Vermonters Should Do Their Emergency Frost Harvest Today. Drought To Worsen, Too

We here in Vermont are on the cusp of the nastiest September cold wave since at least 2014, and for most of us, the gardening season ends this weekend. 

Look out for repeated frosts and freezes in
Vermont in the next few days, especially
early Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Frost is possible tonight and early Friday morning, then quite likely Saturday and Sunday mornings.  

For many of us, this frost and freeze is coming a good two weeks ahead of normal.  It's too bad, because after a hot summer, some gardens are still giving us produce. That will end. 

I suggest grabbing as much stuff from the gardens as you can today. You can also try covering up your gardens and flowers, but even that might not be enough. It's quite a nasty, long lasting cold wave.

You wouldn't think we're in for any frost trouble if you were outside early this morning. It's kind of mild out there  However, the strong cold front is coming through this morning and early afternoon.  

You also wouldn't think this cold front is heralding much of anything.  It'll come through with virtually no fanfare. Just a few scattered sprinkles and a wind shift.

But the high pressure system coming in is huge, cold and dry. It's coming in from Canada, and it is much stronger than the kind of high pressure areas that usually come in this time of year.  High temperatures this weekend will only be in the 50s for most of us, which is about 15 degrees chillier than normal. Which means temperatures won't have far to go at night to reach frost and freeze levels. 

On top of that, the air with this thing is very dry.  This kind of air is much better at losing whatever heat it has to outer space at night than humid air would.  You'll notice temperatures plunging at sunset each day this weekend.  

It hasn't rained lately, either. The air cools faster at night when the ground is dry, as compared to during cool spells after heavy rains. Couple this with calm winds at night, and this is a perfect recipe for frosts and freezes.  

Even worse, this cold high pressure system is moving slowly, which gives us frosty mornings on at least two consecutive mornings. Some areas will have frost on four consecutive mornings, Friday morning through Monday morning. 

The only places that will probably escape frosts are areas right near Lake Champlain and maybe urban areas, like downtown Burlington. 

On the bright side, this air from Canada should sweep away most of the smoke that's been overhead for the past few days.  That smoke was from all those fires out west, and rode the jet stream to blot out the blue sky all the way to New England and beyond. 

DRY WEATHER

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor came out today and it shows somewhat worsening conditions here in Vermont. Virtually the entire state was either in drought or at least abnormally dry as September began. It basically hasn't rained yet this month. 

In the Connecticut River valley in northeastern Vermont, the drought has worsened from "moderate" to "severe" in the past week.

Hazy skies over South Burlington, Vermont
on Wednesday due to smoke aloft from
western U.S. forest fires.  The upcoming
cold wave will sweep away some of the haze,
but Vermont has its own, more minor
forest fire risk now

For instance, Burlington has had only 0.22 inches of rain so far this month. We should have had about 1.8 inches by this point in September. 

Aside from today's sprinkles, no rain is in the forecast for at least a week. We'll have that cold, dry spell this weekend, then that high pressure system will stall nearly overhead for the first half of next week. 

It'll warm up, but the rain will stay away.  Another cold front could arrive in a week, but that one looks like it will be mostly dry like the one we're having today. 

I'm beginning to worry we could start to see a few brush and forest fires erupt in Vermont, especially now that dry leaves are starting to fall and the weeds are drying out too.  

We won't have anything nearly as bad as the cataclysmic fires in the western United States.  We've had many wildfires over the years in the Green Mountain State, but nothing extremely widespread since before 1920.

Still, be careful with outdoor burning,  you could set a fire. That'll be the state of affairs until we get some decent rains.