense and heavy. The snow closer to the surface  starts acting as an insulator for the snow buried further down. The compact snow requires more energy to dissipate.

If you really want to get rid of an old ugly snow pile, you can spread it out with a shovel or backhoe. If more surface is exposed to the air, it will melt faster. If you don't have the energy to do that, pray for rain.

A well soaked snow pile melts faster than one that sits out there day after dry, sunny day .

And it could be worse. In the winter of 2015, Boston had epic amounts of snow, we're talking several feet in a few weeks. The city piled snow in back lots in a desperate attempt to get it off the streets. Not all of that 2015 snow melted until July.

April Snow Over-Performed In Vermont Today, Oddly Frigid Night Tonight Before Spring Returns

Back to the middle of winter early this evening in 
St. Albans, Vermont after a day-long snowfall. Small
dark splotches on ground in foreground are 
daffodil shoots coming up. 

As expected, it was a snowy one in much of Vermont today. It seemed the most persistent snow was over the Champlain Valley and the central and northern Green Mountains. 

Had this snow come through at night, several areas in the Champlain Valley and elsewhere in northern as Vermont would have had perhaps two to five inches of snow.  

Almost all the snow today hit during daylight hours. Though it was below freezing out there when it was snowing, enough heat came through the clouds from the high angled April sun that some of the snow melted as more while was falling from the sky. 

If you measured on pavement or bare ground, there was little if any snow, because of that solar radiation. This was good, because main roads, especially in low elevations, stayed pretty much just wet. Roads today weren't as bad as they could have been, but I did see some slick spots out there.

On grassy services and elevated decks, the snow piled up. On Facebook, people in such disparate places in Vermont as Milton and Jamaica reported to the National Weather Service they had two or three inches of fresh snow on their decks. 

Still, this snow turned out to be a bit on an over-performer, especially for this time of year.  Some mid and high elevations really got some serious accumulation. Walden, Vermont reports 4.9 inches of new snow. About 3.5 inches of new snow graced Camels Hump State Park. 

Here in St. Albans, I measured 1.4 inches of new snow on my deck as of 6 p.m. It was still snowing a little at the time, but it was tapering off and I don't anticipate much additional accumulation. Either here or anywhere else in Vermont. 

In Burlington, the National Weather Service reported 1.6 inches of new snow so far today. That's nowhere near the record, because a large snowstorm hit on this date in 1974, dumping 7.3 inches of snow on Burlington. 

We escaped anything like that, so I guess we were lucky, but it still looks like the middle of winter out there. At least in the Champlain Valley and northern Greens. 

Southern Vermont got their inch or so of snow early this morning, and ended up getting very little during the day. I noticed areas east of the Green Mountains south of Route 2 appear to have gotten little or no snow, too.

 TONIGHT

Now, there's snow on the ground in most of northern Vermont and New York, It's really unlikely to melt before sunset. Satellite imagery early this evening showed the disturbance causing the snow is moving out and clearing skies were moving in from the north and west. 

Those skies should be pretty clear by a few hours after sunset. Winds will go light and variable, so the stag is set for one of the coldest April nights in a decade, or more than a generation, depending on how things work out. 

The last time Burlington had an April temperature as cold or colder than what's anticipated tonight was in 2016 when it hit 14 degrees.  The last time it was colder than that was 10 degrees in April, 1995. 

It doesn't look like much snow accumulated around Montpelier today, but they still have an excellent shot of reaching a record low of 14 by morning. 

I'll  have updates, of course, tomorrow morning. 

 

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

Vermont: Hope For A Brief Thaw, Then A Couple Days Of Winter, And Then, ????

Hoping this will be one of my last truly wintry views
of my St. Albans, Vermont yard until, well, next winter.

After our expected dusting of snow materialized for many of us yesterday and last night, we're opening our Tuesday morning clear and chilly in much of Vermont. Though it was still quite cloudy in the Northeast Kingdom. 

That cloud arrangement led to a bit of a role reversal this morning. Western Vermont was clear longer, so communities that are usually warmer than most other places - Burlington and Bennington, got down to 18 degrees this morning. Virtually the rest of Vermont was in the 20s. 

Turns out it won't be the gloriously clear day we hoped for, though. Clouds will come in during the afternoon as a weak, completely lame disturbance starts to breeze by to our north.  It'll still get to near 40 degrees, though. 

Good! I didn't bother shoveling the recent snows, figuring daytime sun this time of year would melt it instead. My driveway is now an icy, treacherous mess. It does look like the ice will start to melt today and continue through Thursday. I hope. 

Our lame little disturbance tonight will at most throw a snowflake or two at us. Tomorrow should be roughly a rinse and repeat, with a little sun yielding to clouds.

Those clouds are associated with the next iffy storm we're watching. So far, at least, the forecasts keep trending that storm just to our north. If that's the case, it'll be mostly rain. 

If this forecast holds, we might see a tiny bit of wet snow and light rain with the warm front Wednesday night. Thursday would be dry most of the time, until rain showers arrive later in the day. For now, the temperature range looks wide on Thursday, with highs in the mid 40s at the Canadian border to 60 in warmer valleys near the Massachusetts border.

That range in temperature reflect the usual uncertainty in the storm track. It could still end up going further south than forecast, which would radically change the forecast. The rainy weather would turn into a snowy mess north. But for now, we're going with rain, fingers crossed. 

WEEKEND AND BEYOND

Whatever happens with that storm, we do know for sure a blast of wintry air from Canada will freeze us back up nice and solidly Friday and Saturday. Friday might well be another day, like a few we've had this month, in which the high temperature comes right after midnight. 

The day itself will stay below freezing except in the warmer southern valleys. Same is true for Saturday.

It seems like everything about this now-dying winter comes back to "worst since 2019."  As measured in Burlington, we've had 59 days since winter began in which high temperatures stayed at or below 32 degrees. That is - of course -  the most since the winter of 2018-19, when they're 61 such days. As mentioned, we'll maybe add one or two more subfreezing days toward the weekend. 

By the way, the most subfreezing days in one winter was 93 in the winter of 1969-70.

Anyway, that cold snap will start to wane Sunday. Average temperatures are continuing to rise fast, so whatever happens Friday and Saturday will probably be the most intense cold we feel until next November or December. 

Are Pennsylvania Ice Jams A Glimpse Of Vermont's Early Spring Future?

An ice jam in Swanton, Vermont after a rainy, warm
January thaw in 2018. This will be the first early
spring in a few years in which ice jams are
a real concern However, there's no
evidence that there's anything imminent. 

 Rain and a spring thaw in parts of Pennsylvania last week caused several potential dangerous ice jams.

Luckily, the Pennsylvania jams either broke up fast enough to prevent serious damage or hit in rural areas where there was little to damage. But those jams last week prompted some flash floods warnings and evacuations. 

