Time To Declare Autumn In Vermont; But That Doesn't Mean Cold

Some fall color starting to appear in the trees near
my house in St. Albans, Vermont this morning. 

 Around this time every year, I arbitrarily declare a change of season.  We transition from full on summer to fall.

Looks like we've done it. 

Starting Thursday, the air in Vermont turned cooler and drier and breezy.  The house was actually cool in the morning. 

Driving around, you see the first hints of autumn color popping up pretty rapidly here and there. Backyard gardens are still producing, but they look tired. 

The onset of autumn varies year to year. Sometimes it's as early as mid to late August, but that hasn't happened as much in recent years. Climate change is making summers longer. 

Sometimes 90 degree heat and humidity linger into the first or even second week of September, postponing what feels like the normal, let's go to the apple orchard and bring your fleece type of autumn feel. 

This year, it seems autumn came right on schedule, just as the calendar turned to September.

Again, this is my arbitrary mental turning of the calendar and doesn't mean much meteorologically. But everybody has their own mental seasonal calendar, and occasionally it's fun to stop and consider how your mind and body are adjusting to a new season. 

That isn't to say we're done with warm weather. Or humid weather.  The next few days, for instance, will be a little warmer, though it will fall well short of hot. And there's hints that we could get a spell of quite warm, humid weather mid-month, we'll see about that. 

We're not even done with thunderstorm season.  Some storms might roll through Monday and again Wednesday. Depending upon the timing of the weather fronts that will prompt them, a few storms might even be strong. 

At least we're in for a spell of benign weather.  Maybe not locally, but the weather has been far too exciting and deadly in much of the nation lately. We could use some boredom. 

There's not even any immediate hurricane threat for a change.  There's a major hurricane named Larry way out in the Atlantic Ocean. It could threaten Bermuda and possibly, eventually Newfoundland of all places, but not the United States. 

Something might stir up in the Gulf of Mexico next week, so we'll have to keep our eyes on that.  And more wannabe hurricanes will splash westward off the African Coast in the coming couple of weeks that will have to be watched.

Meanwhile, here in Vermont, we'll quietly watch the leaves turn to their big autumn show. It's early enough in the season so there's no frost risk quite yet.  Though that's coming soon enough. We'll be talking about that later in the month, I'm sure. 

And just think. Within two months, I'll be telling you more and more frequently about snow! Aren't you excited?