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Much of this week will see temperatures top out in the lower and middle 60s. Additional showers are possible on Thursday as a warm front moves northward. It will turn noticeably warmer during the weekend. Parts of the area could reach or exceed 80° on Saturday and especially Sunday. The warmth will likely continue into early next week. In the long-range, there has been a shift in the guidance toward a near or somewhat warmer than normal second half of May. The probability of a warmer than normal second half of May has increased. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +1.6°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was +0.9°C for the week centered around May 6. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged +1.50°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged +0.55°C. El Niño conditions are rapidly developing and will likely be in place in the next few weeks. The SOI was -11.78 today. The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was +0.980 today. Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied near 50% probability that New York City will have a cooler than normal May (1991-2020 normal). May will likely finish with a mean temperature near 63.2° (near normal). Supplemental Information: The projected mean would be 0.7° above the 1981-2010 normal monthly value.

I wish this cool weather pattern could persist longer, but we are what we are. The heat and humidity will ramp up this weekend into next week. It better bring some damn legit rain.

For several days I’d been looking for a chance to get out for my next ski tour, but it wasn’t until yesterday that the weather and my schedule lined up for an outing – or at least I thought the weather had lined up. I headed toward Stowe in the morning, since that was supposed to be the sunniest part or the day. I left our place in Waterbury under sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-50s F, but as headed north, clouds began to appear, and they were thicker and darker around Mt. Mansfield. Eventually, I saw that there were obvious rain/snow shafts around the mountain, and by the time I pulled into the main parking lot, I was hit with a maelstrom of wet snow and graupel. It was amazing to think that over a distance of less than 10 miles I’d gone from clear skies and temperatures in the 50s F to heavy snow falling, but that’s what you get in the Northern Greens, and that’s the power of Mt. Mansfield. I was looking for a relatively short ski tour, and the highest availability of lower-elevation snow was definitely on the terrain below The Nose. The North Slope trail is often a good bet for these types of late season outings, but yesterday, Hayride seemed to offer better snow availability. That’s always a fun feature of these later spring days – you get different terrain options each spring based on how the snowmaking was done and how the weather patterns treated the snow. With the snow falling at the beginning of my tour, I debated putting on my shell for the start of the ascent, but the precipitation quickly began to subside, and before long I was starting to see patches of blue sky around the mountain. By the time I began my descent, the weather was back to more of what you’d expect on a nice spring day in the mountains. Even with the snowfall, the temperatures hadn’t fallen too far, so the snow was staying soft and springlike. The snowpack that’s out there now has seen a lot of spring temperature cycling by this point, so the quality of the corn was quite good, and the only places to avoid were areas where the snow was ground up or bumpy due to previous vehicle traffic or weird melting patterns. The snowpack isn’t continuous anywhere down near the base of the lifts, but you get into some good long areas of coverage just a few hundred vertical feet up. I’ve been using a new Dakine Poacher 22L ski pack for touring over the past month or two, but I’ve been able to continue skinning for ascents so far this spring, so yesterday was my first chance to try it out for actually carrying skis. Prior to this pack, for years I’d been ski touring with my Dakine Sequence pack, which is specialized for carrying both skis and photo gear. But the volume of the Sequence is around 33L, and for a while I’d been wanting something smaller for days when I’m not carrying multiple camera lenses. I was looking for something in the 20-25L range, and the Poacher 22L really fit the bill. It’s been a while since I’d shopped for a ski pack, and I had no idea of the dozens and dozens of top notch companies that make them now – there clearly must be quite a market for them. I looked around at many brands, but the Poacher 22L won out when I saw the video Dakine put together that thoroughly covered the redesign they did in 2022 – it just ticked so many boxes for me that it was the obvious choice. Plus, our family has various Dakine ski packs, and Dakine definitely knows their stuff when it comes to making a practical pack for frontcountry, sidecountry, and/or backcountry skiing. I won’t do a full review here, but I’ll mention a few key features that I finally got to try out during yesterday’s outing. A nice feature that many of the newer ski packs are adding is dual position helmet carry – instead of just being able to carry your helmet directly on the back of your pack, there is now an additional carry position available at the top of the pack using the same helmet carrier. They figured out that when you go with diagonal ski carry (which is definitely my preferred positioning), your skis and helmet are horribly in the way of each other when the helmet is on the back of the pack, so the top carry position gets the helmet out of the way of the skis. As one might expect, I tried out the top carry mode yesterday, and it’s a huge improvement – the skis still push on the helmet a bit, but it’s a monumentally better position. The top position does block access to some of the upper pockets, but the option is there when you need it. The next feature I was able to get a sense for yesterday was the internal frame they have in the pack. It’s really just a stiff wire that runs around inside the pack, so it’s extremely light, but it adds an incredible degree of rigidity to the pack. When I initially got the pack I was thrown off by how stiff the whole structure was relative to similar ski packs I’ve owned and used, but then I realized where they were going – if you’ve ever carried skis on an empty backpack with no frame, you know what I mean. Skis can bounce all over the place on empty packs with no support, and this wire frame setup totally takes care of that issue. Finally, I even tried flipping my pack around and opening it in access mode with skis on the pack, and that even worked. Dakine is well known for their back access zippers that let you get to the contents of the pack without taking the pack off – you just slide your shoulders out of the straps, spin the pack around to the front, open the back zipper, and the pack works like a table/desk in front of you with access to your gear. The internal wire produces an even more stable platform, and I’ve tried it for photography on several outings this spring and been very impressed. I’ve used this feature on other Dakine packs, but the stiffness with the internal wire was remarkable, and I even tried it with my skis still on the pack to see if it was practical. I think it’s best if you rest the tips of your skis on the snow when you do it, but I was surprised at how well it handled all that extra weight of the skis. Anyway, as a first trip with the pack in which I actually carried skis, I figured I’d send along some impressions for others that might be wondering about the real world utility for some of these ski pack features.

time to man up summer is coming fast before you even blink the cool breezes of fall will soon return..

i would have my windows open at night with temps in the 40's under blanket because to much heat lol..