It was a reminder, though, that a winter with lots of cold and snow can really create trouble when the spring thaw arrives in earnest. 

The same thing could happen here in Vermont later this spring. 

After a bitterly cold late January and early February. the weather abruptly turned in western Pennsylvania last Thursday and Friday. Thunderstorms dumped bursts of heavy rain on that region last night. By noon Friday, Pittsburgh's temperature was up to 63 degrees. 

That kind of late winter weather is a recipe for ice jams. Thick ice on rivers broke up in that weather, and the chunks of ice got stuck on river beds, bridge abutments and other obstacles. 

 It has temporarily gotten colder in Pennsylvania, so the risk of ice jam floods has eased. But if there are still frozen waterways there or anywhere else, there's a risk of ice jam floods as we head toward spring.

"Anywhere else" includes here in Vermont.

Pennsylvania's experience makes me wonder what might happen in Vermont later this spring. Ice on the rivers is thicker than it's been in years. There's a fair amount of snow on the ground ready to melt.

No real thaws or heavy rain is in the forecast. But a little more snow is in the pipeline. Thankfully no big storms, though. The later we get into March without a thaw, the more likely the weather could change abruptly to something warm and rainy. Which would set us up for ice jams. 

As prepped as Vermont seems for ice jam floods, we have a more than decent chance of avoiding trouble. In Vermont's history, we've had winters that were much colder, much snowier and much icier than this one. After most of those winters, the spring melt was gradual enough to only give us the usual minor spring lowland flooding. 

I'm only bringing this up because this is the first winter we've had in awhile in which river ice has gotten thick enough to build strong ice jams if the weather is right for them. 

To avoid trouble, we'll want perfect sugaring weather. That means mild, thawing afternoon and chilly subfreezing nights with only light precipitation. Under those conditions, the snow and ice softens and  gradually melt. . 

If we have a sudden, rainy warmup later in March, and the ice jams do develop, we can still be just fine.

Much like in Pennsylvania, our ice chunks under this fast thaw scenario would get hung up on river bends and other obstacles. The ice jam would then create flooding just upstream fro where the stuck ice is.  

Where these ice jams set up would spell the difference between slight inconveniences and real trouble. The unlikely but worst case scenario would be an ice jam just downstream from Montpelier. That would back the water up into the downtown, like it did so devastatingly in 1992.

Since Montpelier is to some extent recovering from the even worse July, 2023 flood, we don't need that. 

Bottom line: Don't panic, since there's absolutely no reason to. Instead just be aware if we have a spell of warm, rainy weather coming up over the next month.  

Another Snowfall On The Way In A Relentless Vermont Winter

Latest snowfall prediction map for Friday's storm
Most of the snow will come in a hard thump
Friday afternoon and evening. Lighter snow
will come later Friday night and Saturday,
which is included in this prediction map

It hasn't come close to being the coldest winter on record in Vermont. It's not the snowiest one either. None of our winter storms have been especially huge or historic. 

But this winter has been relentless and long, with no real sign of a let up. Other parts of the United States have had tough weather, too, but most places haven't endured it for months like we have in northern New England.  

Some parts of Vermont established a snow cover around November 10 and the ground has been white since. WCAX reports that this year through February 18 has had the most consistent snowpack in Burlington since 2004. 

The snow will be on the ground for quite awhile yet, too.  Another snowstorm is coming Friday, and there might be more after that. 

Let's get into the details:

TODAY

This morning started cold once again, with temperatures in the single numbers and low teens. I notice Lake Eden, Vermont was at 2 below early today. Far southern Vermont, in places like Bennington and Brattleboro, stayed in the low 20s due to cloud cover. 

But, as last minute, adjusted forecasts late Wednesday afternoon indicated, those areas didn't get any snow, or if they did, it was just flurries.

The sun angle now is as high as it was around the third week in October. So when the sun is out, it can make a difference this time of year. Sure enough, temperatures should climb into the 30s, with maybe a couple upper 20s in the far northern Champlain Valley and near 40 in some southern Vermont valleys

But this will be a quick interlude until the next round of winter weather. 

FRIDAY

Like several storms we've seen this winter, we'll see a quick thump of pretty heavy snow, followed by a long period of light snow and flurries. Also, like many storms this winter, the timing will be atrocious. 

A storm heading into the Great Lakes will push a warm front toward us tomorrow. That will create a band of heavy snow that will push into Vermont during the afternoon. Most of the storm's expected accumulation will come during the first several hours of the storm, roughly from mid to late afternoon to late evening. 

This means it will arrive just in time for the Friday afternoon rush hour. 

Even worse, the snow will start out wet and heavy. It might even briefly mix with rain in the warmer valleys at the start.  Wet snow is often worse than powdery snow on the highway because car tires quickly compact wet snow into slippery ice. 

I'd suggest trying to work from home tomorrow if you can. And get your errands done before afternoon hits. 

The wet snow could also cause a few scattered power outages, but I don't believe this will be enough to cause widespread problems in that regard. 

The snow will turn much lighter and more powdery as it continues overnight Friday and into Saturday. During that time, the original storm will fade as a new storm takes shape near the New England coast. That storm will race eastward out to sea while strengthening 

The most snow will probably fall in the southern and central Green Mountains of Vermont and the east slopes of the Adirondacks of New York. In both those places,  a winter storm watch is up for an expected four to nine inches of snow.

The National Weather Service will probably issue a winter weather advisory for the rest of the region. Most of us will get three to seven inches of snow, if forecasts hold. All but one or two inches of that snow should fall in the first six or seven hours of the storm on Friday. 

AFTER THIS STORM

After the light snow tapers off Saturday, we have a period of seasonable late winter weather coming to Vermont. 

There's one literally big thing to watch out for, though. A powerful nor'easter will quickly form off the Mid-Atlantic coast Sunday night and head to a position southeast of New England Monday.

As of this morning, computer models have been pushing the storm a little further northwest than previous forecasts suggested. It's beginning to look like the nor'easter  could bring coastal flooding, high winds and heavy precipitation to coastal New England. That is, if this northwest trend in the storm path continues .

If the current projected path of the storm pans out, southeast Vermont could see a little snow from this. 

There's plenty of time to watch this, so we'll update as necessary.

After that, the next chance of snow is next Wednesday. I don't see any signs of a huge warmup or major thaw for the next 10 days at least.  Your yard is going to be covered in snow for a long time yet. 

 

Death Valley Strangely About To Become A Flowery Paradise

Death Valley, California looked anything
but dead in this photo of the last super
 bloom in 2016. It looks like Death
Valley is on the verge of a new 
super bloom.  Photo from Wildlife
Trekking/Facebook.

Work with me here, but I really wish I was in Death Valley now.

I know, I know . Why would I want to go to a ridiculously hot place that's barren, sandy, rocky and sometimes dangerous? 

