Drenching Vermont Rains Blunted A Building Dry Spell

A rainy September Thursday in downtown St. Albans,
Vermont. Drenching rains ended a dry spell in
the Green Mountain State that lasted more than two weeks. 

 The rainstorm that swept Vermont Wednesday and especially Thursday will go a long way toward blunting conditions that were threatening to get too dry. 

The latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, released Thursday, put the southern third to half of Vermont in the "abnormally dry' category, a precursor to drought.  Soil moistures were still regarded as adequate in northern and central Vermont. 

Drought was physically on our doorstep, too. A stripe of central New Hampshire all the way to the Connecticut River was declared in "moderate" drought.

The rain this week ended a 16-day dry spell for most of the Green Mountain State. 

All of Vermont saw rain but unfortunately for southern Vermont, the heaviest of it fell mostly in the north. Pretty much all of the state saw at least an inch of rain, except much of the southernmost two counties. 

The most rain reported by far was in Johnson, with 3.7 inches. The downpours might have made some residents of the flood prone town nervous, but they were in absolutely no danger. The Lamoille River in Johnson rose from a very low two feet deep or so to a harmless 4.5 feet. That, by the way is more than nine feet below minor flood stage. 

Elsewhere, Worcester has 2.28 inches and Jericho reported 2.26.  Burlington totaled out at 1.81 inches. Here in St. Albans, I had a solid 1.1 inches of new rain, 

The rain this week in Vermont caused a few problems, mostly on the roads. People have apparently forgotten how to drive on the roads, so there were a few slide offs and accidents. Two separate crashes briefly closed sections of Interstate 89 near Colchester and a little south of St. Albans on Thursday. 

Looking ahead, there's not much rain in the forecast for several days, so I'm glad the landscape had a chance to drink up on Thursday.   The next chance of rain is probably on Tuesday night or Wednesday. Early guesses is we could get a meh total of about a half inch of rain around then. 

The remnants of deadly Hurricane Helene are still expected to have no effect on us here in Vermont .

It'll stay on the warm side through Tuesday. It will cool off thereafter, but I still so far don't see  any signs of widespread frost, which we can easily get this time of year.