Rainy Vermont Week Won't End Drought, Long Dry Spell To Restart This Weekend

Out of desperation, I put out buckets and such to collect
rain this morning to use later this fall. I'll need it to
water fall bulb planting and for transplanting
perennials. (I don't have a decent drain spout where
I could have collected the rain there). After a
fairly rainy week, another very long dry spell
is forecast to start Saturday. 

It was really nice to wake up this morning here in northwest Vermont to the sound of a steady drumbeat of raindrops on the roof and a gray, rainy view out my window. 

Northern Vermont made out the best with this morning's rain. We actually had a bonafide downpour here in St. Albans for awhile around 10 a.m. and a morning storm total of 0.47 inches.

Burlington had 0.3 inches through noon, Montpelier had 0.38 inches, and St. Johnsbury had 0.43 inches. 

Southern Vermont largely missed out. Through 1 p.m. Rutland and Springfield each had just 0.08 inches, and Bennington just 0.05.

As of early afternoon today, most of the rain is over.  We're left with cloudy skies, sporadic light showers, and a damp, vague humidity. Which is also nice after breathing in all that dust over the past few weeks. 

Our rain today was light enough to have virtually no effect on the drought, except for temporarily bringing down the wildfire risk. And maybe greening up your lawn a little. On Monday, Vermont and New Hampshire officials instituted statewide burn bans, despite forecasts of some rain. 

That's because any rain this week won't be enough to seriously dim the drought. Long range forecasts also call for a return to incessantly dry conditions. This week's rain is just a blip, not a weather pattern change. 

The wildfire risk will return. So, for now, no Vermont or New Hampshire town will issue you a burn permit to take care of that pile of brush out back. (I usually do my burn pile when there's snow on the ground in the winter to rule out a chance it would spread). 

Under the burn bans, you can't build a campfire in the woods. And for the love of God, please stop flicking your spent cigarettes down to the ground or out your car window. 

There's no word on when the burn ban will end. Falling leaves and vegetation doing its autumn dieback  normally increases the autumn fire danger during dry spells, The drought just makes everything more dangerous. This week's rain won't be enough to soak into dry, fallen trees and logs and branches in the woods, so the fire danger will probably return pretty quickly next week. 

Let's get into the specifics 

FORECAST DETAILS

The main slug of rain - all too brief - was moving off into New Hampshire and Maine as of 1p.m. 

The rest of this afternoon and evening will feature generally cloudy skies, a few widely scattered light rain showers here and there, somewhat humid air for late September and mild temperatures. 

Another slug of rain might go through far southern Vermont tonight but miss most of the rest of the state.  It'll be another rather warm night for this time of year. 

Tomorrow will bring more of the same: Lots of clouds, a few sunny breaks, warmish temperatures, vaguely humid air and a risk of a shower or two that won't amount to much of anything.  

Another modest storm with a fair amount of moisture with it for a change is due Thursday and Thursday night. If current forecasts stay accurate, that storm could give us another half to two thirds of an inch of rain. Not bad. It'll help a little, but not solve our drought problems. Unless it marks the start of a wetter weather pattern. 

Spoiler: Thursday's rains are not the start of a new weather pattern. Instead, we revert to the same thing we've seen during most of August and September. Big, fat, dry, slow moving high pressure systems are expected to resume coming through one after another. Each new sunny high pressure will be introduced by moisture-starved cold front that provides a sprinkle at most.

As it looks now, the last of the rain will depart Friday.  The first of those lame cold fronts might come through Saturday. At this point, it looks like it might sprinkle. 

Long range forecasts are always iffy, but they're worth looking at.  If the current projections are true, very little rain will fall between September 27 and at least October 9, and quite possibly beyond that. 

Which means any slight gains from this week's rain will be erased, and we'll end up with a drought even worse than the one we had as of Monday. 

I never like to be wrong, but in this case, I hope I'm terribly, terribly mistaken about the lack of rain. It would be wonderful if we end up seeing one storm after another. 

Most years, Vermonters hate long, gloomy rainy stretches of weather during autumn.  This year, we're all in for that kind of thing.  Nice weather has become a strange curse.