Warmer spring weather here until next week

Phillip M. Pandolfo, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said there was “abnormally high” snowfall in November and December.

“Which tracks fairly well with the fact that most of the snow that we saw across the eastern Great Lakes was only from the two events,” he said.

With this week of nice weather, some people may be anxious to begin their outdoor work, but the owner of A Cut Above lawn care and landscaping business, Justin S. Chesborough, is warning people about starting outdoor work a little too early.

He says the most common mistake he sees is people putting their plants in the ground too soon.

“It’s 60 degrees out right now; it doesn’t mean we’re not going to get another night or two of frost,” he said.

He said that even though A Cut Above doesn’t have its annuals out yet, the bigger box stores do.

“It can drop down to below freezing any night, and then (plants) die,” he said.

One of the more important activities is cleaning up sod damage from any winter plowing, and getting any gravel and sod back into the driveway.

“That’s the first thing we start with and then we move into making sure the leaves and sticks and branches are off the lawn, out of the landscape beds, make sure those are clean and all the flowers and plants and shrubbery are pruned to the appropriate height and cleaned up so they can get air and breathe as the sun starts to warm up and we get water to them,” he said.

Mr. Chesborough said the past winter overall was a hard one.

“The two very large snow storms were very difficult,” he said. “Those were both very costly and time-consuming and hard on the guys... It was not a light winter at all.”

He said during the first storm, many of his employees logged 80 to 90 hours, and the Christmas blizzard resulted in close to the same workload.

Pat D. Marino, store manager of State Street Ace Hardware, said people are raking up leaves and yard debris, and cutting limbs.

Mr. Marino said more people are coming in to do DIY projects instead of hiring out.

He said an advantage of hiring out is making sure you’re getting it done right the first time, but doing it yourself may be cheaper if you can do it right.

“Inflation on everything has gone up crazy, and with that came the labor rates that went up,” he said.

Customers are excited to get to work on their spring and summertime projects.

“They’re loving it, they couldn’t wait for this to happen,” he said. “Everybody loves warmer weather.”

Mr. Pandolfo said the Climate Prediction Center forecasts for April, May, and June that the north country is favored for above normal precipitation and above normal temperatures.

In the immediate future, temperatures are going to drop next week and snow will be mixing in Monday night into early Tuesday morning, according to Mr. Pandolfo.

He is predicting the snow will be in the Tug Hill and the Western Adirondacks with some chance of snow in the Southern Tier.

“We could see a few more flakes there Monday night into Tuesday,” he said.

Snow could potentially mix back in with some rain on Tuesday night into Wednesday, Mr. Pandolfo predicts.