Believe It Or Not, Vermont Still In A Drought

I already had to irrigate my St. Albans, Vermont gardens in
May, as a drought took hold last spring and continues to this
day. I usually don't have to water until the middle of summer.
It is nice to see a springtime photo this time of year, though.

There's snow on the ground everywhere in Vermont. 

While precipitation hasn't been overwhelming, it's been snowing pretty much every day this month somewhere in Vermont all month.  

The snow cover isn't especially deep, but we know some of it will go to good use to recharge and renew the ground water when it melts in the spring. So everything is hunky-dunky, right?

Well, no.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, as of Thursday, 91 percent of Vermont was either in moderate drought or abnormally dry. 

Only far southern Vermont was listed as OK this week.  A huge mid-December snowstorm, followed by heavy Christmas Day rains pretty much wiped out the drought there. Those storms largely missed the rest of Vermont.

As of Thursday pretty much all of Vermont east of the Green Mountains from about Bellows Falls north was in moderate drought. Also all of Vermont north of Route 15 except the Champlain Valley was also in moderate drought. This moderate drought encompasses just under half of Vermont.

That's actually worse than a week earlier, when a little more than a third of Vermont was in moderate drought. We just haven't had much precipitation lately. Appearances are deceiving. It snowed almost every day in the past week. But that snow in Burlington in the seven days ending Wednesday amounted to just a tenth of an inch of water. 

Luckily, moderate drought doesn't have as bad an impact in the winter as it would in the summer. There's no crops to stunt. Wildfires aren't going to have much of a chance with snow on the ground. 

Most of Vermont is still in moderate drought (orange) or
at least abnormally dry (yellow) 

Even so, its' possible some people will have trouble with water supplies, at least if they're water supply comes form a well instead of a municipal water line 

Much of New England was in a serious drought during the summer and fall.  Much worse than in Vermont.  Last year, the Green Mountain State was less affected than places like New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts. 

Starting in December, a series of very wet storms hit eastern New England, largely erasing the drought there. Those same storms pretty much just brushed past Vermont. So now, we're the driest place in New England. 

One year ago, no place in Vermont was dry.  That changed over the course of 2020. 

For instance, starting in February, 2020, Burlington has built up a precipitation deficit of right around six inches.  From March 2020 onward, every month except August was drier than normal in Burlington.  

If the drought persists, or if precipitation gets even lighter, there could be real trouble come spring. However, there's plenty of time for us to get nailed by more snowstorms, and soaking spring rain and snowstorms. 

February, March and April can be notoriously stormy in Vermont, so we could make up or precipitation deficit in those months. 

Long range forecast outlooks into mid-February call for wetter than normal conditions in Vermont. But those long range outlooks can be unreliable. Plus, a little extra snow or rain in early February is not enough to make up for the lack of precipitation over the past year. 

The storms need to keep coming into the spring. Don't complain if you have to shovel your driveway repeatedly in February and March. Or if rain interrupts your early season gardening in April and May. 

We need it.