Vermont weather geek's hodgepodge of weather and climate news and opinion. Often Vermont focused, but taking a national and global approach, with sometimes an appropriate dash of fun, outrage, cynicism and compassion.
A severe, rotating storm over St. Albans, Vermont on August 10. Despite frequent, sometimes severe thunderstorms, August rainfall in Vermont was mostly below average.
Vermont overall had a pleasantly warm, dry August, though that was interrupted by several bouts of severe weather.
Burlington, which is arguably the main weather reporting station for Vermont decided to buck the statewide trend a little.
In Burlington, the average temperature for August was 70.4 degrees, or just 0.3 degrees below the modern average.
Remember, the current normal August temperature is the average from the years 1990 to 2020, when climate change had already begun to change our world.
By 20th century standards, Burlington's average temperature was on the warm side. It was the 29th warmest out of the past 136 years. The average high and low temperature for the month were both within a few tenths of a degree of the "new" normal,
Elsewhere in Vermont, August turned out to be on the warm side, but not extremely so. Montpelier, St. Johnsbury and Woodstock were between 1.4 and 1.8 degrees on the warm side. Rutland was 0.6 degrees on the warm side. Like Burlington, Bennington was just a tiny bit on the cool side, averaging just 0.2 degrees on the cool side.
Burlington was also the exception to a generally dry Vermont August. Burlington had 3.99 inches of rain during the month, which was just under a half inch above normal. It was near the middle of the pack as it was the 51st wettest month out of the past 144 years in Burlington.
Much of Burlington's rain came in a little over an hour on August 8 when a strong thunderstorm dumped 1.2 inches of rain. Much of Vermont had little or no rain that day. A few other areas had light to moderate amounts, except for a narrow section of the Champlain that got nailed.
That storm was on of several in Vermont that caused some damage. The August 8 stormcaused damaging wind and hail in a small area around South Hero, Milton and Colchester.
Another storm on August 10 mainly affected Franklin County. Rotation in the storm prompted a tornado warning, but no twisters are known to have touched down. However, strong straight line winds caused extensive damage, especially on Maquam Shore in Swanton and in St. Albans.
On August 12, a severe storm hit southern Chittenden County, knocking down four large trees in St. George. Another large tree fell and blocked Route 116 near the South Burlington/St. George line.
The next day, a severe storm dumped ping-pong sized hailstones in Fair Haven, and knocked down several trees along Route 30 in Castleton. Another storm in North Troy, in northeastern Vermont.
METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER
Meteorological summer runs from June 1 through August 31. That time period is what climatologists consider as summer. It makes the bookkeeping easy.
As measured in Burlington, meteorological summer was the 11th hottest summer out of the past 128 years.
All but three of Burlington's hottest summers have happened since 2005. (The other three were in 1901, 1949 and 1995).
Burlington had the 12.73 inches of rain during meteorological summer. That's a little less than an inch above normal.
Since summers have in generally been getting warmer amid climate change, this turned out to be the 30th wettest summer out of the past 128 years.
LOOKING AHEAD
No matter what happens, you'll know very soon that summer is over. The average temperature falls rapidly in September. In Burlington, we normally have a high of 78 degrees and a low of 58 degrees. By September 30, the normal high and low is 66/47.
I guarantee somewhere in Vermont during September, there will be frost. It's even possible in the banana belt Champlain Valley. September freezes were once fairly common in Burlington. But, it hasn't been 32 degrees there in September since 2014.
Hand it to the National Weather Service, whether radar this morning is exactly what was forecast.
Weather radar this morning showed areas of rain moving northwest to southeast across central and southern Vermont The light blue shading on the northern edge is just clouds and very light rain evaporating before it hits the ground.. Heavier, more drenching rain is forecast to arrive Wednesday night.
Areas of rain, most of it light but some of it moderate, to almost heavy, were racing northwest to southeast across southern and central Vermont this morning.
Northern Vermont was missing out. Clouds were thick and threatening in northwest Vermont, close to the rain band, but thinner up in the Northeast Kingdom..
