Cloudy Autumn: Vermont Is Not The Place To Be For Sunshine

The sun finally broke through in Shelburne, Vermont,
leading to this dramatic scene of bright sunlight
and dark clouds. 

On paper, it looked like Vermont would finally break out into the sun this past weekend. A strong high pressure system was moving in. That meant sinking air that would finally eat up the clouds to yield blue skies.  

But this is Vermont. In November. You are really hard pressed to see sunshine this time of year. 

Many weather forecasts were optimistic. Some sun was supposed to break out Saturday afternoon. It would clear up Saturday night and Sunday would be a very bright, albeit chilly day.

Cue the game show "Wrong Answer" buzzer.

As is so often the case in November and December, the clouds won. A relatively thin layer of moisture got caught a few thousand feet overhead.  If we had a steeper sun angle, some of the sun's heat would have gotten through, causing some updrafts that would  have broken up the clouds. 

But the sun is feeble this time of year. We're only five weeks out from the winter solstice, after all.  The high pressure system was pretty much overhead, meaning there was no wind in the atmosphere to effectively push the overcast out. 

The clouds hung tough, leaving many meteorologists with egg on their faces. And our sunglasses sitting uselessly in the center console of our vehicles. 

It's very hard to get sunshine this time of year anyway. The storm track is active, so one disturbance after the other come through with their batches of clouds. The Great Lakes and most of the lakes in southern Canada haven't frozen yet.  Cold air flowing across them creates a lot of clouds over New England and southeastern Canada that are hard to disperse. 

Further north in St. Albans, Vermont, the sun didn't break 
through until right at sunset.

Some areas in southern Vermont did manage to have a partly sunny weekend. 

And the clouds broke up in parts of the Champlain Valley Sunday afternoon, leading to dramatic scenes of bright sunshine agains dark clouds to the east and north. 

It cleared out overnight statewide except of the Northeast Kingdom.  That lead to a calm, clear night that brought the lowest temperatures of the season. 

Many places were in the teens at dawn. Except in the Northeast Kingdom, where the clouds kept temperatures in many places up there in the 20s to near 30.

NEXT UP: MORE CLOUDS. AND SNOW! 

You'll see some sun for awhile after dawn today but don't get used to it. The next small storm is coming through with a batch of snow and rain showers. Those should move in this afternoon and linger off and on overnight and into Tuesday morning. 

It'll be light, but by the time you get up in the morning, even most valleys should see a dusting of new snow on the ground. A couple inches could pile up at ski area elevations, with four or five inches possible at the summits.

The little storm will be departing Tuesday, but we won't see any clearing to speak of. Again, November. 

Warmer south wind will bring temperatures up to at least normal, or even a little above average for the second half of the week. Enough wind in the atmosphere could also bring in breaks of sun, which would be a nice change of pace.

Another, milder system will bring mostly rain showers to our area Friday night, followed by what looks to me to be another overcast weekend coming up. 

It's been a really cloudy autumn anyway.  All but the first week of October was unusually cloudy. WCAX-TV meteorologists crunched the November numbers so far and determined the sky over Burlington was 82 percent cloud covered for the first 10 days of this month. 

 Last year was much, much sunnier. It included a record breaking, sunny heat wave that left us with just 38 percent cloud cover for the opening ten days of November.

Those of you with solar panels on your roofs have surely had a disappointing autumn.  Let's hope for a brighter winter.