Drought Keeps Intensifying In And Around Vermont; Getting Dangerous

A brown hayfield and brown sugar maple leaves in
the background Wednesday near Woodstock, Vermont
as drought continues to intensify. 

 I traveled back and forth between St. Albans in northwest Vermont, and Woodstock in the southeast on Wednesday. 

Our no longer so green Green Mountains scared me a bit. 

I know it's September and you normally see hints of fall colors in the landscape this time of year. But what I saw looked...... scorched. 

On many hillsides, the drought has prematurely turned leaves brown, as if exposed to a nearby fire. 

Underneath those trees, a slight breeze Wednesday afternoon brought down some of those desiccated leaves. Each one landed with a soft, faint dusty clatter on dirt roads, driveways, sidewalks and such. 

Each footstep on walking trails and paths stirred up a bit of dust.  We know the forest fire danger has been high for some time now.  But this drought is getting so intense, I'm beginning to worry about what will happen later this autumn when we get the strong, dry blasts of wind we always get later in September through November. 

We could see wildland fires like we've never seen before. 

Vermont is known for having "asbestos forests."  It's really hard to set them ablaze, at least normally. 

If our forests manage to catch fire, those blazes tend to be relatively small and are extinguished comparatively easily. Flames don't roar through the tree tops. They crackle close to the ground. 

Lots of brown, drought-stricken trees visible on 
this hillside near Quechee, Vermont Wednesday. 

Vermont forests are traditionally too moist, the humidity in the air is too high, and fallen logs and trees are too soggy to support much in the way of flames. 

We don't have those flammable conifers forests of the American West or the blow torch eucalyptus and palm trees that fuel California conflagrations. 

Now, though, climate change is changing the game here in Vermont, as it is virtually everywhere.

What was once almost unthinkable is turning possible. 

Extremes have gotten wild, and we blast from one extreme to the other. After two summers of destructive floods, we're now in a drought more intense than seen in decades, if ever. 

Our asbestos forests are turning into matchsticks. 

I worry that we'll have some super intense Vermont forest fires, the kind that roar through the tree tops like you see on the news when the western United States goes up in flames. I'm not saying that will happen.  I'm saying it's become an improbable possibility. 

It happened in New Jersey last year.  It's been known to happen in places like Maine, in the 1940s, and in Quebec.  We in Vermont might not be prepared for what might be coming, beyond the dry wells, water shortages, damaged crops and struggles with snow making in the ski industry. 

DROUGHT MONITOR NEWS 

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor came out this morning as usual. It shows a still-worsening situation in Vermont, despite some rain last weekend. 

All of Vermont is in drought, of course. It's one of four states - the others being Washington, Utah and Arizona, - in which 100 percent of each state's territory is in at least moderate drought. 

Drought continues to deepen in Vermont, according
to this week's U.S. Drought Monitor.
The more vivid orange is severe drought,
the lighter orange is moderate drought. 

Severe drought has expanded in Vermont, now covering more than half of Vermont, compared to a third of the state last week.  

The severe drought designation covers a much broader section of central Vermont than last week, and also a good chunk of the Northeast Kingdom. 

A spot of extreme drought has cropped up in west central New Hampshire, right near the Vermont border, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. 

Under extreme drought conditions, stream flow is reduced to a thin trickle or stops altogether, many wells go dry, dairy farms struggle financially, crop losses mount and well drillers and water haulers have more business than they can handle. 

Based on weather forecast, I think parts of Vermont are heading for the extreme drought category in coming weeks, unless we are very pleasantly and very surprised by rainfall. 

THE FORECAST

The weather forecast continues to be discouraging and frightening for our region. In other words, the rain dances so far aren't working. 

In the short term, today and Friday will continue the dry weather. The forest fire danger is high for the rest of today, as has so often been the case lately. 

We'd feared the fire danger would be even scarier today, but winds will be somewhat lighter than expectations were a few days ago. Though the air will be dry, the humidity will be slightly higher than in recent days. Dew points will be in the 50s instead of the 40s. Slightly higher humidity nudges the fire risk downward.  

Also there might be some clouds in the sky this afternoon as a weak cold front comes through. That front might even kick off an isolated sprinkle in one or two spots, but don't hold your breath on that one. 

The air will turn dry and clear again tonight and Friday.  There might even be a frost risk again in the coldest hollows of the Northeast Kingdom around dawn Friday. 

Predictions have changed some for this weekend. A few days ago, we thought Saturday and Sunday would bring absolutely no rain,

Now, a little light rain does seem to be in the cards.  Any rain is wonderful, but the anticipated showers this weekend will only temporarily slow the pace at which the drought is deepening. 

There's still some questions as to how much rain we'll get, but most forecasts call for light amounts. A few places might not get anything at all. A small minority of computer-generated forecasts call for a good half inch, but most meteorologist are discounting that idea.

Instead, it looks like a package of weak disturbances will blow through, flinging showers here and there, especially Saturday night and Sunday.  Rainfall looks like it will be a quarter inch or less. Probably less.

After that, it's back to dry weather. To break or even bruise the drought a bit, we need frequent, soaking rains. A drenching storm once every three days or so would be ideal. That's not in the cards. 

Instead, strong, dry high pressure will probably park itself over northern New England again next week.  A weak coastal low might try to send moisture our way, but it will likely get shunted off to our south. 

It still looks like our next shot at rain would be around September 19 or 20. From this distance, early indications are that system would also be on the weak side. The overall weather pattern through the end of the month and quite possibly beyond continues to look sadly dry.