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| Frost on an otherwise very dry garden bed in St. Albans, Vermont Thursday morning. Lots of sunshine this month is exacerbating fire risk in the state. |
Really dry today and much of the weekend, it turns out.
Along with the increasingly dangerous lack of rain, November so far has been remarkably sunny here in Vermont. This is normally just about the cloudiest time of year, and we usually endure day after day of overcast skies in November.
Not this year. Most if not all days this month featured at least a little sun. Some days have been mostly sunny. Wednesday was crystal clear in Vermont and the rest of New England and today should be mostly that way. '
Usually we regard November sunshine as an unexpected gift. This year, it's a bit of a curse.
There's so much blue sky right now because there's a remarkably dry air mass over us right now. A few high clouds will probably enter the picture today, but that high level moisture won't do anything to help us out down there.
It's about the driest it can be at this time of year. The dry and getting drier ground isn't helping. There's not much evaporation from the ground into the air, and that's denying even more moisture from entering.
So the drought continues. Later this morning, the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor comes out, and I'm almost sure it will show worsening conditions in Vermont and the rest of New England. I'll try to post an update on that later today.
Today's ultra dry air is bad, of course, because that just makes the fire danger that much worse. Those brush fires spread and thrive much more readily if the air is super dry, rather than on the humid side.
The Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation rates today's fire danger across the state as "high," except "very high" in the valleys of southern Vermont. I've never seen a November in which there's been such a consistent fire danger in the state. In many years, snow cover this time of year precludes any wildfires.
At least it won't be that windy today, with maybe a 5 to 10 mph wind, so it will be hard for fires to spread rapidly.
The fire danger is even worse in southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic States, where they've had even less rain than Vermont over the past month and a half.
Breezes should pick up Friday and Saturday, and the air will remain dry, dry, dry. It won't be super windy, but those breezes with gusts in the 20 to 25 mph will help winds spread fires faster. Tomorrow will bring a worse fire risk than today.
The outlook for rain or snow is pretty grim. Nothing is in the forecast through Sunday. Forecasts call for a weak system Monday which might give us a few sprinkles, if that.
Another system is due maybe Thursday or Friday, but that one looks awfully wimpy, too - at least in terms of precipitation.
WARMISH BUT NOT LONGER SUPER WARM
Long range forecasts also hint at a likely continuation of warmer than normal temperatures on most days in Vermont over the next two weeks.
But the days of that summer-like warmth we had earlier in the month appear over for good. At least until next spring.
Instead, the outlook is for sort of mild weather for this time of year. That means we'll have many days over the next week or more that get well into the 40s or low 50s, and a fair number of nights might not get below freezing.
It seemed cold Wednesday and this morning, but it wasn't anything unusual for mid-November. The high temperature in Burlington Wednesday was 40 degrees. This time of year, we can easily get sub-freezing daily high temperatures.
It was in the teens to low 20s this morning. Again, vaguely chilly for mid-November but no great shakes. It's been know to get into the single digits this time of year in the Champlain Valley and even a little below zero in the coldest hollows.
I'm also seeing some uncertain hints of winter weather - meaning subfreezing temperatures a possibly a little snow, arrive in the Green Mountain State for the last week of November.
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