Better Hurry Up If You Want To Enjoy Vermont Foliage

Dark clouds, sunshine and foliage combine Sunday afternoon
not far from Bakersfield, Vermont. The gusty shower
that arrive knocked down some of the leaves, a harbinger
of a storm with much more wind and rain expected in
Vermont Wednesday night through Thursday night. 

 Everybody knows the foliage season here in Vermont is fleeting. One day, the view out your window is spectacular, the next, it's stick season.  

Especially if you get a lot of wind and rain. 

It's beginning to look like weather later this week will doom foliage season in large swaths of Vermont, especially in the higher elevations, and the northern half of Vermont.  

If you want to get your leaf peeping in, do it by Wednesday.

Already, leaves are primed to fall. As I was driving through very pretty areas around Bakersfield and Fairfield late Sunday afternoon, I encountered a somewhat gusty shower. The gusts weren't particularly strong in that shower, perhaps 20 to 25 mph, but that was enough to set off a blizzard of falling leaves.

Also, the mid and high elevations that I could see were starting to look a little threadbare in terms of foliage.  All this was a sign that stick season will arrive sooner than many of us want. But it happens every year, I know. 

In the short term, we'll have pretty nice weather for leaf peeping during the first half of the week, and there should be still plenty of leaves to peep at. 

 Today will be cool, with maybe some showers here and there, mostly south of Route 2 and mostly in the morning. Some high elevations could get a tiny bit of snow, so there's a little chance of spotting some snoliage this morning. 

Tuesday, after a rather frosty and foggy early morning,  looks fantastic, and Wednesday looks pretty darn good, too. But you'll see signs of trouble for the foliage season by Wednesday afternoon. It'll be nice and warm, but you'll notice a good south wind picking up.  That should tear some of the leaves off the trees. 

But that's only a start.  Wednesday's breezes will be a harbinger of a rather windy and rainy storm.  This style of storm becomes extremely typical starting about now and lasting through November or early December. 

In these storms, a strong high pressure system moves off the east coast. A strong cold front develops over the Great Lakes and begins to head east. We get caught between these two systems. The result is a usually brief spell of strong, warm winds from the south. 

Which is precisely what's in the forecast later this week. 

Fall foliage glows in a patch of sun on a distant ridge during a 
rain shower Sunday afternoon in Fairfield, Vermont. 

These cold front usually picks up a lot of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. When it gets close, then passes through, the strong winds continue, but heavy downpours are mixed in.  Then, behind the front, gusty, cold northwest winds come in.

In this case, early indications are many of us will see wind gusts at or even above 40 mph as the front approaches. Rainfall in many parts of Vermont will probably exceed an inch.

That's typical for this type of storm, but its definitely a recipe for blowing leaves off trees,   We should experience this Wednesday night through Friday morning. 

Of course, all is not lost.  The foliage hasn't hit peak yet in the Champlain Valley and in the valleys of southern Vermont.  We should lose leaves with this storm in these places, too, but there's enough left in reserve so that foliage should be spectacular in these "banana belt" locations even after this upcoming storm. 

As always, the forecast will go through adjustments between now and the second half of the week, so it might not play out exactly as I outlined above. I'll keep you posted with updates. 

After the late week storm passes, early indications are the weather in Vermont will remain somewhat active, but not super extreme, which is a good thing.