July In Vermont: In "New Normal" Era, We Were Close To Average. But It Was Hot

Flowers in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens enjoy 
some humid late evening sunshine on a July evening

If you take into account the "new normal" we are under with climate change, the July that just ended could not have been more "average." 

In Burlington, the mean temperature was 73.3 degrees, just 0.9 degrees above what is now considered normal. 

 The National Weather Service updates what is "normal" once per decade. They take the average every year for the past 30 years and call that normal.

This year, each month is compared to all the months from 1990 to 2020.  Since those three decades were warmer than previous ones, the "normal" is warmer, too. 

For some context, even though Burlington was less than a degree above this normal, we still just barely missed out on scoring in the top ten list of hottest Julys. Number 10 had an average temperature of 73.5 degrees.

Also, had this July occurred around 1980 instead of 2022, it would have been considered 3.7 degrees hotter than average.  

In the rest of Vermont, as in Burlington, this July wasn't too far off the new normal in most places. Montpelier's records show this July was 2.4 degrees hotter than average there. St. Johnsbury said July, 2022 was only 0.4 degrees on the warm side. Bennington was 1.6 degrees above average in July.

Rainfall in July was near to somewhat below normal, depending upon where you were in the Green Mountain State.

Burlington logged 4.04 inches of rain, which is right at average. Technically 0.02 inches on the light side, but really, spot on. If the month seemed dry, it was because a lot of the rain fell in very short bursts. 

An odd cloud structure over Interstate 89 in Georgia, 
Vermont on July 23. The second half of the month
featured several rounds of storms, some severe
in the state. 

Half of Burlington's rainfall for the month fell in less than five hours, contained in brief but intense downpours on July 19 and 28.  

Rainfall in St. Johnsbury and Rutland was also pretty close to average. Other towns missed out on some of the downpours. Montpelier had 3.4 inches of rain in July, nearly an inch on the light side. Bennington was more than an inch and a half short on rain, with just three inches for the month against a normal of 4.65 inches.

The character of July weather in Vermont had two phases. The first half of the month was on the cool side, continuing the trend from June in which Vermont was pleasantly comfortable while most of the rest of the nation simmered in torrid conditions. 

The second half of the month turned decidedly hotter, though the full force of the heat waves still managed to avoid us. Burlington did endure six consecutive days in the 90s from the 19th to the 24th, ,and that was one of the city's longest heat waves on record.

Still, everyone in Vermont maxed out in the low 90s in July, which falls well short of the kind of all time record highs large swaths of the northern hemisphere have seen this summer. 

The hotter, more humid weather in the second half of the month created conditions favorable for severe storms. 

The oddball weather event of the month came on July 18 when a seemingly innocuous shower with no lightning got some real spin to it, and dropped two separate tornadoes on Addison County. Both were captured on film. 

The first twister, in Addison County, was an EF-1 with top winds of 90 mph. It damaged a carport, the deck on a home and numerous trees. The second, a weak brief EF-0 with top winds of 70 mph touched down in Waltham and caused little damage.

The Northeast Kingdom seemed to be ground zero for Vermont severe weather in July, with several days of damage reports. The worst of it came on July 21 when a rotating storm that carried a tornado warning swept through.

No tornado touched down, but high winds damaged lots of trees and power lines. Hail that in some cases was a little bigger than golf balls dinged cars and roofs. 

As we move into August,  it looks like the first half of the month will mostly have the same weather pattern we had in the second half of July. That means that intense heat lurking well to our west will send brief squirts of hot air our way. But before it gets too hot, weak cold fronts will usher the worst of it away.

If that comes to pass, we will have a warm, but not record hot early August. As always, there's no telling what the second half of the month will bring. But by then, we will be headed toward fall, and chances are you'll see a cooling trend as fair season arrives.