Believe It Or Not, Vermont Is Drying Out, With Not All That Much Rain In The Forecast

A little rain fell this morning here in St. Albans, Vermont
but it wasn't much. It's actually getting a little dry, and
not much rain is in the forecast. 

 We've been talking about persistent rains, and occasional flood threats really since early spring here in Vermont. 

But while we keep seeing bouts of showers and thunderstorms, a funny thing happened on the way to a wet summer. It's becoming not so soggy. 

We're miles away from any drought worries at the moment. But as we've gotten into the second half of July, the rains have gotten more sporadic, more scattered, more inconsistent 

That trend is continuing and may even actually intensify. The cold front coming through today is turning into a bit of a nothingburger.  What was looking like a potential soaking on Sunday is looking much less so.

And a major change in the weather pattern coming up will eventually prevent the type of warmth and humidity needed to bring us heavy rain.

The summer of floods continues elsewhere in the United States. Ruidoso, New Mexico was hit again yesterday, with more debris flows. Another house was washed away there, and people had to be rescued. A swath of central and western Missouri was under flash flood warnings this morning.  Kansas and Illinois will probably be added to the list of flood zones later today.

But here in Vermont, sure, we're seeing a little rain. But it's not impressive.

The past few days has brought breezy weather with low humidity, followed by more humid weather yesterday. But the humidity came with 90 degree heat, lots of sun and persistent breezes that acted to dry things out.  

It's dry enough in parts of Vermont so that we actually have a fairly large forest fire by Vermont standards burning in Fair Haven.   Officials aren't sure when the fire will be out. So far it has burned through about 11 acres. That part of the state has been missed by thunderstorms more often than elsewhere. 

Meanwhile, Burlington on Thursday had its seventh 90 degree day of the month, and 11th this year.  Only 15 Julys in the past 125 years or so have had as many or more such days in July. 

TODAY

Now, this morning, a cold front is pressing into Vermont, and it's not an impressive one. The timing of it, and some conditions ahead of it, mean there won't be all that much rain. The threat of severe storms has greatly diminished, too.

It did start raining on my fairly dusty gardens here in St. Albans, Vermont shortly before 7 a.m., but it certainly has not been raining hard. 

The lame cold front, and its showers will continue moving southeastward through Vermont during the morning and early afternoon.  As it heads south,  the sun will  help increase instability enough in southern Vermont to power up some thunderstorms along this. 

A few lucky devils might see a decent downpour out of these. There might be an isolated one or two storms in southern Vermont that could get a little rambunctious with strong gusty winds, but it definitely won't be anything widespread.

 WEEKEND

It's still looking like a nice one Saturday, with warm temperatures and moderate humidity. For Sunday, the forecasts for a weather disturbance have been flip-flopping. At first, the indication was it would go south of Vermont. Then it would hit us square as a stronger version with a bunch of rain. Now, we're back to a weak thing passing to our south with little rain for the Green Mountain State.  

BEYOND THE WEEKEND

As we close out July and begin August, much
of the nation still looks wetter than normal
(green shading) with continued risks of
local fooding. Meanwhile the Great Lakes
and interior Northeast, including 
Vermont look to be on the dry side. 

It looks like we might have one more hot day on Monday before things start to change midweek. We are  quite confident a cool spell is coming in. 

But long range models are unreliable, and they're really, especially all over the place right now. 

We don't know whether this cooler pattern will be a brief interruption to summer or something that will last a good portion of August

My guess - it's only an educated guess - is we get maybe three or four days of cool weather starting next Wednesday or Thursday and then we get into sort of average August weather.  

The long range forecast doesn't really have prospects for any soaking rains,.

So for now, we'll take the little bits we get, and continue to water the gardens as needed.