January Turned Out Quiet And Dry In Vermont, A Break From Recent Chaotic Weather

The tone of January in northern Vermont: Snowy 
mountains, but not much in the valleys. 

We just got through a Vermont January and to sum up the weather for the month, I guess we can describe the month as, honestly, a little boring. 

Vermont weather during January frankly lacked personality. It didn't bring any exciting tales to tell in terms of storms. The month didn't wow us with temperature extremes.  If January, 2025 was a person, they would not be the type you'd want to invite to a wild party.  

We can't complain, though. Exciting usually means damaging and disruptive and chaotic when it comes to weather. 

Vermont has had more than our share of that kind of thing in recent months, so it was kind of a nice break to experience a rather colorless January. 

January temperatures statewide averaged out to be right near normal.  Of course this is the "new normal" as "average" is based on the past 30 years of weather. Climate change had already made things around here warmer over those three decades, so "normal" is toastier than it was a couple generations ago. 

A chilly mid-January sunset near Fairfield, Vermont.
This was a relatively rare day in which the sun
was out for a good part of it. 

Had this same month occurred, say in the 1960s or 1970s, we'd be remarking about how mild January was. 

The dull nature of the January, 2025 becomes more apparent when you dive deeper into the temperature data for the month. 

Across the state, average high temperatures for the month were a little colder than what is considered normal these days. Overnight lows for the month were a little on the mild side. 

That at least partly reflects the grey feel we had in January. It was usually cloudy, so that held daytime temperatures down while keeping nighttime temperatures up.

Despite all the clouds, it didn't really snow or rain much. Except for the northern Green Mountains, the entire state had a very dry January.  Most place had less than  half their normal installment of January rain and melted snow. 

It was driest in northern Vermont in towns west and east of the Green Mountains, where less than an inch of precipitation came down. The 0.75 inches of precipitation in Burlington tied with 1933 as the 13th driest January on record since the late 1880s, when reliable records started. 

After another cloudy day, late afternoon sun breaks
through to light up the trees if not the 
clouds in St. Albans, Vermont on January 15. 

Snowfall was below normal too, except for a small area in the northern Green Mountains. Generally speaking, most places in valley locations were about a half foot on the light side. 

Seasonal snowfall is seriously lagging especially in the Lower Connecticut and Champlain Valleys. Burlington should have had 46.6 inches of snow so far this season, instead only 31,2 inches had appeared through January 31. 

FEBRUARY

We've gotten ourselves into a highly variable weather pattern with lots of temperature swings, as I mentioned in an earlier post,  It's usually almost impossible to anticipate what the weather will be like for an entire upcoming month. February, 2025 is even more uncertain than usual.

For those of you who are not dark winter fans, on average, we're on the upswing. On average, the third week of January is the coldest of the year.. February begins a gradual upswing.

First of all, on Friday we had our first post 5 p.m. sunset of the year, at least as observed in Burlington. By February 28, the sun will set at 5:39 p.m. 

The average temperature does not go up much from January during February, but at least there's some improvement. Today's normal high and low temperature in Burlington are 29 and 12 degrees.  By February 28, the normal high and low are 35 and 18