That state of affairs will continue to day, though the rain in southern Vermont will tend to taper off as the afternoon goes on
North of Route 2, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some sunshine breaks out this afternoon.
A stalled weather front to our south and west is responsible for today's rainy weather.
Total rainfall through tonight looks like they'll amount to a quarter to a half inch in the southern half of Vermont with very little north.
Scattered showers overnight tonight might deposit a paltry few hundredths of an inch of rain north of Route 2. Too bad, as the Northeast Kingdom needs the rain more than other parts of the state.
Under the rain and clouds, highs in southern and central Vermont will only get into autumnal highs in the 60s. Northern Vermont, outside the rain, could make it into the 70s.
Our sole chance of soaking rains will come later Wednesday through the pre-dawn Thursday.
WEDNESDAY
We need the rain, and it's still looking like we'll get a decent dose of rain Wednesday night.
We'll likely get through the day Wednesday without much of rain. It'll be cloudy and vaguely humid, but any showers should be light and few and far between. Highs should get into the 70s, with some mid and upper 60s under areas with thicker clouds, especially east of the Green Mountains.
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A stronger area of low pressure will push that stalled front toward us. The system will fire up severe thunderstormsfrom western New York southeastward to New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware.
Up here in Vermont, thunderstorms should weaken and fade away before reaching us, but we do have a shot at some fairly heavy downpours. The rain will reach us in the evening and continue overnight.
Over all, the National Weather Service expects a nice three quarters to an inch of rain for most spots, with over an inch in some areas of the Green Mountains. Unfortunately the far corners of the Northeast Kingdom might receive as little as a half inch of rain.
The rain will be steady enough, without too many short, sharp bursts of torrential downpours, that flooding looks pretty unlikely
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
The storm system will amble on to the east, but not in any kind of hurry. This will keep cool-ish, sort of moist north winds blowing. That could set off some scattered showers, especially Thursday as a secondary weak cold front drifts through Vermont.
This rain will not be heavy, and it will be scattered. Northern mountains have the best shot at seeing the showers.
Day by day, the showers will become lighter and more scattered so that by Sunday, there shield be few if any sprinkles left over.
Daytime temperature should be pretty comfortable through the period as highs should reach the 70s, with some upper 60s on cooler, northern areas, especially the Northeast Kingdom.
SUNDAY AND BEYOND
We'd better hope the above forecast for a soaking rain comes true, as we look to be in for a fairly long period of dry to mostly dry weather.
Once we get into September, we often see big, dry high pressure systems hang out nearby. The next chance of rain looks like it will be just scattered showers ahead of a cold front early Tuesday.
A storm system riding along that front could bring heavier rain to the south. This is a long way off, so there's always a chance that storm could come closer to us than forecast, and give us some rain. But we'll wait to worry about that in a few days.
Countless logs and debris floats in a tributary of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon after a severe flash flood. At least two people died, and 15 are missing. More flash floods are underway today.
A massive flash flood blasted through a canyon in Grand Canyon National Park canyon flood.
The National Park Service said it recovered the body of a 46-year old manfrom the Crystal Rapids along the Colorado River. About 15 people are still unaccounted for. The flooding was concentrated along Bright Angel Creek, a tributary of the Colorado River.
As of early Sunday 62 people had been evacuated from Phantom Ranch and the lower North Kaibab Trail. Additional evacuations are expected.
In one area, park rangers ordered people to run as fast as they could across a foot bridge to safety. Moments later, the bridge collapsed.
Phantom Ranch is a lodge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, on the east side of Bright Angel Creek, a little over a half mile north of the Creek's confluence with the Colorado River.
Footbridges along Bright Angel Creek were destroyed. Theflash flood also destroyedpart of the Transcanyon Waterline, which supplies water for the park's use.
Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground, Phantom Ranch Canteen, North Kaibab Trail, the Black and Silver bridges and traffic to the Colorado River are closed until further notice.
Overnight accommodations at the park have been suspended for now, and water restrictions go into effect today.
Video showed muddy, debris-filled water rushing through the canyon. Pieces of buildings and/or RVs floated in the water.
