Monday Evening Heat Update: Some Impressive Vermont/NY Heat, Humidity Records Already Broken

A person seeks shade beneath one of the sugar maple
trees in Taylor Park in St. Albans, Vermont Monday
afternoon. A time/temperature sign on a nearby
bank building was registering 97 degrees at the time.

 Just a quick Monday evening update on today's impressive heat in the North Country:

As promised, the heat and humidity came blasting in. To some extent, it seemed to over-perform a little bit. 

The most impressive high temperatures I've seen so far was  across the pond at Plattsburgh, where the temperature managed  reach 100 degrees. That's the first time in 50 years the temperature reached the century mark there.

Final figures for today's high temperatures weren't quite in yet, as I wrote this in the late afternoon Monday, hunkered down in my cool basement to get away from the heat. 

 We know that Burlington reached at least 97 degrees, breaking the record high for the date of 96 in 2020. 

Montpelier got to at least 92, breaking the old record high of 90 degrees, St. Johnsbury got to 96, breaking the old record of 93 degrees in 1989. Springfield, Vermont was at 97 degrees.

It was hoped that mixing in the atmosphere would bring down humidity levels temporarily just a little this afternoon. In most places that didn't really happen. Burlington's dew point, a measure of how humid it is, stayed in the mid-70s, which I think is not far from the highest dew point on record there. That led to a dangerous heat index of 109 degrees. 

Tonight's going to be horrible for sleeping, folks.  Lows for most of us will only fall into the 70s by dawn.  Maybe upper 70s to near 80 right around downtown Burlington, where all the asphalt and bricks and concrete will retain the heat. 

The so-called cold hollows of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and New York's Adirondacks could get into the upper 60s. That's still uncomfortable by any stretch of the imagination. 

Tomorrow will be roughly as hot as today was. The far north might be a couple degrees "cooler" reaching "only" the low 90s.  A couple towns in the lower Connecticut River Valley might flirt with 100 degrees.

I'll have many more updates on this heat wave in Tuesday morning's post.