03.26.12 Melting Winter Away - FOX44 - Burlington / Plattsburgh News, Weather & Sports

03.26.12 Melting Winter Away

Wow! What a last couple of weeks we have had.  Back and forth. Back and forth.  The weather is always keeping our SkyTracker weather team on our toes :-)

Record high temperatures of 76°, 79°, 80°, 81°, and 81° last week completely melted away most of our snow :-(  causing many ski resorts to shut down or nearly-shut down.

This is what it looked like on March 22, 2011 in terms of snow depth

And this year at that same date:

These images courtesy NOAA.

Here's what it looked like on the ground during the month of March:

March 6, 2012

March 23, 2012

Both images courtesy Mad River Glen ski area.

March 6, 2012

Both images courtesy Killington Ski Resort.

Unfortunately the white gold has melted away for area ski resorts. They couldn't help but take a HUGE hit last week with the record warmth. The above figures show the numbers of trails open last Monday and how many closed in just one week.

However it is back to reality this week.  Here are some stats on the wildly changing weather lately:

Last week (Mon, March 19-23): Average observed highs in Burlington of 77.4°

This week (Mon, March 26-30) based on current forecast highs in BTV: 42°

The temperature dropped from a high of 81° Thursday afternoon in Burlington, to 30° for the daytime high Monday, and 18° for a forecast low by Tuesday morning.

March 11-25, 2012 featured consecutive days of above-average temperatures.  The streak of 15 days straight with above-average warmth is likely to break either today (Monday) or tomorrow (Tuesday) with day and nighttime temperatures dropping to (-10 to -15°) compared to average.

-Meteorologist Steve Glazier