The reason to go is a relatively rare super bloom of flowers that is just beginning to blossom into desert gorgeousness.    Since my big perennial beds in Vermont are buried beneath a foot of snow and are frozen rock solid, you can understand my reasoning. I desperately need winter flower therapy. 

Death Valley super blooms come maybe once in a decade. Park rangers there say there was one in 2016 and another in 2005. It was a pretty good flower year in 2024, but last year was pretty colorless amid drought and early season heat. 

Though a few flowers and interesting plants sprouts every year in February and March, this year's Death Valley Dream looks like it might be spectacular.  

To be Captain Obvious, Death Valley doesn't get a lot of rain. To get a super bloom, you need some heavy showers that come just at the right time.    The best time for that is late autumn or very early winter. 

This past November was soggy by Death Valley standards. They got 1.76 inches of rain, compared to normal of just 0.10. 

Next, you need warm weather. Temperatures have been above normal in the region over much of the winter. 

A cool spell is moving in to Death Valley, but it won't be enough to harm any plants. Plus, some more showers are likely daily today through Tuesday night. 

After this latest bout of rain, temperatures look like they'll start to warm up again in the desert, with temperatures maybe reaching close to 80 in about a week and a half. 

So it looks good. 

Super blooms go fast, as the desert designs plants so that they quickly sprout from seeds, produce flowers, then convert those flowers to a lot more seeds for next time. This will all happen well before summer, for good reason, Death Valley is the hottest place on earth. Summertime temperatures regularly go into the 110s and 120s,   . 

The best time to see the blooms is now through early April.  Wonderful flowers last into May in higher elevations. You can find some great flowers and plants as late as July way up high around 8,000 feet or higher. But who wants to climb a steep desert mountain when the temperatures is higher than the hot chocolate or coffee you're drinking as you read this.

Alas, I won't be going out to Death Valley for this year's super  bloom. But I hope other people do, and post what they see on line for the world to see.

VIDEO

That last Death Valley Super Bloom was in 2016.  Associated Press video walks you through how it looked like. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.

Has This Been A Tough Vermont Winter Or Have We Turned Into Wimps. I Dive Into The Stats For An Answer

Another clear, cold dawn over St. Albans, Vermont
this morning. Looking at the stats, this winter has been
fairly rough in Vermont by 21st century standards.
But compared to the winters of over the past 
century or more, this one is running in
the middle of the pack. 

 Having just endured a long cold spell in what seems like a really long winter here in Vermont, we have to ask the question:  

Has this been a really tough winter so far or have we all become a bunch of wimps? Looking at the stats so far this season, the answer is kind of mixed .

It hasn't been particularly bad by historical standards, but it has been on the rough side compared to most winters over the past quarter century. 

First of all, this winter will not end up being anywhere near the coldest or snowiest on record. Temperatures are running cooler than average, but not wildly so. Snowfall has generally been near to a little above normal

It's the persistence of the winter chill that's been the real thing. . 

Let's look under the hood at the stats, at least as measured in Burlington, for a sense of how bad or good this winter has been.  

Subzero Nights

Through Thursday, there had been 14 days this in Burlington that got to zero or below. If no more occur, it will be the most since 2022. So not extreme.

Chances are it will get below zero again, but if not, the number of nights below zero isn't unusual, since 82 of the past 125 winters had more than 14 such nights. 

So no biggie. Especially since at least 23 winters in Burlington have had at least 30 subzero nights.  The notorious winter of 1933-34 had 45 such nights. We won't break that record! Only two winters have had no below zero weather.  Both were in the past 25 years, with the most recent one in 2023-24.

Consecutive Freezing Days

The number of consecutive days below freezing is a little more interesting. Assuming weather forecasts are correct, we'll end up with 23 subfreezing days in a row until it gets well into the 30s on Monday. The last time there were more than that was in January and February 2015, with a string of 27 of 'em 

We won't get into the top ten list of longest subfreezing streaks as #10 has 29 such days.  At least we'd better not! Than record is held by the winter of 1976-77, when Burlington endured 51 consecutive days at or below 32 degrees.

Still, this cold streak is fairly rare: The National Weather Service in South Burlington says only 20 out of the past 141 winters have had spells of continuous subfreezing weather that has lasted this long.

Total Number of Days Under 32 

What about the total number of days that never got above freezing this winter? I looked at the past 100 years of winters in Burlington and found the following:

So far, through Thursday, we've had 50 days that never got above freezing. There will be several, perhaps many more such days before spring arrives.  If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say we'll have at least another 15 days or so this winter that stay below the freezing point  But you never know.

If by some miracle every day from now manages to thaw, we've still surpassed 16 winters in total number of subfreezing days.  

We've been spoiled by recent warm winters. All of the top eight winters with the least amount of subfreezing days have occurred since 2001-02. In the winter of 2011-12, remarkably only 24 days didn't thaw. 

Also, there's absolutely no way this winter will make it to the most subfreezing days in a single winter. That honor goes to another notorious winter, which was 1969-70, with 93 days at or under 32 degrees.

Storminess is a little more subjective, but I'll take a crack at it. 

Snowfall

We aren't nearly done with snow yet, as it usually snows through March and into April. In fact, big snowstorms tend to come later in the winter. Nine of Burlington's 20 biggest snowstorms have occurred on or after Valentine's Day.  

 If in some fantasy world  that won't happen we get absolutely no more snow this winter, Burlington would end the season with 64.3 inches. 

That would mean 38 winters in the past 123 years would still have less snow than this winter. Only 11 winters have had more than 100 inches of snow. I highly doubt this winter will become the 12th on that list, but who knows? Miracles could happen I suppose.

Individual storms this winter have also voided threatening record territory.. The largest snowstorm this winter in Burlington dumped 15.6 inches of snow on January 25-26  That really didn't come close to cracking the top 20 list of greatest snowstorms. 

The greatest snow depth on record in Burlington is 33 inches. So far this winter, there's never been more than a foot of snow covering the landscape.

One more thing: I haven't seen confirmation yet, but I'm betting Lake Champlain has entirely frozen over for the first time since March 2019.

Bottom Line

By 21st century, climate changed standards, this winter is indeed on the rough side, but it likely won't be  considered the worst of the bunch. I'd arguably give a nod to the winter of 2014-15 as the most intense in the past 25 years.  

Compared to the standards of the past 100 to 125 years or so, this winter so far is probably in the middle of the pack in the severity ratings. Late February and March can give us some wild extremes  one way or the other, so the story of winter 2025-26 is by no means written yet.  

Fascinating Huge Crack Opens In Lake Erie As Water Keeps Freezing

Satellite view of the large crack that developed Sunday
on the ice covering almost all of Lake Erie.

 Lake watchers got really fascinated with Lake Erie on Sunday. 

In just a matter of hours Sunday, a huge crack opened across the mostly frozen lake.