WHY THE FLOOD HAPPENED
Flash floods often occur this time of year in and around the Grand Canyon, but this was far worse than the usual episodes of high water.
Near where the worst of the flooding occurred, 1.24 inches of rain fell, including 0.84 inches within an hour.
That might sound like much to those of us in the humid East, but the steep landscape of rocks and sand does not readily absorb water. Downpours tend to run off into flash floods.
The Southwest is in the middle of its annual monsoon season, when moisture from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico are drawn into the deserts by the circulation created by an atmospheric heat dome of high pressure near the region.
This year's monsoon iswetter for several reasons.Underlying it all is climate change. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water, especially under the right conditions. So monsoon rains have been in general getting heavier over the years.
In Arizona, monsoon rainfall isbecoming more intense even as daily average rainfall in the state has decreased. In other words Arizona is having fewer rainy days, but when it does rain it more often comes in torrents leading to flash floods.
It's worse this yearbecause a record breaking El Nino is heating up the eastern Pacific Ocean waters to record heights. A separate "marine heat wave" is making Pacific waters hot further north. The combination is adding a lot of humidity to the Desert Southwest air, creating more an overload of atmospheric moisture.
Moisture from the remnants of Tropical Storm Iselle were also drawn into the volatile atmospheric mix over Arizona.
Deluges have been the result.
MORE FLOODS?
It'll be just as bad today, if not worse in some areas.
Today, we have a risk of flash floodsacross all of Arizona, almost all of Utah, the western half of Colorado and western New Mexico.
The risk of dangerous flash floodsis especially high in northern Arizona, including Grand Canyon National Park and in southern and central Utah.
By late morning local time, flash warnings were up in parts of Utah. The storms will intensify during this afternoon, so the flooding will surely become more widespread.
The flood risk will diminish tomorrow and the day after - for now.
Computer models suggest a dying tropical storm early next will send extreme amounts of moisture into southern California, Arizona and Nevada. Big time severe flood could result if this scenario proves accurate.
The spent blossoms of hostas glistened in the morning sun this morning in St. Albans, Vermont. Rain chances ramp up this week, but questions remain as to how much we'll see..
The signs of autumn continue to sneak in.
Clouds on Sunday in northern Vermont were a little thicker than expected and that held temperatures down into the 60s.
Burlington's high temperature was 69 degrees, ending an 83-day long stretch in which every single day had a high temperature of at least 70 degrees.
That's the third longest such stretch on record. Only the summers of 1995 and 1901 had a longer such streak. (It was 87 such days in 1995, so we were very close. Had it been one degree warmer yesterday, Burlington probably would have broken the record, based on current forecasts.
Also, as of this morning, Burlington has had 88 consecutive days in which the low temperature was 50 or above. That's one of the longest on record, but it will be a stretch to what I think was the record - 106 such days in 2023.
Rainfall yesterday, as expected was pretty light. Two bursts of rain here in St. Albans, one at around 1 p.m. and another around 8:30 in the evening, left us with 0.38 inches of rain. Some rain fell in the Northeast Kingdom, where precipitation is really needed, but that was no drought buster. Burlington only managed 0.02 inches of rain.
Southern Vermont, as expected, pretty much missed out on any rain.
Enough of the past, let's look ahead. Rain is eventually in the forecast, but I do worry the Northeast Kingdom might miss out on some of it.
TODAY
The front that came through last night is now stalled to our south and west
It's going to create a lot of trouble from western New York to New Jersey over the next few days, but not so much here in Vermont.
We had a lot of dense morning fog this morning, but it was burning off pretty quickly as I wrote this around 9 a.m. today. It'll be a nice one, though high clouds will start to filter in this afternoon, especially south and west of Interstate 89. With low humidity and highs in the 70s, we shouldn't be bummed if the sun dims a bit this afternoon.
TUESDAY
A weird one. Southwest Vermont looks like it will barely escape the risk of super heavy rains and severe thunderstorms. Meanwhile, Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, which really needs the rain, will miss out.
A nasty little weather disturbance will ride southeastward along that stalled front I talked about above. That disturbance will hurl batches of torrential rain and severe thunderstorms from western New York to the New Jersey and maybe southern New England.
