After A Gorgeous Fourth Of July Weekend, Some Showers

Well, kind of red, white and blue. A patch of astilbe with
a barely visible small blue flower in the foreground,
enjoyed the mild sunshine in my St. Albans, Vermont
gardens during this Fourth of July weekend

 The nation is facing lots of trouble and our Fourth of July weekend was bittersweet because of it. 

Since this is a weather and climate blog, I have to be a bit trivial in this instance: One saving grace here in Vermont to this Fourth of July weekend was that the weather was absolutely stellar. 

There's no data, of course, on what was the "nicest" Fourth of July holiday. You get figures like coldest, hottest, wettest, but not nicest.

For the record, the hottest Fourth of July in Burlington reached 98 degrees, in 1911. The coldest had a morning low of 40 degrees, back in 1962. The wettest had 1.89 inches of rain, in 2013. The most "violent" probably was in 2012, in which a severe thunderstorm brought gusts to 70 mph to the Champlain Valley and up to 1.5 inches of rain within an hour. 

That said, this one was one of the most pleasant Fourth of Julys, at least in terms of weather, I've seen. We dealt with warm afternoons with low humidity and a breeze. Scattered clouds to add interest to the sky, and provide a few short intervals of shade. Plus cool, comfortable sleeping weather. We had a happy medium with temperatures on July 4 with a high of 80 degrees on Monday and a low of 56, with no rain.

The only rain and humidity we had to deal with all weekend was on Saturday morning as a cold front departed, ushering in the good weather. 

All pleasant things must come to an end, and you'll notice it's cloudy out there today. Some rain will move through, especially this afternoon and evening, but I don't see anything huge coming through. Just more gentle showers

The relatively cool regime in Vermont will hold through at least next weekend. Two high pressure systems from Canada will pass through, with more cool nights and mild days. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington says there could be a couple nights mixed in there with temperatures in the upper 30s in the coldest hollows of the Adirondacks and Northeast Kingdom.