Satellite loops caught it. So did passengers on planes flying over Lake Erie. And people who live on bluffs in Cleveland looking out over the lake. 

The crack quickly widened on Sunday to about 80 miles long starting near Port Burwell in Canada to around Cleveland, Ohio. It's fascinating to watch the split appear on satellite loops.

Before this weekend, Lake Erie was about 95 percent frozen.  Strong northwest winds on Saturday   The northwest winds also piled up  chunks of Lake Erie ice up to 20 feet deep on its southeastern shore.  That movement probably weakened the ice in the middle of the lake.

Then on Sunday, light northeast winds helped  la"unzip" the crack southwestward across the lake.  The crack is another demonstration that a frozen lake isn't necessarily safe to walk or drive on. 

A person with the handle Rebsjoy on Threads
took this photo Sunday of the Lake Erie ice cracks 
while aboard a plane crossing over the lake

Lake Erie freezes more readily than the other Great Lakes because it's the shallowest of the five. Since it's shallow, you get less upwelling of slightly warmer water from the depths. 

Still, if Lake Erie freezes over entirely this week, it'll be only the fourth time since 1973 that has happened. 

Overall, the five Great Lakes were 53 percent frozen over as of yesterday. The least frozen of the lakes is Ontario. It was only 26 percent frozen. 

As weather patterns shift, there is other ice news to report. After quite a cold spell, record high temperatures were hitting central Nebraska today. Ice on the Platte River has broken up, leading to ice jams and flooding. 

As of this writing, around 2 p.m. today, I don't yet have word yet on whether Lake Champlain has entirely frozen over. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington will make the call. 

Even if it is frozen, Lake Champlain is not necessarily safe to walk on. 

Earlier this month, five skaters had to be rescued from the lake when the ice they were on broke off and started floating into a then-open section of the lake. 

New York City Rediscovers Winter,And Not Everybody Is Happy About It

This screen grab of a New York City webcam on Friday 
looked peaceful enough, but some New Yorkers are 
not handling the toughest winter in recent memory
very well. It gets very cold again this weekend. 

Snow and winter cold that just won't go away is driving some New Yorkers batty. 

As many of us know, almost a foot snow and sleet fell on New York City back on January 25 and it has just sat there. Stubbornly. Daring for people to say mean things about it as it turns gray, yellow, slushy and gross. 

Mean things are also being said about the air temperatures, which has been consistently colder than it's been in yeats. 

And those mean things are being said. 

Egged on by the New York Post, a right wing, Murdoch owned publication, New Yorkers, mostly of MAGA ilk are enraged that snow is still narrowing sidewalks, making parking difficult and is just plain nasty to look at, now that it's been sitting around getting dirty for more than a week.

Trash bags are still out there too, as the sanitation department focused on clearing snow, so some trash pickups were delayed.

All that snow I'm sure is frustrating to New Yorkers. But it's mostly really about the Post and MAGA trying to do anything to take leftie Mayor Zohran Mamdani down a peg. Because he's - gasp! a democratic socialist. 

Hizzoner probably hasn't done a perfect job with this winter storm. No mayor would. But from my vantage point, he's done pretty well from what I can see. But what do I know? I'm just a hick from Vermont who has plenty of room to throw snow out of the way if I need to. 

The complaints seem to center on the fact that in past big storms the snow disappeared from the streets pretty quickly after big storms. 

Which is true. 

But the whiners don't seem to understand the concept of thawing. 

The temperature in New York has remained near or below freezing since the storm hit on January 25 and 26. Most past storms featured warmer, thawing weather right after the storm.

The complainers point to a 27 inch blizzard on January 23, 2016. That one was more than twice as deep as this year's snowfall, but it disappeared fairly quickly. It was above freezing in New York every day after that snowstorm. It was 47 degrees on January 27, 56 degrees on January 31 and a toasty 60 on February 1

Snow depth fell to just six inches within a week after the storm. By February 2, only a trace remained. 

It's not like everybody is complaining. A lot of New Yorkers just say fughetaboutit

On Threads, a New Yorker very reasonably wrote: "All these people talking about yellow snow and dirty snow. Garbage piled up. This is how it has always been after a snowstorm. For decades. It doesn't make it right. It just makes it true. Don't blame Mamdani. Don't blame the MTA. Understand that it takes time to remove snow in a city this size."

Other people got deliciously sarcastic on line:

"After TWO WEEKS there's STILL snow in Central Park, New York City! When will Mamdani get rid of it! Another epic fail!" 

The writer made clear this was indeed sarcasm, so other people mockingly piled on poor Mayor Mamdani. 

"Why hasn't Mamdani made the temperature go above 40 degrees yet?"

"And when will that monster finally put the leaves back on the trees?"

"Socialism brings snow. Why do you think Russia has so much snow?"

"Snow never existed before he was mayor. He cast a spell to create this thing called snow."

"Wasn't he to blame for the blizzard of '96?"

Mamdani was four years old when the blizzard of 1996, so it of course makes perfect sense that this notorious storm was his fault. 

CLEANUP CONTINUES

 New York has alternate side parking rules in which people need to park on one side of the street some days, and other side on different days. This allows for street cleaning.

The city suspended the rules after the big snowstorm on January 25-26. But the suspension ends on Super Bowl Sunday - this weekend -  and quite a few cars are buried under snow and ice. Those buried cars will need to be moved by then, or there will be towing and serious expenses for those car owners. 

It was fairly mild by this winters standards in New York Thursday and Friday which softened the ice encasing the cars a little. That was everybody's last chance to dig out their vehicles. With another intense blast of Arctic cold surging into New York, the ice around those cars is no doubt hard as concrete again. Good luck getting rid of that.   

I'm sure there will be plenty more whining when the expensive parking tickets and towing hit on Monday. 

NO FERRIES

Ferry service on the Hudson and East Rivers have been suspended for a week and that's not going to change anytime soon.  So much ice has built up around Manhattan island that it's too unsafe for ferries to operate.

The ice diminished around Manhattan this week, but it's still there. And those frigid conditions forecast for the weekend mean that you're not going to take the famous Staten Island Ferry or any other ferries for awhile yet if you're around New York. 

At least New York is in for a minor break, anyway. After this cold snap clears out, daytime temperatures most of this week will be in the 30s. 

Lake Champlain Ice Watch: Not Entirely Frozen Yet!

Visible satellite photo of Vermont and surrounding areas
this afternoon. Clear skies allowed us to see the ice 
situation on Lake Champlain. The dark blue area is
where the lake is not frozen yet. 

 Nope, Lake Champlain is not completely frozen over yet. 

It got clear enough for visible satellite photos to give us a good view today.  As you can see in the photo here, there's a large blue patch in the middle of the lake. That's open water. 

The northern half of the lake is solidly frozen. It's been that way for days or weeks, depending on exactly where you are. The narrow, shallower southern end of the lake is frozen over, too.

