Wet Vermont September Eased Drought, But Was Gloomy

The sun briefly breaks through dark rain clouds over St.
Albans, Vermont on September 22.  This September
was among the wettest on record.

 If you had the feeling that Vermont's September this year was sodden as hell, you're right. 

Everyone in the state had a decidedly wetter than normal September. Burlington logged 6.46 inches of rain, making it the fourth wettest September on record.  

Interestingly, this September was the wettest on record in Burlington that did not have a tropical storm contribute to the total. The top three wettest Septembers were wet in part due to torrential tropical storms.

The wettest September, with a whopping 10.26 inches of rain, was in 1999. That was the year Tropical Storm Floyd swept across Vermont. The second wettest September, 1945, (8.18 inches) featured a hurricane that hit Florida, as a Category 4 storm, the roared up the East Coast and through New England as a dying tropical storm.  

The third wettest September, 1938, (6.87) featured the Great New England Hurricane, which was the worst hurricane in New England (and Vermont!) history.  

No tropical storms for us this year. Even as we begin October, the remnants of Hurricane Ian will only cause high cloudiness and perhaps a sprinkle near the Massachusetts border.

September was consistently wet across Vermont. Most reporting stations  had about six inches of rain, except in pockets of southern Vermont, where only four or five inches fell. That's still above normal.

Vermont entered September with widespread dryness and large areas in the state in drought. September rains definitely helped.   

A very wet September, 2022 in Vermont made it a 
hospitable month for mushrooms, like this one that
popped up on my St. Albans, Vermont lawn in 
mid-September.

Only two percent of Vermont - the southeast corner -  is now in drought. Half the state, believe it or not, is still "abnormally dry" according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.  

The reason is ground water has not fully recovered in parts of central and southern Vermont. At the start of the month, virtually all of the state was abnormally dry or in drought.   

Though rainfall was definitely out of the ordinary, temperatures in September weren't.

 Pretty much everyone came in within about a  half a degree of what is regarded as normal these days.  Burlington was the most out of whack, but even there, the average for the month came in at only 0.7 degrees below normal.  That's not much of a departure from normal at all. 

Remember, this is the "new normal" brought on by climate change.  Several decades ago, this September would have been regarded as definitely on the warm side. Back in the 1970s, the mean temperature for this September in Burlington would have been about four degrees above what was then the average.

Still, this September was a break from recent ones. Four of the top five hottest Septembers in Burlington have all happened since 2015. Not this year, though. 

Looking ahead to October, long range forecasts seem to be leaning toward generally colder and drier than normal weather at least through mid-month. Do note that long range forecasts can be unreliable. For instance, long range forecasts issued in August suggested this September would be quite warm and on the dry side. Ooops.