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| Northern Vermont (orange shading) is now officially in drought. Yellow areas are designated as "abnormally dry." |
Surprise, surprise.
The drought zone covers 20 percent of the state and is centered on the northern Green Mountains. All except southeastern Vermont is regarded as "abnormally dry" by the Drought Monitor.
So far, the only parts of New England experiencing a drought are northern Vermont and northern Maine. Much of the rest of the region is abnormally dry, though.
Northern Maine has received some good rains in the past few days, which would help moisten things up for them.
The drought designation in Vermont does not take into account rain that fell Wednesday and Thursday. The rather small amount of rain that did come down probably didn't have much of an effect, if any on those drought conditions.
Video of the welcome rains at the bottom of this post. A happy garden for sure.
Most places only got between a tenth and a quarter inch of rain on Wednesday. Similar amounts came down Thursday. (The National Weather Service office in South Burlington got a lucky hit from a brief downpour, and came in with 0.40 inches of rain for a total so far this week of a mediocre 0.70 inches of precipitation).
In general, when you're in moderate drought, trees and landscaping are stressed. (Don't I know it!). Also hay yields are down and there's a somewhat increased risk of forest or brush fires. Honey production can also decline.
There is hope for more rain, but I'm not holding my breath as we have been cheated before.
The stalled pool of chilly air aloft will continue to produce scattered showers this afternoon and to a lesser extent on Saturday. These showers shouldn't amount to much, though one or two towns could get a brief downpour, which would be nice.
Current forecasts have a wetter storm arriving early next week that could produce up to an inch of rain. That's the prediction now. There's still plenty of time for things to get screwed up so we don't have that soaking. But at least it's something to hang your hat on.
Longer range forecasts are mixed as to whether we'll see decent rains or not heading into late June and July. In other words, I have no idea yet whether the Vermont drought will expand and/or get worse, or whether this is just a temporary arid blip.
Video:
It wasn't much rain, but for the first time in 13 days, it rained Tuesday on my property in St. Albans, Vermont (We got a little additional rain Wednesday and Thursday, too). Video of the welcome gusts of wind that brought that rain. Garden was dancing with joy. Click one this link to view the video if you don't see the image below, or if you do, click on that:
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