If the lake completely freezes, it will probably be at least a few days before that happens. More ice will very likely get manufactured tonight, since temperatures are forecast to go slightly below zero. But a light breeze will also probably continue all night, so that might slow the process down. 

Temperatures will moderate into the low to mid 20s by day and single digits to around 10 above until the end of the week. I'm guessing that also won't be cold enough to completely seal off the lake. 

Another blast of Arctic air is due next weekend, and that'll bring daytime highs back down to the single numbers and overnight lows well below zero.

We'll see whether that will be enough to finally freeze over the lake for the first time since 2019. 

 

Minnesotans Find Ally In Frigid Weather In Battle Against ICE

The now-infamous image of the ICE agent slipping
and falling on an icy Minneapolis street has become
a symbol of how winter-tough Minnesotans
are enduring the battle against ICE
oppression much better than the federal
forces in town to take away all the immigrants

The Battle of Minnesota between federal ICE agents and the good people of Minneapolis and other cities rages on. 

The citizens of frigid Minnesota have discovered they have one key ally in their struggle against the excesses of these often out of control federal agents. Winter. Including the regular slippery, not Gestapo ice, as in frozen water. 

Minneapolis has so far had the kind of winter we've had here in Vermont. Lots of freeze/thaw cycles and bouts of freezing rain to make everything even more interesting underfoot.

Judging from the videos of ICE agents slipping and falling on the ice, much to the delight of their many critics, I think the boots issued to ICE agents weren't exactly made for a Minnesota winter. 

Very much like Vermonters, Minnesotans know instinctively how to deal with winter. How to dress for it, how to embrace the cold. As The Other 98% wrote on Facebook:

"Beyond the spectacle of agents in tactical gear skidding on black ice, this moment reveals something deeper about the confrontation: A clash between a highly militarized federal apparatus and a community rooted in lived experience.

Many protestors have come equipped with insulated gear, boots with traction spikes and the kind of winter sense from years of Minnesota cold rather than federal training manuals. That difference - lived winter resilience versus bureaucratic enforcement - is playing out in real time on city streets."

Demonstrators are also using winter as a tactical tool against ICE, and against at least one right wind agitator who came to Minneapolis, and quickly fled. 

A constant hot spot in the Minneapolis unrest is the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE agents are headquartered. The weather turned much colder in the past few days in Minnesota. Protestors dumped water on the pavement near the building to form ice that could hinder, or at least annoy ICE agents. 

ICE ended up arresting four people, who they called "agitators" for "refusing to disperse." It appears ICE was irritated that they (allegedly) "threw objects, shouted profanities and endangered  the public by pouring water on the roads to create icy, hazardous conditions."

Judging from those ICE falling on ice videos I mentioned, the water on road idea just might be effective. 

On Saturday, Jake Lang, a right-wing nut and pardoned January 6 rioter, tried to lead an anti-immigration demonstration in Minneapolis, but hundreds of Minnesotans did not want to put up with his garbage. 

So, they chased Lang out of town, throwing punches at him, which I'm a little concerned about, and spraying him with water from squirt guns, which I'm not even a little concerned about. Temperatures hovered near 10 degrees at the time, and Lang did not appear dressed for the weather. 

Although video showed a little blood coming out of the back of Lang's head, he reportedly was not seriously injured. But I bet he was damn cold. 

Meanwhile, Trump is toying with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy 1,500 federal troops to Minnesota. 

Critics, and there are a lot of 'em, say doing that would just escalate the uproar over ICE raids, at least some of which look legally dubious. It also appears ICE agents' interactions with protestors aren't always kosher, either.

In any event, the Pentagon is ordering about 1,500 active duty soldiers to get ready for what might end up as a deployment to Minnesota. The soldiers are with the Army's Alaska-based 11th Airborne Division, which specializes in cold-weather operations. 

 It looks like the Trump administration is beginning to notice the difficulty of dealing with a northern winter.  

Minnesota weather is now frigid and getting colder. Temperatures are only in the single digits with snow falling today. It'll be below zero tonight. An even stronger Arctic blast is due in Minnesota by next weekend.  

People out in the streets are rooting for the Arctic blast. The New York Times quoted Chris Foreman, a military veteran who has joined the protestors near the Whipple Federal Building: "I want it to get cold.....People know that a lot of these ICE guys are from the South. They're coming into a different environment and they're not used to it."

Frigid weather tends to slow things down. I hope that the Arctic cold will bring the temperature down figuratively as well as literally. 

Back To Winter Here In Vermont. But It's Worse Elsewhere

Though remaining snow ended in most of Vermont 
overnight, light snow continued in parts of the 
Champlain Valley past dawn. This is a traffic cam
grab of Route 7 in Ferrisburgh at around 8 a.m today.

The cold air is back in Vermont.  It makes it feel like today's date is not January 16, but January 359. January always seems like by far the longest month of the year. 

In Burlington, yesterday was the last of nine consecutive days with above freezing high temperatures. I can guarantee it will stay below freezing today. 

During the transition to colder weather in Vermont yesterday afternoon, we ended up with some lingering trouble on the roads.  

The incoming cold air stalled out temporarily, and temperatures in most places east of the Champlain Valley stayed a bit above freezing until afternoon. In the Champlain Valley, a little freezing drizzle fell in the late morning before precipitation changed to light snow. 

The result of all this was some nasty Vermont roads for awhile. There were some crashes along Interstate 89 in the Bolton area. Another two vehicle crash was reported in Fairfax.

Since this is blessed Vermont, things once again were much worse elsewhere. That's almost always the case. 

Areas in the snow belt regions of the Great Lakes saw a rash of big highway pileups over the past couple of days. 

In New York, not far from Syracuse, at least 36 vehicles crashed into each other on Interstate 81, injuring at least seven people. Two big pileups occurred in Pennsylvania, one on Interstate 90 in Erie County and another on Interstate 80 in Clarion County. 

On Wednesday, at least thirty vehicles piled up on the Indiana Toll Road in Elkhart County on Wednesday amid heavy snow there. 

Up in Toronto, Canada, nine inches of snow snarled traffic and closed schools. 

 VERMONT FORECAST

Higher elevations did get cold enough for some snow overnight Wednesday and early Thursday, even as valleys remained above freezing and rainy. The most I saw was 4.7 in Craftsbury and 4.6 in South Albany.  Other mid-elevation locations had maybe two or three inches. Very little fell in most valleys. 

 More light snow broke out Thursday afternoon and night. This was light, fluffy stuff. At least it created a thin layer of fresh powder atop the old crust from previous, rain-soaked snows. 

 The additional snow yesterday afternoon and last night amounted to one to three inches in some areas of northern Vermont. Valleys in southern Vermont pretty much missed out. 

