That Was A Sudden Introduction To Autumn! But The Building Vermont Drought Continues

This view of the Green Mountains  in Shrewsbury, Vermont
at around 12:30 p.m.Sunday shows a slightly hazy
and very warm Sunday under way...... 

Boy, what an abrupt change in the weather across Vermont Sunday! 

As expected, that cold front really meant business. Once it came through your neck of the woods, you went from summer heat to autumn chill in a snap. 

If you didn't know the cold front was coming, it seemed Burlington was headed for another 90 degree day. It was up to 85 degrees by 11 a.m. Then things went the other way. It was down to 60 degrees by 4 p.m., the time of day when the temperature usually peaks. 

Similar temperature crashes occurred across pretty much all of Vermont, though they came late in the day in southern parts of the state. Rutland went from 85 degrees at 2 p.m to 67 at 5 p.m. and 59 at 7 p.m. 

A temperature drop that big and that quick is unusual with any cold front.  You get something like this in the winter sometimes, but in the summer it's almost unheard of. It's been a really weird temperature month.

First, a heat wave with desert dry air instead of the usual humidity and now this weird temperature drop.   

Then, to make things just a little extra bizarre, in the evening,  it started to warm up ever so slightly again in northern Vermont, as the paltry rain with the front departed and clouds thinned a little.  

Rainfall was paltry, especially considering how strong the cold front was. A very few places got lucky with isolated downpours ahead of the front, like in Shrewsbury, Vermont, where I spend Sunday. 

Rutland, just a little northwest of Shrewsbury, got just 0.02 inches of rain. Burlington reported a scant 0.08 inches and Montpelier a barely noticeable 0.05 inches 

That was not the soaker we needed, that's for sure. 

OUTLOOK

.....By 5 p.m, it was chilly and overcast in Shrewsbury
and low clouds were beginning to obscure the mountains.
Temperatures by then had fallen into the low 60s

Unfortunately, there's not much rain in the forecast. Today will be sunny and cool, so that won't help with our building drought.  

Temperatures this afternoon will only make it to within a few degrees either side of 70, much cooler than average for this time of year.  

Clouds will increase during the day Tuesday, but no rain. Highs should make it into the 70s.  

A weak system does look like it wants to come through on Wednesday with some light rain. At this point, this one looks pretty lame, too.

 If current forecasts hold -  and that's a big if -  there could be as much as a third of an inch of rain near the Canadian border. That would taper down to just a trace or a few hundreds of an inch in southern Vermont. 

There's a chance Wednesday's rain might stay further north, which would leave Vermont with very little rain. Let's hope not!

Then it back to dry weather and a warming trend at the end of the week. 

Another cold front might bring a little more rain  next weekend.  But from this distant view, early indications are the rainfall then might also not amount to all that much.