Winter 2020-2021 Recap Part 1

Today and the past two days brought temperatures well into the 70s, with yesterday setting a new April 9 record of 76 °F. Based on 30 year climate normals, that is a high temperature that we should be seeing on June 15, not April 9. Entering the middle of April, it feels safe to say that winter weather in New England is complete. That is not to say that we may see another round of cold temperatures or some more snow, but any substantial winter-like weather has pretty much ended for the year. With that, I'd like to take a look at the weather that we saw this past winter. In part one of this multi-series post, I'll take a look at notable events in the first half of the winter.

Notable Events

December Nor'easter - From December 15-17, a crippling nor'easter impacted much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. As a result of low pressure moving up the Atlantic coast, many areas saw over a foot of snow.

(NWS Eastern Region)

In the above figure, you can see where snow totals were most notable, in a stretch extending from Central Pennsylvania, through Central New York, and into Southern Vermont and New Hampshire. This was due to mesoscale banding that caused snowfall rates to reach >3 inches per hour at times. In each of those states, some regions observed over 40 inches of snow.

Christmas Day Rain and Warmth - After an impressive taste of winter the previous week with the aforementioned nor'easter, Christmas Day brought rain and record high temperatures to many locations in New England, destroying the snowpack that had built the previous week. Burlington, VT had a high temperature of 65 °F, surpassing the previous Christmas Day high temperature of 62 °F, set back in 1964.

Map for December 25, 2020 (NOAA)

As shown in the above map, the bulk of the precipitation occurred in areas west, with some locations seeing 2+ inches of rain.

At the start of the New Year, things became quiet. Here's a look at the January 4, 2021 snow depth in the Northeast, showing not much snow throughout the region.

(NOAA/NOHRSC)

Mid-January Snowstorm

After things were quiet for the start of 2021, we had a nice snowstorm on January 16. This one was fairly elevation dependent, with areas in the mountains seeing up to 20 inches of snow, and valley locations seeing virtually no snow.

Thank you for all of your reports! We were able to come up with a storm total snow map through 2 PM this afternoon. Additional accumulations will be possible across northern Vermont this afternoon. Visit https://t.co/bWrAqA6WUF for more info. #nywx #vtwx pic.twitter.com/2tZ1FVLdGx

— NWS Burlington (@NWSBurlington) January 17, 2021

On the back end of that storm, frigid air closed out the month of January, with temperatures in the single digits on most days and highs only surpassing 32 °F once.

(NOAA Regional Climate Centers/xmACIS)

That's it for the first post in a series of posts about winter 2020-2021 in New England. I'll have more in a future post.