Here in St. Albans, Vermont, at my place, I received 1.1 inches of snow. A third of an inch of that was that crusty, schmutzy stuff from yesterday morning. The rest was feathery fluff that fell from late afternoon yesterday to early this morning. 

The snow overnight has been especially persistent in the Champlain Valley for some reason.  I bet some places in the central and southern Champlain Valley and adjacent Green Mountains to the east picked up at least two inches of fluff, judging from radar images. 

Judging from traffic cameras, most roads in Vermont didn't look too bad, though some in the southern Champlain Valley and through the Green Mountains had some snow on them. Likely icy patches, too.

We probably aren't going to see much snow going forward. At least for the next few days. The heavy stuff will be mostly limited to lake effect near the Great Lakes, the kind that contributed to those pileups in Pennsylvania and New York. 

As expected, it's cold this morning, with temperatures in the single numbers in most places. It'll stay cold today, with highs in the teens to near 20.

The chill should ease off over the weekend. It'll pop back up into the low 30s in the valleys Saturday and within a few degrees of 30 degrees on Sunday. 

While we're experiencing average January weather here on Sunday, it might actually snow a little in the Florida panhandle. If it does, it'll be the second January in a row with snow there. Though last year's snow was much bigger, epically breaking records. 

We'll always have a chance of some light snow and flurries all weekend. Most places will have an inch or less. However, the southern Green Mountains could pick up a few inches from the tail end of lake effect from the Great Lakes. 

BITTER COLD RETURNS

On Monday, it's beginning to look like a nor'easter will pass by New England, offshore. At this point it looks like it will have little, if any effect on Vermont. But we'll watch this, because if the storm tracks further west than expected, we could see some snow, especially south and east. 

That would be nice, as that part of Vermont has largely missed out of snow lately. 

The nor'easter is iffy, the forecast for frigid weather is not. The middle of next week will be brutal, with highs probably staying in the single number and low teens and lows below zero. Nothing even close to record breaking but still very noticeable. 

It'll stay cold late next week and beyond, but we're not yet sure how cold. Frigid air will lurk nearby for the rest of the month, and occasionally, ooze on in to send temperatures below zero again. 

The weather pattern will remain active, with several disturbances and storms in the mix later next week and beyond. It's way too soon to say which ones, if any will affect us. It's always possible one or more of these could give us a big dump of snow, but there's no way to determine that right now. 

 

Rain Changing To Snow Early Today In Vermont, Winter Is Back

Traffic cam of Interstate 89 in Brookfield, which is close to 
the highest elevation on the Interstate has already 
picked up a few inches of snow, making for
hazardous travel. Rain was changing to snow
in lower elevations as of 7:30, so this
mornings commute is a little iffy.

 As of 7:15 a.m., road conditions were deteriorating in northern Vermont as rain was changing to snow and temperatures were falling to and then below the freezing point. 

Rain flipped to snow shortly before 7 a.m. here in St. Albans. Places in central Vermont have already gone to snow, too. The southern and central Champlain Valley and most of southern parts of the state were still raining. 

Nobody in Vermont will get much snow out go this. Northern New York was the big winner with this. 

For Vermont, whatever snow we get is a timing problem. The changeover to snow for many of us is hitting when it's time to drive to work or school. 

As temperatures dip below freezing as the snow continues to fly, you know that means road conditions won't be great everywhere. It was still raining around Burlington as of 7 a.m., but we'll see how long tha lasts,   

It's the usual admonition to drive slowly, and leave plenty of room between you and the car in front of you.

Accidents are already happening. Police and fire trucks just blasted past my house in St. Albans as of 7:15 a.m. Apparently, there's a rollover crash just up the hill from my house. 

Where it's snowing, it will continue lightly well into today. I don't have any official snow reports yet, but judging from traffic cameras, it looks like areas well away from Lake Champlain in Vermont had picked up a dusting to an inch in low elevations in northern Vermont and maybe two or as much as three inches higher up.  

Rainy areas will be snowy soon. Additional snowfall looks like it might amount to  about one to 2,5 inches in the northwestern quarter of Vermont and less than an inch in most other places.

The Green Mountains should get a two to four inch dusting to partly make up for yesterday's thawing. 

Light snow should continue in parts of northern Vermont through the afternoon. The southern Connecticut River Valley will manage just flurries, if that.

COLDER PATTERN ARRIVES

The thaw is officially OVER. 

Six of the past seven days in Burlington got to at least 40 degrees. It's going to be quite awhile before it's 40 again. 

Later this morning and this afternoon, the real cold air will catch up to us. Temperatures were only slowly falling through the low and mid 30s in Vermont right before dawn. Over in New York, in the western Adirondacks and St. Lawrence Valley, it was already getting into the teens as of 7 a.m.

That air will soon be in Vermont to solidify the ice on the sidewalks and untreated roads. By the time you go to bed, temperatures should be in the teens for most of us, and down in the single number stop near 10 by dawn tomorrow. 

That frigid weather pattern I talked about yesterday is still on its way. Usually, the initial slap from these Arctic outbreaks is pretty tame when we get into these Nanook of the North weather regimes.

That's the case this time. Temperature will recover to the low 20s Friday, and low 30s Saturday. They'll probably settle into the mid and upper 20s Sunday and Monday afternoons. So, not bad!

Between tonight and Monday, we'll have chances of snow showers, but we won't see any big piles of snow The snow cover in the valleys will remain thin for awhile after our thaw. 

Most of next week looks pretty frigid. Early guesses put high temperatures most days from Tuesday onward at around 10 degrees, maybe 15 degrees in the warm spots, with lows near zero. Chances of snow showers will continue through the week, but prospects of a big dump of snow are looking pretty bleak for now. 

There might be a brief break in the chill next weekend before it turns really cold again.

One encouraging thing is I might have been right about some of the models backing off on how cold it will get as we get closer to the events. This is looking less and less like near record cold as we head through the rest of the month. Instead, we just face annoying cold..

That means mostly below normal temperatures, but maybe not the kind of extremes we saw back in the 1970s and even early 1990s, when we'd get into the mid 20s to mid 30s below zero.

Fingers crossed that we'll avoid that! 

Tuesday Morning Vermont Forecast. Mid, Late Week Return To Winter Forecast Becoming More Clear

The National Weather Service in South Burlington is taking
a first crack at snowfall amounts Wednesday night
and early Thursday. If this holds true, northwest 
Vermont could see two to five inches, with 
much less Southeast. 

 It's another rather mild morning in Vermont for January, as most of us started the day at around 30 degrees. Not exactly beach weather, but we'll take it. 

Burlington has been continuous just barely above freezing since 1 p.m. yesterday, bouncing between 33 and 34 degrees.  

The city should remain above freezing until Wednesday evening, so it's a pretty long stretch for January. 

Yesterday, the forecast was a mess, with a lot of questions as to what would happen in New England toward the end of this week. Would there be a nor'easter, or something other dreadful thing coming through?

