Winds and waves pushing ice toward the western shoreline of Alexandria along Newfound Lake in New Hampshire on April 3, 2023. Photo by Todd B. Bates/NH EnviroGuy blogger

New England Weather and Climate Update, With Snowfall Totals and Spring Outlook

8 min readApr 7, 2023

Lack of snow, lots of snow. Extreme cold, wind chills and temperature swings. Now nearly summer-like warmth is expected in parts of New England.

Spring Photos of Icy Newfound Lake in New Hampshire

This winter and spring have featured some wildly variable weather in the six New England states, and the forecast calls for temperatures 15 to 25 degrees above normal in the Northeast late next week.

High temperatures forecast for Friday, April 14, 2023. Source: Weather Prediction Center at the National Weather Service

Here are some weather and climate highlights and outlooks, courtesy of the Northeast Regional Climate Center, National Weather Service and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center:

— There’s a good chance it will be warmer than normal in New England and much of the contiguous U.S. from April 12 to 20. That follows unusual warmth last month, when temperatures averaged more than 4 degrees above normal in some areas of New England. Caribou, in northern Maine, averaged 3.3 degrees above normal, making it the 13th warmest March on record there.

— A mid-March nor’easter dumped up to three and a half feet of snow in parts of New England and the Northeast. Snowfall in March ranged from 8.1 inches below normal in Boston, Massachusetts, where less than an inch fell, to 8.2 inches above the norm in Caribou, where nearly 30 inches of snow fell.

Source: National Weather Service Eastern Region Headquarters

Guide to Snowfall Forecast Maps for New England, With Other Snow Information and Photos

— Seasonal snowfall in New England ranged from above-normal to well below normal, especially in southern areas. As of March 31, Caribou had received 129.7 inches of snow, more than 20 above its average. Bangor in Maine had 71.6 inches of snow, slightly above its average. The total in Concord, New Hampshire, was 64.2 inches, an inch below average. Worcester, Massachusetts, had only 47.2 inches of snow, well below its 71-inch average. Boston’s total — 12.4 inches — was about 35 inches below average. Providence, Rhode Island, had received 11.6 inches, also well below its 36-inch average. Bridgeport in Connecticut had seen a paltry 4.9 inches of snow compared with its 32.7-inch average.

— Dangerously cold weather arrived on Feb. 3 and 4, when Arctic air invaded the Northeast. The temperature in Boston plunged to 10 degrees below zero on Feb. 4, the first day in 66 years with a low in the double-digits. In northern Maine, trees splintered after water in them expanded and froze. Frozen soil or rock cracked, leading to seismic events known as frost quakes. Wind chills hit more than 30 below zero in Boston and Hartford, Connecticut. In Portland, Maine, and Burlington, Vermont, wind chills reached more than 40 degrees below. The wind chill fell to 108 degrees below zero — the coldest wind chill ever recorded in the U.S. — at the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. The mercury there bottomed out at 47 degrees below zero, just 3 degrees shy of the state record low of 50, also set on the 6,288-foot mountain.

Scenic New Hampshire Photos This Winter

— Forty-one years ago, a blizzard dumped up to 2 feet of snow in parts of New England (on April 6–7), making it one of the five snowiest Aprils on record in Boston, Worcester, Milton, Providence and Hartford, the Boston/Norton weather service office tweeted.

Record Warmth in Much of New England (and Some Record Cold) in January-February 2023

More images are below, including some of my recent photos in New Hampshire, as well as maps and graphics covering the average dates for the last spring freeze, the last spring frost, spring leaf out timing, snow cover, the Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index, snowfall totals and departures from average, temperature and precipitation, and climate outlooks for April and beyond. Many images cover the Northeast and/or the Eastern U.S. and lower 48 states.