Just hope we can get a severe day or two in before the heat really sets in...what a horrible Spring for T-storms...uggg. Midwest cashes in on all the fun weather no matter what season.

Not looking forward to months of AC but that's the way it goes. Much rather have the windows open a bit at night and be under the blankets. That will be coming to an end soon enough.

Soaker on the euro, especially SNH.

With all of the talk about cold recently, I had to look up the average date of the last frost in PA. Here are the dates in regional generalities: Southern PA: South of Turnpike: April 21st and April 30th I76/South Central PA: May 1st to May 10th Ridge & Valley: May 11th to May 21st I80 up to Rt. 6: May 21st to May 31st North of Rt. 6: June 1st to June 10th https://www.plantmaps.com/en/us/lf/state/pennsylvania/average-last-frost-dates-map/ Based on that, and given the upcoming forecast, it appears that much of the northern half of PA will see their last cold mornings BEFORE the average date. Unless I'm missing something.

I can handle a solid rainy day, but multiple days of easterly fetches and drizzle makes me want to drive my truck off a bridge...

This has to be the most bipolar spring ever, in terms of temperature. I've never seen so many temperature swings in my lifetime. We've seen it go from 30s to 80s and back, 40s to 90s and back, etc. I don't mind temps in the 70s, 60s, or even 50s, as long as it's consistent. I just don't like the 40-50 degree swings we've been getting this year.

Meh... I know your joking with him but ...that mid 70s bias on spring warmth is coming from ( more likely ... ) media's fault. The problem with that is that even tho CC should be loud in the media, just not for the reasons they go about doing so: information for dollars. I mused years ago ... the moment in history humanity figured out how to turn TV channel changes, mouse clicks, and thumb swipes into pennies, we were doomed. They only saturate the J.Q. less informed, open to suggestion masses ( which let's face it... probably 90%+ of all brain boxes alive) whenever there is a record breaking this, that, and the other thing. Discussing how anything works? Isn't as profitable. So...J.Q. comes away white washed that everything's supposed to be hot. Sometimes... CC causes a cold winter, right? good luck with that - Seems like the government is attempting the same psy-op now with UAPs, though holy bejeezus why?! They're now releasing classified material related to plausible extraterrestrials. First of all zomb! But why now? If this has been going on since the 1940s... what's is it about 2020+ that requires all this hubbub. Well... I guess the way it's gone, there's been some "deep state" covering up reversed engineering of 'you know what'. There's purported now covert anti-gravity propulsion, along with other exotic techs. Like 0 point energy - basically tapping the 10 to 19th power eV background universal energy constant ... blah blah. If that came out and was made known/ubiquitous? Game over. No hierarchical "echelon" form of humanity social order. That includes power. That includes wealth. That includes being tethered to the societal toil chain as dollar valued slave labor. It would pretty much solve all energy needs, shorting demand down the individual level. Doesn't take a massive descriptive essay to see where that intuitively goes. For starters, the economic engine that keeps humanity on the same page, seizes like it ran out of oil and all at once stopped. No pun. That's just one facet. Wildly digressing here... but, if there's some how, some unlikely way even half a kernel's truth in all that, it's the greatest aspect in human history since "Groont" picked up a stick with one end on fire and saw a future. So how an why are these classified things being ordered released? Seems with so much at stake... so much absolute disruptive power, it's a major wtf moment in history. It already is even if all that shit isn't true, because the goddamn highest order of Government is exposing. whaaa Could be a diversion mm. Not a huge leap I guess with this cast of White House characters. Any way out of culpability in the Epstein files and a failing war, fluff UFOs (refashioned as UAPs). Maybe.

The 8 driest El Nino's with a RONI peak >+1.1 came out ... 2 El Nino - 3 Neutral - 3 La Nina the year after [27-28] ... the average RONI that next year is -0.15/yr.

I was just going to comment on this

Early in the week Mon-Tue then normal to below. Normal May weather what a novelty.

I think I’d rather pay the natty gas bill to take morning chill out over the electric bill when the AC cranks on those high dews, but considering it’s almost mid-May, it’s getting to be about that time….

Low of 35 for this morning. Agreed that this seasons last freeze is 4/21 and 24 for me but it isn't the coldest last freeze in my records. 2007 will still hold that record with a last freeze of 22 on 4/11.

Didn't make freezing this morning, 35.6 for the low, so I guess April 21st will hold as last freeze for the spring. I can't remember a year where 23 degrees was our last freeze and no freeze after that, pretty extreme.

As an online group, weather enthusiasts try to cauterize the shoulder seasons more and more each year. It’s either viewed under a lens where it’s supposed to be really nice and warm outside, or winter.

Ha. I’ll take the over. Is that supposed to be his thoughts on the polar jet? That looks like a January longwave pattern. lol Some moron on social media was trying to tell me March was cold in PA. The state was like +4 to +8. I swear people think every day is supposed to be 70s when winter is over. Ditty has everyone confused and installing in March.

Low of 40 here, shaping up to be a beautiful afternoon though. Already 64F. Enjoy the comfort this week and dust out the AC vents as it is looking like we go straight into summer next week.

There goes June.

I'm pretty sure that supercell is producing a waterspout that is sucking Great White Sharks out of the Gulf