We now have more clarity as to what kind of weather will come through at the end of the week. So us weather geeks are looking a bit less like morons now.  

We'll take you through it: 

Right now, we're on the warm side of a deep, narrow southward dip in the jet stream that's forming in the eastern United States and southeast Canada.  A strong south flow of air will keep us mild, but not extraordinarily so until Wednesday night. 

We won't be setting record high temperatures, but we will be much warmer than normal until then. Highs today and tomorrow will be in the 35 to 42 degree range in most of Vermont. 

South winds will increase, especially in the Champlain Valley. By tonight, gusts there will once again go to or a little over 40 mph. So it will feel a little chillier than your thermometer might indicate. It's a classic case of the Champlain Valley "warming up cold." 

OUR STORM

The cold front with this jet stream dip will approach tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, a modest to mid-sized storm will form along that cold front. If this morning's forecasts hold, that storm will head northward right over Vermont as the cold front comes through Wednesday night. 

This is going to be kind of a mess. It'll start out as rain, then switch to snow, going from northwest to southeast overnight. The combination of that rainwater freezing, a wet snow freezing, too, and drier snow on top of that will make things quite slick on the roads by Thursday morning. 

I'm guessing the National Weather Service will put up some winter weather advisories as we get closer to Wednesday night. 

The snow will be tapering off Thursday morning, but the damage will have been done. I'd start planning now to work at home Thursday or at least plan on extra time getting to work or school. 

At this point, snow accumulations don't look all that impressive. The northwestern half of Vermont looks like they're in for two to five inches of snow. .

That would taper off to less than an inch in the southeast corner of the state. 

By the way, if a nor'easter does manage to form out of this weather pattern, it would get going far offshore and bother Atlantic Canada, not New England. 

WINTER RETURNS

We'll definitely see a return to winter, but this first in a series of cold waves won't be anything to complain about too much. Thursday and Thursday night will be the worst of it, with cold northwest winds.

Temperatures should fall through the teens during the day Thursday and drop to the single numbers. It'll warm up a little over the weekend, but not much. 

The long range models continue to insist on repeated blasts of frigid air through the rest of the month, each one worse than the previous, through the end of the month. There might be brief squirts of milder air between each cold outbreak, but it'll be a bundle up kind of regime. 

The American computer model has us getting almost as cold as it can possibly get toward the end of the month. This model, when it looks more than a week into the future, often exaggerates the strength of winter cold waves, though. 

That said, the European model has northern New England getting into the 20s below by around the 27th of January, give or take. 

I wouldn't take these bone chilling extended forecasts as gospel just yet. But you might want to keep your warmest parkas within arm's reach just in case.  

Forecast Bust: Vermont Storm Was Mostly Rain. Now What?

Bright blue skies greeted northwest Vermont this
morning, behind a storm that turned out to be much
more wet than white. A return to winter is coming, but
it will take a few days to get here.

One of the few things that were correct about the forecast for last night's storm was that it had a high chance of being wrong. 

And it was. 

Temperatures were marginal throughout the atmosphere over Vermont for rain, sleet, freezing rain or snow. Just a degree or two more of warmth than expected enveloped the state, so it was mostly a cold rain. Or at least definitely more wet than white. 

There was a little snow, especially toward the end of the main bout of precipitation early this morning. But predictions of one to as much as five inches of snow, mostly in the Northeast Kingdom, pretty much didn't come true. 

I imagine a few spots up there got an inch or two, but that's probably it from last night. There were a few pockets of freezing rain, mostly in the southern Green Mountains, but it wasn't overly extensive. 

Do note that I've noticed that even in places that never went below freezing last night, there was, as of  mid-morning  still a LOT of black ice untreated surfaces, pretty much statewide. Be careful on corners, on bridges, at stoplights and stop signs, and on foot!

Not only was the type of precipitation mostly wrong, the storm moved on just a little quicker than forecast. When we got up this morning around Vermont, many of us were greeted by sunshine. 

The area of sunshine is pretty typical for a storm like this. A narrow band of dry air is often drawn northward immediately behind a departing storm.  Other than some fog and low clouds in some areas east of the Green Mountains, the start of today in Vermont is rather bright and springlike. 

It's kind of nice break from the general overcast and darkness we've endured lately. 

Clouds typically fill in later as moisture wraps around the back side of the storm on northwest winds. That's what will happen later today and this evening. The sky will gradually get cluttered with clouds, the temperature will slowly fall and winds will pick up this afternoon. 

Winter, sort of, is coming back. Snow showers will break out this evening and overnight. Some of them might even be briefly heavy in a few spots.  But overall, this won't amount to much. Most valleys will see an inch or less of snow. Some of the central and northern Green Mountains could end up with a few inches of windblown fluff.

WINTER RESURGENT

For a week now, we've been advertising a big return to frigid winter weather. That's still definitely coming, but it's going to take a few days. 

An enormous blob of Arctic air is gathering forces and strengthening as it prepares to invade the United States. But there's a bit of a traffic jam on the East Coast as an offshore northward bulge in the jet stream temporarily holds firm

A sharp, narrow dip in the jet stream is developing behind that bulge on the East Coast. At first, this will keep cold fronts to our west at bay. We'll stay on the mild side. Monday will end up being seasonably mild with highs within a few degrees either side of 30 degrees.  

Tuesday and Wednesday will warm into the 30s. There might be a few snow and rain showers thrown in both days, but they shouldn't amount to much. 

We'll finally get into the cold air Thursday, but there's a complication. The weather pattern is still gummed up. That atmospheric traffic jam looks like it will give a nor'easter an opportunity to evolve somewhere near or off the Northeast coast.

At this point, it looks like it'll get going too far south and east of Vermont to do us much good in terms of snow. And the cold air coming in is super dry, which discourages snow.

That being said, all this is several days away.  There could be some atmospheric tricks that we're not aware of yet.  One of those tricks could bring the nor'easter closer to the coast, which would put Vermont in play for some snow. 

Right now, the betting is against a snowstorm. But, who knows? I might be singing a different tune by Wednesday. 

Vermont Christmas Is Over, Winter Weather Drags On

The sky looking west from St Albans, Vermont at dawn
today had those pink and baby blue tones that I've 
always associated with a subzero winter cold snap. 

We woke up this day after Christmas in Vermont to the coldest morning since December 7. 

Skies cleared out above a blanket of fresh snow and a big supply of Canadian air to drop large sections of Vermont and surrounding areas below zero as dawn broke. Those of us who stayed above that frigid zero mark did so just barely. 

The chill isn't that unusual for late December - Burlington got down to 2 above this morning, missing the record low for the date by a huge 28 degrees. But it's not comfortable out there, either. 

From my perch on St. Albans hill, I can see that St. Albans Bay appears to be frozen, earlier than in recent years. This really has been a colder winter than usual so far. Pretty stormy, too. 

