November In Vermont Was Remarkably Well Behaved; One Of Warmest Autumns

This photo taken November 22 in St. Albans, Vermont is
emblematic of the weather the Green Mountain State
had during November - nothing wild going on, things
 pretty close to normal for the season.

 In a year in which weather and climate extremes have dominated the headlines throughout the world, here in little old Vermont, November was incredibly mellow.  

Now that it's December 1, the November data is in. It shows temperatures and precipitation in November were near normal, and there never were any really extreme days or weather events during the month. 

In Burlington, the average temperature came out to 37.9 degrees.  That's 1.4 degrees cooler than normal.

But remember, that's the new "normal."  Every ten years, "normal" is adjusted by taking the average of the previous 30 years.

Under the "normal" that was in effect for a decade through last year, this November would have been 0.9 degrees warmer than average.  To make all this simple,  we'll just say November, 2021 temperatures were pretty much what we'd expect for the month.

It never got wildly warm or cold, either. The hottest it's ever been in any November in Burlington is 75 degrees and the coldest is 3 below. We never came close to either extreme last month.

The temperature never exceeded 61 or got under 13 degrees. Only three days during the month were more than ten degrees warmer or cooler than average. Things stayed awfully steady. 

Rainfall (and melted snow) in Burlington came to 3.17 inches, which was a little under a half inch wetter than normal. Snowfall was four inches, just a little shy of normal.

Elsewhere in Vermont, Montpelier's average temperature for the month was 35.1 degrees, or just 0.7 degrees on the warm side. Montpelier was about a quarter inch on the dry side with rainfall. They managed to pile up 2.56 inches of rain and melted snow for the month. 

St. Johnsbury was similarly "boring."  At 36 degrees, the average temperature was a little over half a degree on the cool side. The 2.68 inches of precipitation was about a third of an inch on the dry side.

November in Vermont is traditionally a stormy, windy month and we really didn't have much of that, either. I counted only four days during the month where winds gusted over 30 mph in Burlington.

The only weather event of note was the wet snow on November 26 which caused a fair number of power outages and tree damage, especially in Rutland and Windsor counties. 

Meteorological autumn goes from September 1 through November 30.  It's a handy, dandy way for climatologists and weather geeks to compare seasons and spot trends. 

In Burlington, meteorological autumn this year was the fifth warmest on record, with a mean temperature of 52.7.  Speaking of trends, six of the top ten warmest autumns on record in Burlington have occurred since 2011. Records there go back to the 1880s. The warmest autumn, by the way, was 2017 with a mean temperature of 53.9 degrees.

The warm fall was spread far and wide. Buffalo, New York reported its warmest meteorological autumn, and Boston had its third warmest 

Looking ahead into the start of dark December, it looks like we'll go into the month with an active weather pattern.  The first week of the month will feature quick hitting and not particularly strong storms, kind of like we saw during November.

With all the bad weather news we've seen across the world, boring weather is a blessing. Enjoy it!