Forecasters Change Their Tune: Maybe A Decent Vermont Weather Weekend For Once?

High clouds coming from the south Friday morning
battle dry air coming from the north over St. Albans,
Vermont. Also notice there's much less wildfire haze
in the sky. It looks like the dry air will mostly but
not completely win this weekend, giving Vermont
the rare treat of a decent if not perfect weather weekend.

Could it be?

Meteorologists have backed way off on the gloomy, damp projections they had for this Saturday and their accompanying "meh" forecast for Sunday.  

Not they're calling for something that is now rare in Vermont. A fairly decent weather weekend. 

It won't be perfect, mind you. A little rain could easily show up on Saturday, at least in parts of the state will be rather cloudy on Saturday. And skies won't necessarily be crystal clear on Sunday.

Plus, it'll be noticeably on the cool side for mid-June.  So it won't be a spectacular beach weekend. But a comfortable one for other outdoor activities, which is nice. 

On top of that, you'll be able to breathe some relatively fresh air for a change. The wildfire smoke that's been giving us lots of haze and bad visibility and rather unhealthy air to breathe will be greatly diminished. If not almost gone entirely. 

The streak of 25 consecutive weekends with precipitation, at least in Burlington, might actually end Saturday and Sunday.

There is a 50/50 shot at some light rain Saturday morning in the Champlain Valley, which would keep the streak going.  

THE DETAILS:

Just as meteorologists have been saying for days now, a west-to-east, nearly stalled weather front should drape itself from the Midwest to the somewhere around the mid-Atlantic States this weekend. 

At first, it was thought moisture streaming up and over that front would give us a chilly, rainy Saturday. But that moisture, at least up here in Vermont, appears as if it will be sputtering. And that moisture will be battling dry air that will insist on coming south from Quebec over the weekend. 

The result will only be some light showers. And most of those light showers would come through tonight and the first half of Saturday.  

As has been the case recently, the weather up north will be better than conditions in southern Vermont. 

Whatever rain falls should be light everywhere. But it would range from maybe just a few raindrops up by the Canadian border to perhaps as much as 0.2 inches down around Bennington and Brattleboro.

The showers should tend to dry up everywhere in Vermont Saturday afternoon, but more so in the north. Clouds will linger south, but some sun should break through north. Which means it will actually be a bit warmer the further north you go.

Parts of southern Vermont should only make it into the low 60s for highs. Low elevations north of Route 2 could reach the low 70s.  Normal highs this time of year are in the mid to upper 70s.

Sunday

Sunday should have some sun, some clouds, and reach the low 70s, so again, not bad! There is a low chance of a scattered light shower here and there, but most of us will stay dry. 

Looking ahead to next week, it looks like day by day it will slowly turn warmer and more humid. Every day holds a chance of showers, but skies should be rain-free most of the time.  We'll have to keep a careful eye Wednesday and Thursday.

By then, it will be quite warm and quite humid, which could set the stage for some risk of hefty thunderstorms Wednesday and especially Thursday. We don't know whether that will happen just yet. That would depend upon the timing of weak weather fronts, sunshine and wind direction through the atmosphere around Thursday. 

But at the very least, expect to give your air conditioner a bit of a workout toward the middle and end of next week.