Southwest Vermont will be on the fringe of this. Places like Bennington could get a good half inch or more of rain out of this. More if the disturbance comes a little closer. Amounts will taper off as you had north and east such that the Northeast Kingdom will probably see no rain.
Central Vermont will see just light showers. Highs will be in the 70s, with maybe some upper 60s south under the thicker clouds and rain
WEDNESDAY
Things start to get a litle more interesting here. A storm system will come at us, pushing that stalled front at us as it does so.
All this will push some heavier rain through Vermont, especially in the afternoon and evening, as it looks now. We're still lacking details on how heavy the rain will be, where any thunderstorms might set up, and whether they will be any flooding risk
For now, things look pretty tame in Vermont. Maybe not so tame a little south of here, but that's their problem.
Parts of southern Vermont could easily see two inches of rain out of this system, so that will be the area to really keep an eye on. A broad band centered on Route 4 would see more than an inch. The rest of the state would get a half inch to an inch. Decent, but not boffo.
As always, I expect these totals will be adjusted up or down a bit before we get to Wednesday.
Severe thunderstorms looks like they'll stay to our south, probably south of a Rochester, New York to NYC line. The Mid-Atlantic states are in for it, as they could see severe weather and flash floods daily Tuesday through Friday.
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
The storm will be to our east by then, but sort of linger, aide by a pool of cool air overhead. That keeps the risk of clouds and showers going. The showers will be light, and large parts of the day will be dry. Thursday has the highest risk of showers. Friday looks like it will have long dry periods in between scattered showers, and Saturday looks like the showers will be few and far between.
Again, this is a peek a few days into the future, so expect adjustments.
Overall. this is a hopeful week to at least temporarily stall a potentially building drought in Vermont. Extended forecasts beyond Saturday suggest a week or two of below normal precipitation, so that would be a bummer.
But, at least things aren't shaping up to be nearly as bad as last year's drought.
The tragic aftermath of the epic Nepal flood last week. We're not 100 percent sure yet whether climate change was a contributing factor to this calamity. However scientists say a warming world increases the odds something like this will happen again in Nepal, or anywhere else with tall mountains and glaciers.
You've probably seen those horrific images by now of that impossibly enormous flash flood that blasted down a Nepalese river valley this week.
The news on the aftermath keeps getting more and more tragic and horrifying.
As of early Sunday, the death toll from the wild flood stood at 794, according to the BBC. Another 2,502 people are missing.
The flood occurred on the Nepal-Tibet border, but many foreigners were in the disaster zone. India reports 320 missing people. China has nearly 100 nationals missing. Ninety people from the United States are also missing. So are dozens of people from Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia, the UK and other countries.
There were some bright spots of survival. A school headmaster made a snap decision to evacuate 900 studentsin the building after hearing reports something was wrong upstream. He also got word to another 800 students who were on the way to school to stay uphill and away from the school.
All the students ran up a hill and survived. The headmaster said that had he waited another 10 minutes, himself and all the students would have died. He could have made another decision. The school was a fair distance above the river and normally would not have been threatened by floods. This time was different.
The Nepalese calamity was shocking, beyond tragic, and scary as hell. And something like this could happen again as climate change warms the planet and thaws ice and permafrost on tall mountains around the world.
WHAT HAPPENED
We don't yet know whether climate change had a hand in causing the tragedy in Nepal. It could have been a freak occurrence. More research on the disaster needs to be completed before we can draw firm conclusions. A full understanding of what happened will take months.
"High-resolution images taken by satellite monitoring company Planet Labs show the site of the apparent landslide high in the Himalayas, close to the Nepal-China border." (Editor's note: China claims Tibet, but Tibetan exiles dispute that. The China in that quote is actually Tibet). ....."In the 'before' image a glacier can be seen looming some 4,000 feet above a narrow valley, emptying into the meandering Lhende River.
Afterward, the glacier appears smaller by about 2 million square feet - equal to the area of about 25 professional soccer fields. The valley is strewn with ice and mud. And the river is swollen beyond its banks, submerging the surrounding vegetation beneath murky brown floodwater."
