So Far Warm Nights Reign Supreme This Year

Home sweet home. Suns sets over my St. Albans, 
Vermont home during yet another very 
balmy September evening.

 We're back in a trend that seems to be the theme of this year in Vermont so far: Warm nights, relatively speaking.  

By now, we usually start talking about frost in the cold spots around Vermont, but there's no hint of that in the forecast.

In Vermont's banana belt around Burlington, the "coldest" night so far this month was 56 degrees at a time of year that it often gets well down into the 40s.  (Tonight will get down to around 50, so closer).

The last time it was under 50 degrees in Burlington was June 23.

Meanwhile, afternoon highs so far this month have mostly been a little on the cool side, so that overall temperatures so far this month are near normal. That's the newly introduced "new normal," which is warmer than it used to be due to climate change. 

This month is echoing July, which was a tad cooler than average in Vermont under the "new normal."  But nights were a little warmer than average that month. Cloudiness kept afternoon highs depressed during most of July, leading to the relatively "cool" month.

 The trend over recent years with climate change is that nights are warming faster than days. So in general, it's harder to get cold nights. 

Harder, but not impossible. The weather pattern could always flip.   It is of course still possible we could get early frosts this month.  Looking further ahead, there's always a chance that we could have a spell of record low temperatures  But the chances of warm nights, and also record highs during the days are greater than the chances of record lows these days. 

Eight or nine months in one location doesn't prove or disprove much of anything with climate change, but the stats this year from Burlington are kind of telling. We've had seven record highs so far this year but no record lows. 

Record highs far outpacing record lows in the United States
in recent years. Click on the image to make it bigger and
easier to read.

Nationally, record highs are far outpacing record lows at reporting stations.  So far more than 20,000 record highs have been set this year, twice the number of record lows. This despite an incredible February cold snap that brought contributed about 4,000 record lows to the tally. 

Last year had a similar ratio of record highs to record lows.

I didn't keep track of record warm low temperatures this year but there were a few remarkable overnights and mornings. At dawn on Christmas Day last year it was in the low 60s, at a time of year and day when it should have been in the low teens. 

There were a couple mornings in March that were in the 50s, and a few overnights in May that stayed in the upper 60s. And as mentioned previously, we endured 11 nights in August that failed to get under 70 degrees.

These warm nights do have implications in our daily lives. Some of them are benefits.  Warm winter nights help with our fuel bills.  Warmer nights generally extend the growing season, though that can be unreliable. One cold night can screw things up royally, even if most evenings are balmy.

Warmer nights can shorten the ice fishing season and make it less safe.  And it can cut the number of hours Vermont ski areas can make snow to replenish slopes after thaws.

We can't say precisely in the coming weeks or months to what extent this warm night trend will continue. But over the next week at least, there's a good possibility that Burlington will continue to stay continuously above 50 degrees. There might even be a night or two in there that feels vaguely muggy, though the worst of summer's heat is certainly gone.

If this keeps up though, you can continue comfortably having dinner out on the deck well into the autumn.