Dramatic Forecast Shift Could Spell Some Labor Day Drought Relief

Expected rainfall over the next several days. Some
areas in the purple could get two or more inches 
of rain, at least according to current forecasts.

The bad news is that weather in New England on Monday, Labor Day, will not be nearly as nice as earlier forecasts indicated.  

The good news is, if these new forecasts hold, some of us will see some real drought relief.

A cold front that will slowly sink through northern New England tomorrow, ,then stall in southern New England, is the culprit or hero behind this new forecast. 

Forecasts from earlier in the week had suggested the front would stall further south and not have all that much moisture to work with. 

The big caveat here is there's still a chance of a forecast bust. Things might not come together perfectly for a heavy rainer. But it's getting more likely. 

At this point, it looks like the heaviest rain might focus on the two southernmost counties of Vermont, along with most of central and southern New England and the Hudson Valley of New York between Glens Falls and the Westchester County suburbs just north of New York City. 

Here's the scenario, as the National Weather Service currently thinks: 

The slow cold front will crawl southward through Vermont Sunday. This will cause quite a contrast in weather across the Green Mountain State. Up in the central and northern Champlain Valley, it'll only get into the 60s for highs with mostly cloudy skies and a low chance of showers. 

As  you head south and east, the weather will transition to a summer day across southern Vermont with partly cloudy skies and highs in the low to mid 80s. 

Then the front stalls and moisture starts to move along it. 

Areas in yellow, orange and especially red
badly need rain. Image from U.S. 
Drought Monitor 

At this point, the thinking is there will be another big contrast across Vermont with the rain Monday, Monday night and into Tuesday. Up on the Canadian border, they'll get practically no rain. Under this scenario, they'd be lucky to receive a tenth of an inch of precipitation.

Amounts go up rapidly as you head south, so that Bennington and Windham counties end up with one to as much as three inches of rain out of this. 

Even two or three inches of rain won't be enough to totally erase drought conditions, but it would help.  North of Route 2, the amount of rain would be so little that it would not resolve the too-dry conditions out there.

Unless.

There's still a chance that a disturbance coming in from the northwest could pull the deep moisture with the stalled front further north. On the other hand, that disturbance could squash the rain further south than expected.

We still have a lot of moving parts here, so expect more changes in the forecast. But at least we have some hope, at least in some areas, that a nice soaking is in the offing.