Cool Autumnal Day In Vermont, Then Rapid Weather Changes, But No Huge Extremes

Thunderstorms visible west of St. Albans just after
sunset Sunday. At my house, we had only sprinkles,
but brief downpours hit just a mile to the north.

Changeable weather seems to be the story in Vermont lately.

Sunday was a great example. We started out with early morning rain. Then we had a delightfully sunny and warm day, especially in western Vermont. Then some downpours and thunder rumbled across far northern and southern Vermont in the evening.  

That changeable theme will continue the rest of the week. The switches in the weather might not be as rapid as on Sunday, but it still will be classic "If you don't like the weather in Vermont wait a minute, it will change. "

Let's get into it. 

TODAY

The cold front swept through overnight, and early this morning it was beginning to whoosh in cool, autumnal air. Dawn temperatures across Vermont were still mild, in the 50s to near 60. But gusty northwest winds won't allow readings to rise much, despite a lot of sunshine.

High temperatures for most of Vermont will get into the 60s as the northwest breezes continue.

It was still cloudy early this morning across much of northern Vermont, especially over and east of the Green Mountains. That will eventually clear up. The Northeast Kingdom won't get the sunshine until we get into this afternoon. That will keep high temperatures in some towns up there only in the 50s. 

The winds will die off later this afternoon and this evening. 

That sets us up for what will yet again become the coldest night of year so far. 

TUESDAY

We'll start the day with temperatures in the 38 to 45 degree range. Most of us, anyway. But the cold hollows of the Adirondacks and the Northeast Kingdom could see a frost early Tuesday morning. It'll be a little cooler than Saturday morning, so the cold spots that barely missed out on a frost could get one. 

A frost advisory is in effect for far northern New Hampshire. So far, there's not advisory for any part of Vermont, because the frost isn't expected to be widespread. It's possible an advisory might be issued for the NEK and Adirondacks later today.

South winds will increase, just as they did on Saturday. So the cold morning will quickly transition to a fairly mild afternoon with highs reaching to within a few degrees either side of 70. Clouds will increase, too, but we're not in for any real rain. Maybe some isolated light showers Tuesday night. 

WEDNESDAY

A warmer day. Cloud and isolated showers should break up in the afternoon for sunshine. Highs should get into the 70s to possibly near 80. 

THURSDAY AND BEYOND

The weather is going to quickly switch back and forth late in the week and the weekend. A fast west to east to air flow will fling weather disturbances and bright, sunny high pressure systems. That means we'll go back and forth between showers and sunshine. 

It's so hard to know exactly when the showers will hit and when the sunshine will prevail. It's also hard to say how much rain we'll get with each little disturbance. 

Early guesses are showers will come through Thursday, with sunshine Friday and more showers on Saturday and maybe Sunday.  But that could shift as updates come in.

Frustrating for sure if you have late week plans, but that's the trouble with early autumn. But at least we have no extreme weather coming up. 

No extreme heat, no extreme growing season-ending cold, no fading hurricanes flooding our streams, no wind storms, no severe thunderstorms. We get to enjoy the tranquility of September 

FEMA Continuing To Limp Along, But Backlash Against Trump Ensures It Continues. For Now

FEMA continues to limp along, as courts
stop some cutbacks. Also. politicians,
including MAGA ones, are resisting
cutbacks because of disasters 
in their states. 

After nearly two years of Trump administration efforts to end the Federal Emergency Management Agency, (FEMA) it has survived. 

And it looks like it will survive, in some form, unlike many other agencies that have been slashed or ended by the Trumpsters. 

Other federal agencies were quickly stripped down or eliminated early in the second Trump administration, including the Department of Education Voice of America and USAID. But FEMA keeps rising from its near death. 

Still, to this day, FEMA is still in serious turmoil, despite efforts to kill it.

FEMA was clearly on the chopping block last year. Trump, and his minions repeatedly said for more than the past year. 

Per NPR:

"'I think they're probably win a go-along-to-get-along kind of mode,' said David Richardson, who led FEMA as acting administrator for much of 2025 and has since left the government. 'I don't see there being a whole lot of change.'"

Inside the agency, the vibe has improved. FEMA employees anonymously told NPR that fears of mass layoffs have diminished recently. 