When the glacier and rocks collapsed into the valley, seismographs detected it. At first geologist thought there had been an earthquake measuring 5.2 on he Richter scale, but the vibrations detected were the actual glacial collapse,not an earthquake.
Friction of the rocks and avalanche debris as it fell 1200 meters (nearly 4,000 feet) melted some of the ice. By the time the whole thing reached the valley it was a slurry, like wet cement. The New York Times was able toobtain and verify a videoof huge chunks of ice falling from the Langtang Lirung mountain and crashing to the valley floor below.
The debris briefly blocked the river on the valley floor and water piled up behind all those rocks and ice. But this wasn't a classic glacial lake outburst.
Those outbursts are caused by meltwater trapped behind glacial ice. It finally breaks through, and a rush of water flows downstream.
This was much worse. Water behind that enormous pile of unstable debris finally collapsed it, and the huge volume of slurry raced downstream. As it roared downstream, the mass of water and debris absorbed more trees, rocks and other debris, making the onrushing tidal wave larger and more powerful.
Nobody in the valley below knew what was about to hit them. It hadn't rained much in the days prior to the huge flood. It was rather sunny and nice that day. For many, the first warning was the roar of the onrushing debris, mud and water. It was too late to escape.
CLIMATE CHANGE?
As I mentioned above, we don't yet know if climate change had anything to do with the calamity in Nepal.
However, those rising temperatures across the globe thaws permafrost in high cold mountains. That permafrost is sometimes the "glue" that holds rock and ice together atop steep mountain slopes. Melt the permafrost and everything falls apart.
Scientists are saying that fact makes disasters like this one more likely in the coming years. Not only in Himalayan mountains, but any high mountain range in the world with glaciers clinging to their upper slopes.
As the Washington Post notes, we have seen several glacial collapse disasters in recent years, either through the actual collapse or the floods they often cause. Glacial collapses buried a village in Switzerland in May, 2025.
Investigators want more information on exactly what happened in that Himalayan mountain valley. And in the rocks and glacier above.
The fear is this type of thing will happen more frequently. "Glaciers are going to shrink and melt. Permafrost....will be warming and weakening and degrading over time. You'll get landslides and debris flows.....You take all that together and you can say climate change is going to have a destabilizing effect on these high mountain regions,"said Simon Cook, a University of Dundee glaciologist, who is part of a team reviewing satellite images that show where the disaster began.
The planet's tectonics might have worked in concert with climate change to cause the calamity.
The glacier involved in the disaster is way up high on a Himalayan mountain called Langtang Lirung, with an elevation of 23,734 feet. At least right now.
Langtang Lirung, like the rest of the Himalayas are slowly rising due to the collision of tectonic platesdating back tens of millions of years. The Himalayan mountains continue to grow in elevation at roughly the rate of 0.3 inches per year. Over millennia, that's thousands of feet.
Glaciers have been on these mountains for millennia, too. As the mountains grow taller, they ever so slowly get steeper. Over thousands of years, the steep slopes become too much for the glaciers, and pieces of them break off.
Now, with the permafrost melting, making the rocks and the ice become more and more unglued, the chances of those steep slope glacier collapses happening prematurely have increased exponentially.
Early warning systems in the region where this disaster happened weren't great. Let's hope governments upgrade these systems in Nepal, and near other risky mountains, including some in the United States.
Videos:
The giant, sudden flood overwhelms and destroys a hydroelectric dam that was under construction. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
This one has been all over social media, but it's still incredible dramatic and scary. A family is trapped on the upper floors of a house amid the raging torrent of the Nepal flood. Somehow the house remained standing and the family survived.Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.
This is a good video with several clips that give you an idea of the breadth and power of the extreme Nepal deluge. Click on this link to view,or if you see the image below, click on that.
One video, taken from one location, shows how quickly the disaster escalated and how fast it engulfed surprisingly large areas, including some that at first you would have thought were safely above flood level. Click on this link to view,or if you see the image below, click on that:
Somewhat ominous skies greeted early risers over St. Albans, Vermont this morning. If forecasts are correct. we could have a week of badly needed off and on rain over the next several days.
