Storm musings

It's Christmas day. December 25th. These were the 6:00 am temperatures this morning in New England.

(NWS Burlington)

That is not typical. Areas as far north as Quebec should not be seeing temperatures in the 60s on December 25th. At Burlington, VT, the normal high temperature for Christmas day is 30 °F - the high temperature so far today there is 64 °F. That is a high 34 degrees above normal! Moreover, dew points this morning sit in the 50s for much of New England. As forecasted, winds from this storm were impressive, leaving many without power in the northeast.

The rain, high temperatures, and high dew points virtually washed away our snowpack overnight. Here is the current New England snowpack:

(NOAA/NOHRSC)

And this is what it was yesterday at the exact same time:

(NOAA/NOHRSC)

And to hammer the point home, here is a look at the Killington Superstar Webcam:

(Killington)

To put that image into perspective, Superstar (the trail you see on the left in the above photo) typically hosts the women's alpine ski world cup races each year during Thanksgiving weekend, and Killington is famous for making prodigious amounts of snow on the trail, forming what is known as the "Superstar Glacier" and enabling skiing past Memorial Day. On December 25th, that is not the Superstar webcam photo that you want to see.

Not all hope about this winter in New England needs to be lost though. On December 25th, 2014 in Boston, MA, the high temperature was 59 °F, when the normal high for that date in Boston is 38 °F.

(NOAA Regional Climate Centers/xmACIS)

What followed Christmas day 2014 in Boston was the city's snowiest Jan 1 to Mar 31 (winter 2015) period in history, with 107.7 inches of snow falling in that period.

Top 10 snowiest Jan 1 to Mar 31 at Boston (NOAA Regional Climate Centers/xmACIS)

Moreover, that period in 2015 was the third coldest Jan 1 to Mar 31 in Boston's history, with the mean average temperature being 26.3 °F.

Coldest Jan 1 to Mar 31 at Boston on record (NOAA Regional Climate Centers/xmACIS)

Similar trends held for much of New England during that winter. So while this Christmas day warmth and rain is unfortunate to see, past precedent tells us that an unusually warm Christmas could precede a cold and snowy winter, as it did for winter 2014-2015.