But FEMA itself has also diminished, thanks to the Trump administration.   All those effort to kill the agency has left behind understaffing and delays in getting disaster recovery to survivors, NPR reported.

In a way, it was Republican supporters of Trump who saved FEMA.  Politicians of all stripes want to see disaster aid flow to their districts after a bad storm, so even MAGA Republican congress creatures didn't have the heart to tell a community that they're on their own after a big tornado or flood. 

 MAGA governors of Texas and Florida also blanched at the idea of FEMA shutting down. 

Luckily, the Trumpsters are incompetent.

For one thing, Trump's effort to cut or eliminate FEMA keeps running into a buzzsaw of court rulings. With all his bluster, he often doesn't get anything done because his efforts are illegal. 

Last year, Trump tried to end a big grant program for disaster preparedness died when the courts objected. Temporary workers who were fired earlier this year are suing the agency.  Over the set FEMA started quietly rehiring many of those temporary workers who had been terminated. 

Just last week, a federal judge said the Trump and the Department of Homeland Security attempts to seize control of FEMA, and a imposing a staffing cut that the judge said was "pulled from thin air." Homeland Security oversees FEMA. 

Per Raw Story: 

"The judge found that DHS pushed FEMA to submit a plan cutting its roughly 23,000 employees down to about 11,500 by the end of final year 2026. FEMA supervisors and the agency's own' human capital chief had recommended keeping staff flat or even raising it. (U.S. District Judge Susan ) Illsotn granted partial summary judgment to a coalition of unions and local governments. 

They had accused the Department of Homeland Security of stripping the Federal Emergency Management Agency of authority over its own workforce and ordering slash staffing by half."

The judge said Trump officials pulled the number of supposedly needed layoffs out of thin air They also deleted messages on the Signal app using an auto-delete timers, which the judge concluded that was done to hide evidence from the plaintiffs. 

After word leaked about the plans to eliminate 50 percent of the FEMA work force, the Trump administration backed off on the plans to do so. Largely because of the above-mentioned blowback. 

It's the Trump administration. They're always scheming. We've told you how Trump tends to give disaster declarations to red states while ignoring many disasters in blue states. 

FEMA's rocky road will continue this way as long as Trump is in office. With El Nino going full steam now, I'm sure the nation's already busy weather and climate disaster year will keep getting more intense in the coming months.  

For now, some disaster victims will continue to receive aid. It'll be uneven, bureaucratic, frustrating and too small but the aid will be there. For now. 

FEMA certainly needs reform, but Trump and MAGA aren't the ones to do it. Let's hope the agency outlasts Trump so it can rise from the ashes. 

It's True Autumn In Vermont Now, And You'll Notice It

Raindrops on a flower this morning in St. Albans, 
Vermont. There's a chance of more showers and 
thunderstorms later today, but some places 
might not get any new rain at all

Typically in Vermont, the first week or so of September often still feels like summer. Then, that warmth fades away. 

We pretty much are feeling that this year. Sure, we'll have a few summer-ish days yet. We'll have several more warm days before winter hits, of course. 

Today will be among those warmer days.  This morning, the vaguely humid, wet air still had the distinct aroma of autumn, not summer. 

Yesterday, Vermont was blessed with yet another gorgeous Saturday. Since at least June, Saturdays have tended to be nice. Just the fortunate rhythm of the weather patterns, I guess. 

After a Saturday morning in Burlington that was the coolest since June 3. it was also comfortably warm that afternoon.  But it felt nothing like summer. Just a gorgeous September day. 

Let's look ahead at what's coming. 

TODAY

Most of Vermont had some rain overnight and early this morning. It looks like most places had a third of an inch of rain. A few places received close to a half inch of rain.  It was still raining early today in eastern Vermont, which is great, as it's needed.  

This Vermont rain is the outer edge of much heavier downpours in southern New England. Flash flood warnings were up in Connecticut, and those flooding rains were spreading toward Rhode Island and Massachusetts. 

Today will actually not be a terribly bad weather day. Better than I thought 24 hours ago. Maybe not as rainy or stormy as originally thought. That said, we still have a shower and even a thunderstorm risk. 

Some clearing will arrive this afternoon, which could send us one of two ways as a cold front approaches. 

On one hand, dry and sinking air behind this morning's rain could help squelch showers and thunderstorms that want to develop. On the other hand, the sun could increase the amount of instability in the air. That would encourage some thunderstorms. 