We got through another gorgeous Saturday in Vermont, with our blue skies and a few puffy clouds in the skies. I savored the gorgeous end of August weather.
The signs of autumn keep hitting though. This time of year, some of the leaves on the trees are looking tired and ragged after a long summer of insects, wind, dry spells and hot days.
Also, with a high temperature of 77 degrees and a low of 50, the average temperature in Burlington Saturday was 63.5 making it coolest day since June 7.
As nice as Saturday was, we could use the rain and the National Weather Service is offering hope for a potentially wet week across Vermont.
The NWS office in South Burlington has at least a chance of showers each day today through next Saturday, except maybe tomorrow.
It's unclear how much rain we'll actually get. We could use a lot of rain, and we might get that. Then again, at least parts of Vermont might not get all that much. It all depends on the path of several weather disturbances this week zipping northwest to southeast across New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.
Current forecasts give a half inch to an inch of rain today through Wednesday morning across most of the Green Mountain State, with more coming after that. NOAA has Vermont receiving one to two inches of rain over the next seven days.
Those predictions often shift dramatically, so we can't guarantee we'll actually get that much rain.
If this forecast plays out, it could blunt a developing drought in northern Vermont and give a much needed rain in southern Vermont, which is still drought-free, for now.
Let's get into the detailed forecast like we do almost every day.
TODAY
A few showers have already skittered across northern Vermont this morning and more is on the way. I don't think today will be as decent a day as first thought especially in northern Vermont. There's a chance of showers almost everywhere in Vermont. Showers and maybe a rumble or two of thunder are more likely in northern Vermont.
The forecast for today has become a little more dismal because moisture in the atmosphere all the way from the Pacific Ocean has made it to an area just south of an approaching cold front in Quebec. Highs today will reach the 70s.
Not everybody in the north will get wet, but many areas will. The showers will taper off after sunset as the cold front slips quietly south through Vermont.
MONDAY
The front should sag south and west of Vermont and oriented in a northwest to southeast orientation. The front should still be far enough south and west so that we should be out of the rain. The sun should come out, especially in central and northern Vermont. We should see highs in the 70s again.
TUESDAY/WEDNESDAY
The front to out south and west will mark the battle line between coolish air in Quebec and horribly humid and very warm air in the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic States. The cool-ish air should win out here in Vermont, though it won't exactly be cold. Daily highs should be in the 70s, close to normal for this time of year.
The front will slowly approach Vermont. Nobody is really sure how fast it will come at us. Meanwhile, disturbances will ride northwest to southeast along the front, carrying batches of rain on the north side of the front, and thunderstorms to the south.
The position of the front will dictate where and when it rains in Vermont and how much. It's too soon to pick out exactly how this will play out. However, so far at least, it looks like the front will stay near or southwest of Vermont.
That means potential severe thunderstorms should stay mostly in the Ohio Valley and in the Mid-Atlantic states.
THURSDAY AND BEYOND
Another front from the west should begin to sweep everything to the east. As it does so, we'll probably keep up with the rain and showers.
I'm not sure how fast this thing will clear Vermont, so showers could continue Friday and maybe into Saturday.
It turns out two tornadoes hit in and around Wilton, a community between Saratoga and Glens Falls, New York, less than 30 mies from the Vermont border.
The main tornado was a high-end EF-1, with top winds of 110 mph, According to a report from the National Weather Service office in Albans. An EF-2 twister has winds of 111 to 135 mph.
I'm impressed that the tornado caused no deaths or injuries, especially since it went through a residential area and crossed the busy Northway, otherwise known as Interstate 87.
A second, weaker tornado touched down nearby. The brief tornado touched down near Ganesvoort, New York. It had top winds of 85 mph, and was only on the ground for less than a quarter mile.
Trees crashed through the roofs of some homes. Streets were littered with trees, and cleanup crews spent the day trying to remove the debris.
The thunderstorm that produced the tornadoes eventually moved into Bennington County, Vermont. However, by the time it reached the Green Mountain State, the storm had weakened. I didn't find any reports of damage in southwest Vermont.