That trend is going to continue. 

WEIRD STORM

High thin clouds will make an appearance over Vermont today and thicken as the afternoon wears on. It'll stay cold as highs only make it into the teens. 

This is due to a weird storm that will just brush by us, but cause havoc from Ontario to New Jersey. An Alberta clipper, as scheduled, is diving southeastward from Michigan to an eventual path that will take it off the Mid-Atlantic coast'.

The path of this storm is odd. So is it's strength, given it's a clipper, which usually aren't all that impressive. It was spreading snow through southern Ontario this morning and mixed precipitation in Michigan. 

It will intensify further as it heads southeast. An ice storm warning is up for western Pennsylvania today and tonight. Freezing rain there today and tonight will make travel scary to say the least. It also risks causing tree and power line damage. Today's not the day for a road trip to Pittsburgh, that's for sure. 

As the storm heads further south, it'll trigger a snowstorm from central New York down to the New York City metro area. That zone is in for five to nine inches of snow tonight. 

We in Vermont will just be mostly bystanders to this spectacle.  It'll snow a little in the Green Mountain State overnight, mostly south and west of Interstate 89. A little snow might get north of that, but it'll be inconsequential. There might be a couple inches down by Bennington. If the storm somehow manages to jog north a bit, then, of course we get a bit more snow. 

But this won't be a biggie for us. 

THE NEXT STORM 

The next system in the pipeline will be more of a problem for us. Those of  you who are thrilled we're missing out on today's ice storm in Pennsylvania aren't going to like this one. We're in for some ice Sunday night and Monday. 

Saturday and Sunday will be quiet and cold. Though, because we're setting up for freezing rain eventually, Sunday's highs on the Green Mountain summits will probably be warmer than the valleys.You need that type of inversion to get your freezing rain. 

That'll come in Sunday night. If you get your return trip home or to wherever you're headed by sunset on Sunday, you should be fine. 

At this point, fingers crossed, it doesn't look like the freezing rain will be enough to cause much damage to trees and power lines. But it will be more than enough to mess with anyone on the roads overnight Sunday into Monday morning.

If you have to work Monday, it will probably be an excellent day to work from home if at all possible. We haven't had much freezing rain and sleet yet this winter, so this will be our first real experience with it of the season. We don't have our "ice legs" yet.

,Yeah, it sucks. 

It will probably turn warm enough for awhile Monday to change things over to plain rain in much of Vermont. It won't be like a week ago though, when temperatures soared into the 50s and low 60s/

This time. it'll only make it into the mid and upper 30s. Maybe a few low 40s in southern valleys. The snow on the ground won't go away. It'll just get crusty and icy. 

The storm's cold front will probably sweep through later Monday afternoon or evening, as it looks now, anyway. The system will really crank up as it gets into southeast Canada, so expect plunging temperatures and strong northwest winds, which would continue into Tuesday. 

Most of us won't get much snow after the cold front goes through, but the central and northern Green Mountains have the potential to get a decent dump. 

It''ll stay really cold into the first few days of 2026, with a reinforcing shot of Arctic air probably arriving as we ring in the New Year. 

Today Is Winter Solstice, But Sun Began Setting Later Several Days Ago. Here's Why

At 3:55 p.m. Saturday, the sun was already close to
setting over St. Albans, Vermont. Today is the winter
solstice, the shortest daylight of the year. But 
strangely, sunsets started getting a bit later
starting December 10. There's a reason for that. 

The winter solstice hits today at 10:03 a.m. 

It is the shortest daylight of the year, but even, the earliest sunset and latest sunrise of the season don't exactly line up.  

Believe it or not, our earliest sunset was about a week and a half ago. And our latest sunrise won't hit until just before the New Year arrives.  

Why?

It's a little complicated, but here it goes: 

As Timeanddate.com explains:

"This is because of a discrepancy between our modern-day timekeeping methods and how time is measured using the Sun, known as the equation of time."

The equation of time is the difference between time measured using a sundial, also as true or apparent solar time, and the time measured using a clock, also known as mean solar time.....

Most clocks run on the idea that a day is exactly 24 hours. Technically a day is the duration between one solar noon, the time of day the the sun is at the highest point in the sky, to the next."

A solar day is not exactly 24 hours long. It varies through the year because the elliptical shape of Earth's orbit and the tilt of our planet. A solar day is longer than 24 hours in the summer and winter solstice. It's a little shorter than 24 hours at the spring and autumn equinoxes. 

This means solar noon comes at a different time than the noon you see on your watch or smart phone. For instance, in New York City, solar noon hits at 11:54 a.m. clock time.  By January 3, the Big Apple's solar noon and "watch" noon both hit at 12 on the dot. On January 4, solar noon as at 12:01 p.m., and it keeps getting later through January, as Timeanddate.com explains. 

That shift in solar noon means both sunset and sunrise keep getting later into the first days of January. 

In Burlington, Vermont, the earliest sunsets of the year hit on December 8 and 9, at 4:12 p.m. With both sunrises and sunsets getting later, today is the shortest day of the year with a sunrise at 7:26 a.m. and sunset at 4:16 p.m.

Our sunrises will keep getting later for awhile yet. The latest sunrises are at 7:29 a.m. each day between December 30 and January 5. After that, sunrises start getting earlier while sunsets keep getting later. 

Basically. days get longer from now until January only very slowly. Once we get into January, the pace of lengthening days begins to pick up. 

COLDER TIMES AHEAD?

There's an old saying that as the days lengthen, the cold strengthens. 

And it's true: On average, the coldest weather of the winter comes around the third week in January. Every winter is different, of course, so the most frigid days in some years can come in December or February instead. 

But, the depths of winter are generally in the second half of January. 

Even though the northern hemisphere begins to get a little brighter after today, the high Arctic remains deep in darkness. What little warmth might be left up there radiates out into space. The supply of gelid air keeps growing, just waiting for a chance to rush southward onto poor unsuspecting people like us Vermonters.   

Meanwhile, lakes in southern Ontario and Quebec continue to freeze up. Parts of the Great Lakes do, too. That means Arctic air coming from the North Pole can't as easily absorb a bit of the warmth of the lakes to modify those pushes of frigid air. 

Also, as the lakes freeze, they're less able to transfer moisture to the air. That means fewer clouds downstream from the lakes here in Vermont. Nights are a little more likely to be clear in January than they were in November and December. Clear, calm nights tend to be the coldest. A clear January night a mean the bottom falls out of the thermometer. 

Though the days will slowly lengthen over the coming weeks, you probably won't get much of a break from our cold winter winds. 

But slowly, you'll eventually notice a change. Maybe on a February day, the winter sun will actually feel a little warm. As we get through the late winter, thaws start to become a little more frequent. Before you know it. balmy spring breezes will ruffle your hair and brighten your mood.