Any showers that do develop will be mostly in the late afternoon and evening. 

The bottom line is, we still have a marginal risk of severe storms today. That means there could be isolated instances of damaging winds or large hail. Most of us will be fine. 

This is also a conditional forecast, meaning we don't know whether the sinking air or the strong sun will win out. We might see no thunderstorms, or quite a few of them, depending on which scenario wins. 

Showers should continue into the evening.

MONDAY

You know those autumn days I mentioned above? Monday will be one of those. It'll be even chillier than it was on Friday. Morning clouds will yield to sunshine. Those clouds might hold tough for much of the day in the Northeast Kingdom.  Despite afternoon sunshine in most of Vermont, temperatures will hold in the 60s. Some colder spots in the Northeast Kingdom could stay in the 50s. 

The cold hollows in Vermont and New York need to worry about frost Monday night. 

TUESDAY

The morning will start cold. Dawn temperatures will be between 38 to 45 degrees, a little colder than it was Saturday morning. Frost will probably glisten on the grass in the coldest hollow of eastern Vermont. That's nothing unusual for this time of year, but it's a reminder that it's September. 

Much like Saturday, south winds will help boost afternoon temperatures into the low 70s. A weak front that will be falling apart over northern New England Tuesday night. That will create clouds. The clouds, and some south winds will hold temperatures in the mid 40s to mid 50s. 

WEDNESDAY AND BEYOND

We've been talking about a fast west to east air flow that makes forecasts challenging. Forecasters think a weather disturbance might come through with some rain later Wednesday and Thursday. But we're not sure if that will actually happen or not. It could go too far south or north of us. 

It'll be on the seasonably warm side, with highs Wednesday through Friday in the 70s and lows in the 50s. But beyond that, it looks like cooler weather will settle in. 

 

September 11 Weather Was Eerily Similar To 25 Years Ago; Coolest Morning This Fall, Heavy Rain To Miss Vermont

On September 11, 2001 Hurricane Erin was moving northward
 500 miles off the East Coast. Had a cold front arrived a 
day later, the hurricane might have hit the East Coast.
And if it did, would it have prevented the terrorist 
attack?  We can only guess. 

The weather on Saturday, September 11, 2026 was eerily similar to that of that tragic day 25 years ago. 

It was gorgeous, sunny, a bit breezy with some of the first hints of autumn coolness in the air. 

I don't mean to trivialize that horrible day a quarter century ago, and please don't take it that way. But although the weather yesterday was almost exactly the same  as September 11, 2001, the weather set up was very different than it was 25 years ago. 

And the weather situation that terrible day brings up some big what ifs.

Let me explain: 

On September 10, 2001 a cold front swept through the northeastern United States. It caused some heavy thunderstorms in New York City.  Artist Monika Bravo took photos of the dramatic skies through windows on the 92nd floor.  These were just about the last photos of a view from inside the iconic twin towers.

That cold front helped shove Hurricane Erin away from the East Coast. It was about 500 miles offshore during the September 11 attacks.  Hurricanes moving northward off the East Coast feature sinking air outside the western flank of the storms. Sinking air causes clear skies. Which is the main reason why New York City had such clear skies that September day. 

It all makes you wonder what would have happened if that cold front came a day later.  If the cold front was late, Hurricane Erin might have gone up the East Coast instead. A New York City hurricane would have been bad, but not nearly as bad as the terrorist attack.  

Would the hurricane have postponed the attack?  Long enough for law enforcement to get wind of the plot and stop it?  We'll never know. 

TODAY

The clear skies here in Vermont and in New York City yesterday had nothing to do with hurricanes. It was just a cool, clear high pressure system moving into the Northeast. 

That brisk high pressure system brought Vermont the coolest air of the season so far. It got down to at least 47 degrees in Burlington early today, ending a 98-day streak with temperatures continuously above 50 degrees. I haven't done a complete review, but it appears to be the second longest such streak on record. The only longer streak I could immediately find was 106 days in 2023

Elsewhere in Vermont, most places had low temperatures this morning in the low 40s. Lyndonville was down to 38 degrees. Perennial cold spot Saranac Lake, New York, got down to 31 degrees. That makes me think that the coldest hollows of the Northeast Kingdom might have had a light frost. Tis the season.

