Hopes For Soaking Vermont Rain This Weekend Are Iffy

A shower cloud tries to develop over the Green Mountains
Tuesday afternoon as viewed from Richmond, Vermont
but any rain in the state turned out to be pretty
light and scattered. 

 Things are getting dusty in Vermont again, as we have yet another dose of mostly dry weather going on this week. 

A few showers did get going in mountains Tuesday but they were pretty few and far between.

 For the rest of us, the mountain showers gave us valley dwellers a pretty sky and a pleasant day, but that's about it.

We've got another gorgeous September day going today. Most of Thursday should be dry and warm, too.

Bottom line, the ground is screaming for more rain. 

The good news is it will rain again Thursday night and Saturday. The questions is will it be a needed soaker or another whiff?

I'm leaning toward another whiff, but many meteorologists are cautiously optimistic. Especially about Saturday's rain. 

There's two main cold fronts coming with the next burst of cool Canadian air coming into the eastern half of the United States.

The first one will start to make itself felt tomorrow. The wind will pick up, especially in the Champlain Valley, where winds should gust to 30 mph. The clouds will start to increase during the afternoon. Hopes for rain will grow. 

This first front look like it will dump a decent rain on northern New York. But like so many past weather systems, this cold front will weaken as it comes into Vermont tomorrow night. It'll still rain. But instead of the three quarters of an inch of rain that New York will get, Vermont will receive maybe a third of an inch, with even less than that in eastern parts of the state. 

Pretty clouds graced the sky over a corn field and hills
around Richmond, Vermont Tuesday, but the clouds
only yielded widely scattered showers over the mountains

It won't really get much cooler behind the first front, so as skies partly clear Friday, temperatures should stay warm.

 It'll get up to near 80 in the warmest valleys and 70s elsewhere as south breezes continue. After Thursday night's bit of rain, it looks like another nice day.

The second front arrives Saturday. Some current forecasts have it slowing down over Vermont. If that happened, it would have enough juice to pour an inch of rain on the Green Mountain State. Which would be fantastic!

And..... it might not happen. 

The trends have been to slow down the front later and later as we get closer to the event. I've seen this  movie before. Earlier forecasts had it dumping its rain in New York State.   This morning's forecast has the best rains over Vermont Saturday.  I imagine the next couple of forecasts have the soaking rain setting up in New Hampshire or Maine and missing the Green Mountain State.

Good for them, as New Hampshire and Maine desperately need rain, too.   But let's face it, we're all sick of dust and wilted plants and wondering if your well will supply enough water for your morning shower, or even your morning coffee. 

We shall see. There's still a chance we'll get that soaker Saturday. We'll need to stay tuned over the next couple of days to see how that plays out. 

BEYOND SATURDAY

There won't be any additional cold fronts to help us with rain after Saturday. Not for several days at least. After Saturday's potential rain, it looks like we'll see no substantial wetting in Vermont until maybe around September 15.