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| Smoke from Canadian wildfires reduces visibility in South Hero, Vermont, June 25. The month was characterized by frequent episodes of smoke from those fires. |
Much like May, June 2023 was pretty close to normal, at least on paper. But we pretty much experienced weirdness again. Basically a normal month that was anything but.
Compared to what is considered normal now (the average from 1991 to 2020), pretty much everybody in Vermont experienced an average monthly temperature in June within one degree of that "normal." Burlington clocked in with an average temperature of 67.2 degrees, just 0.3 degrees cooler than this new "normal."
With the exception of the Connecticut River Valley, and other spotty places in Vermont that got socked with repeated heavy showers, most of us had close to normal rainfall, too. Burlington and Rutland were less than a half inch on the dry side, while Bennington and St. Johnsbury were just slightly wet.
I always like to look at what I consider a proxy for the 20th century average temperature, since this new "normal" from 1991 to 2020 is warmer, influenced by climate change.
Had we experienced the June we just had, in say, 1980, it would at the time have been solidly warmer than average, by about 2.4 degrees.
Both May and June in Burlington this year were marginally cooler than the "new" normal, but were warmer than average by 20th century standards. The last time we had a month, at least in Burlington, that was colder than the 20th century average was way back in January, 2022.
This June turned out much cloudier than our remarkably sunny May, and that's reflected in the average high and low temperatures.
In May, highs were generally warmer than average and nights were mostly cooler than average. Sunny days heat up nicely when the sun's out in late spring and early summer. But nights cool right down when it's clear, especially when the humidity is low l
In contrast to May, the clouds of June, 2023 kept daytime highs a little cooler than normal and lows mostly a little warmer than average.
We can't talk about June, 2023 without mentioning smoke. Lots of it.
Wildfires raged all month across most of Canada. They're still burning like crazy as I write this. The smoke really made headlines on June 6-8 as smoke from Quebec made air quality horrendous across the major cities of the East Coast.
The smoke was thick in Vermont, too, but not as bad as in the eastern Great Lakes, and down through New York and Washington.
Northern Vermont suffered through a really bad smoke attack on June 25 that made the air downright dangerous, but that one avoided southern parts of the state.
More smoke arrived to close out the month and start a new one. As I write this early in the morning of July 1, the air quality in Vermont is unhealthy due to the smoke. I counted at least 15 days in June with smoke either visible aloft or screwing up air quality down here where we live and breathe.
June in Vermont also opened with what appeared to be a flash drought coming on. A flash drought is one that develops in weeks, as opposed to months like most droughts. However, decent rains from mid-month on stopped the incipient drought in its tracks.
Believe it or not, we still haven't entirely overcome the dryness that developed in May in early June, but conditions are improving.
On the first day of the month, dry record heat brought the temperature to 96 degrees in Burlington, the hottest for so early in the season. By the last week of June, repeated downpours raised fears of flash flooding, though no serious damage materialized in Vermont.
As July opens, it's more of the same. Expect humidity, smoke and frequent showers and storms through at least the first week of this new month.
Storms, a few possibly strong, could develop, especially to the northwest later this afternoon. Heavy downpours could create local flash flood issues this evening, tomorrow, and possibly Monday, though no widespread problems seem likely at this point.
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