The cold high pressure is moving off to the east now. That'll set up some south winds. Combined with sunshine, that should boost this afternoon's temperatures well into the 70s. Another gorgeous September day.

SUNDAY

Vermont still needs a nice, soaking rain. And it's going to rain Sunday into Monday. But most of us won't have a soaker. 

A small, wet storm is prompting flood alerts in the Mid-Atlantic states today. That wet system will dump heavy rain around New York City and southern New England tonight and early Sunday. The three southern New England states look like they'll get at least an inch or two of rain. 

This will brush far southern Vermont. Places like Bennington and Brattleboro could get at least a half inch of rain out of this. That early morning rain could reach as far as the Canadian border, but up there, it will hardly amount to anything at all. Maybe a tenth of an inch of rain if they're lucky. 

Meanwhile, a cold front will be approaching from the west with its own batch of showers and thunderstorms. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has pretty much all of Vermont in a marginal risk of severe storms. 

Those storms depend on whether skies manage to partly clear in the late morning and afternoon. If it does clear up, a few storms could get a bit strong. If it stays cloudy, it'll just be showers with maybe a rumble of thunder.

Whatever happens, it'll be pretty warm, with highs well into the 70s to near 80s. The showers will continue into Sunday evening. 

Though rainfall will be variable, with maybe a few spots getting a good soaking. But most of us should receive less than a half inch of rain. Many of us should only see a quarter inch of rain.  It's still not too late for the forecast to change, so we'll see.

MONDAY

Another big, brisk high pressure system, almost a carbon copy of Saturdays, will blow in on Monday.  It'll be a sunny, cool, breezy day.  It'll stay  under 70 degrees everywhere except maybe the lower Connecticut River valley. 

TUESDAY

It'll start quite cool, even a little cooler than it was this morning. I wouldn't be surprised if the coldest hollows have some frost, but most of us shouldn't worry, as lows for most of Vermont will range from 38 to 45 degrees. The usual patchy fog will sock in the river valleys. 

The afternoon will warm up into the low 70s.

WEDNESDAY AND BEYOND

We're still looking at the fast air flow across the northern United States. So the forecast gets difficult, as timing fronts and high pressure systems is tricky.  The first front, Tuesday night, looks like something of a nothing burger, with light showers at most. Beyond that, it's a roll of the dice. 

August Was World's Hottest On Record As El Nino Grows; U.S. Had Hottest Summer

The world had its  hottest August on record. Only
tiny areas on the map are blue, which is a little on the 
cool side of normal. All the orange is warmer than
normal. Dark orange is a record hot month. 

New data released this week show that the world endured its August on record, beating out a tie between 2023 and 2024.  

The hot August was a big contributor to what turned out to be the world's hottest summer on record. Global oceans, taken as a whole, were also at record warmth. 

The United States also had its hottest August, and hottest summer on record. 

HOT WORLD

This all comes from NOAA's National Centers for Environment Information. Every month, NCEI is among a handful of meteorological agencies that take detailed temperatures of the world. Copernicus, the European climatological agency, also deemed August, 2026 the hottest on record. 

August, 2026 broke the record for hottest by 0.14 degrees F., according to NOAA's assessment. That doesn't sound like much, but it's a pretty wide margin if you add up all the thousands of weather stations that measure temperatures daily.

If you want a long, depressing trend, I've got one for you. This is the 48th consecutive year the world has seen an August warmer than the 20th century average, The top ten hottest Augusts have all happened since 2016.

The hot August comes from an amalgamation of data from throughout the world. Some were sort of hot, some were very hot, some were record hot, and a very, very few were a little on the chilly side. Taken together, we have confirmation of our record hot global August

Regions that experienced a record hot August included large swaths of Greenland, northern and central Africa, southern and western Europe, northwest Asia and much of the western United States. Reflecting the El Nino conditions, a huge area of the eastern and central tropical Pacific also had record warmth. 

Even in the warmest months, you can find pockets of relatively cool weather. Parts of the Arctic, eastern Russia and Antarctica had an August that was a tad cooler than the 20th century average. But not by much. 

The world had its warmest June-August period on record as well. That's meteorological summer in the northern hemisphere and meteorological winter in the southern hemisphere. The records for all of the above go back 177 years

 UNITED STATES

All of the continental United States had a warm month
North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Indiana were only
slightly warmer than normal. California, Nevada,
Colorado and New Mexico had the hottest August.

August was also the hottest on record in the United States, as was the summer as a whole. The average temperature across all of the Lower 48, if you aggregate all the established weather stations, was 75.6 degrees. Daytime maximums set an all time record to averaging 88.6 degrees across the continental U.S.   

The records go back 132 years

California, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado had their hottest August on record. Seventeen other states had one of their top 10 warmest Augusts.

Nobody in the United States had a cooler than average August North Dakota came closest, having its 58th warmest August on record. 

Here in Vermont, we had our 23rd hottest August, so I guess we escaped the worst of a torrid month. 

It was both stuffy warm nights and torrid afternoons that gave us the hot August. While there were plenty of daily record highs set across the U.S. in August, there wasn't the all-time highs you often see in super warm months. 

August also lacked any real cool spells anywhere in the Lower 48.

Another factor in creating such a hot month were those nights. This happened everywhere in the continental United States. But it was especially noticeable in the lower Great Lakes. That region was along a sort of borderline between especially hot weather to the south, with somewhat more moderate air to the north. 

The cloudy, humid weather in Indiana that cooled afternoons and made nights stuffy gave the state its 44th coolest average maximum temperatures on record. But it also gave Indiana the 28th warmest average minimum temperatures. Add it all up and it was Indiana's 49th hottest August out of the past 132 years.

Indiana was in the epicenter of bad weather in the United States. Indiana and neighborhood Ohio had their wettest August on record. A band extending west to east from Utah to New Jersey, with dry conditions north and south of that band.

Summer and Looking Ahead

Summer in the United States was also the hottest on record. June was warmer than normal. July was the hottest on record in the Lower 48. And, as noted above, August was hottest on record.  The previous record hot summers were a tie between 2021 and 1936

That Dust Bowl summer of 1936 is still regarded by many as the benchmark for hot summers, despite what happened in 2021 and now 2026.

The summer of 1936 certainly had its extreme hot spells, hotter than anything we saw in 2026.  

The summer of 1936 still holds the record for the hottest temperatures on record in eight states. However, it wasn't hot everywhere. The 1936 heat was focused on the Plains States. The Pacific Northwest and New England actually had a cool summer in 1936,.

During August, 2026, the heat wasn't as extreme, but it was far more widespread. There were 1.541 record highs set or tied at weather stations across the Lower 48 compared to kist 87 record low temperatures. That's about as big an imbalance as I've ever seen. 

The summer heat has become a trend this decade in the United States, as climate change worsens. Four of the five hottest summers in the United States have occurred in the past five years, according to NOAA data. 

AUTUMN

 When El Nino takes hold, autumn in the United States are often unusually warm. Especially with climate change holding court. 

The first 10 days of September have featured torrid, often record-breaking hot weather across the southern third of the United States. The rest of the United States have so far mostly lacked the usual cool spells that often spill across the border from Canada we usually see this time of year. 

NOAA predicted a warm September for most of the nation, except in the Pacific Northwest and possibly New England. Overall, autumn is predicted to be warm across most of the Lower 48, especially in the northern Rockies. 

Changeable Vermont Weather Coming Up But Questions On HOW It Will Change

Henry the Weather Dog sploots down
in the shade, resting for a bit while
playing at the dog park yesterday. Henry
expects more sunshine but cooler
weather on his trip to the park today.

We're starting out or Friday with mostly clear skies, except for some lingering clouds near the Canadian border.  

Those clouds should break up a little bit as we go through the day. The blue skies will be dotted by a few pretty clouds much of their day. 

September usually brings big bubbles of high pressure drifting by. Those feature spells of bright, sunny, cool weather, interspersed with cloudy periods. Those are the cold fronts that separate the big bubbles of high pressure.

The problem is teasing out the timing of everything, and that's going to be the problem this week. The cool high pressure systems from Canada will compete with attempts by humid, warmer air making attempts to rain on us. 

Let's parse it out.

TODAY

The easy part of the forecast.  We'll have a gorgeous day. Mostly sunny skies and highs within a few degrees either side of 70. Cool breezes in northern Vermont will perhaps make you want to reach for the fleece jacket or hoodie, if you spend time in the shade.

SATURDAY

Very frequently now, we'll have new "coldest mornings of the year so far."  We have a shot at that around dawn tomorrow. We'll start with temperatures in the 40s, with plenty of low and mid 40s away from Lake Champlain.  A few of the coldest spots in the Northeast Kingdom will probably get into the upper 30s. 

Places near Lake Champlain will probably stay near 50. Dense fog will lace the river valleys. 

During the day, south winds will pick up, boosting temperatures well into the 70s. The winds could get a little gusty on and near Lake Champlain, so it might be a little tricky for boats on the lake. 

In southern Vermont, clouds will begin to increase as a weak but wet storm moves up the Eastern Seaboard. 

SUNDAY

It looks like the weak storm with its relatively heavy rain will pass south of Vermont, passing through southern New England. Clouds will cover Vermont. Meanwhile, a cold front will be coming at us from the west. 

Rain will overspread southern Vermont Saturday night and Sunday morning. There could be a half inch or more of rain in Bennington and Windham counties. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has a marginal risk of severe storms in much of Vermont, suggesting there could be isolated instances of damaging winds. However, with all the clouds around, it's still doubtful we'll see any real thunderstorms. 

The cold front is most likely to produce rain in northern Vermont. In the end, northern and southern Vermont should get at least a decent wetting, and central Vermont might slip through between the two areas of rain and get little. 

This is iffy, so expect changes in the forecast. Bottom line: Not a really nice day, but how that will play out still has question marks. 

MONDAY

Another big bubble of high pressure looks like it will come in with mostly clear, cool weather. Monday will hopefully be a carbon copy of Saturday. We shall see.

TUESDAY AND BEYOND

We'll be near the battleground between those cool, big high pressure systems from Canada, and the lingering hot, humid weather in the southern half of the U.S.  That torrid summer weather is really hanging tough, odd for September, but we should see little if any of it. 

Instead, we'll be prone to periods of rain as weather disturbances ride along the border between the cool autumn air to the north and the hot, humid air to the south. 

I'm not sure, but chances are much of the rain could pass to our south. But, if we get lucky, we could also see at least one soaking rain, which would be nice. No promises there, though 

It's possible the humid air could sneak in briefly, but if it does, it won't last long.  Updates to next week's forecasts will seem constant, and we might not know exactly what kind of weather we'll have until the day before the weather actually hits. 

Drought Spreading In Northern Vermont, Last Night's Rain Should Only Help A Little

This morning's weekly U.S. Drought Monitor shows
drought expanding across northern and eastern Vermont

The latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows drought slowly spreading in northern Vermont. 

Last week, drought covered only 13 percent of the state, up in the Northeast Kingdom. 

That moderate drought has now spread southward through most of Orange County, as far south as around Bradford. It covers almost a quarter of Vermont. It extends to the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains.

The area deemed "abnormally dry," a precursor to drought, also expanded, so that the area that's abnormally dry or in drought covers the northeastern half of Vermont. 

The dry area extends to the western slopes of the Green Mountains in the northern half of the state.

 A tiny corner of far southeastern Vermont is also abnormally dry, as it has since July. Before July a slightly larger portion of far southern parts of the state had that abnormally dry status. 

Last night's rain deposited about a half inch to three quarters of an inch of rain on the dry and drought areas of Vermont. A small handful of places saw as little as a quarter of an inch. 

That rain doesn't count toward the data in this week's Drought Report. Any effects would appear in next week's data. However the rain probably wasn't enough to change the drought all that much. Also, very little rain fell in far southeast Vermont, so the dry conditions there could certainly deepen

Looking ahead, we are going to get some rain, but probably nothing too torrential. At least over the next week. Probably beyond.

It's actually a little hard to know how much rain we will actually see. As noted in my post earlier this morning, the weather pattern over us involves a speedy west to east upper air flow.

Usually, that means that any rain we see comes in short, light amounts. But this weather pattern features very hot, humid air trapped in the southern half of the nation. If a front stalls nearby, we could see some beneficial, heavier rain. So far, that doesn't appear to be in the cards, but you can only help. 

Vermont seems to be on the western edge of a drought that has stubbornly hung on all year, and has recently strengthened. 

For instance, last week, 20 percent of New Hampshire was in drought. This week, it's a little more than half.  Meanwhile, at least 90 percent of Maine is dealing with drought.