There's Actually Rain In The Vermont Forecast! Spoiler: It Won't End The Drought

Lake Champlain at Oakledge Park in Burlington Sunday
showing its very low water level of 93.03 feet. That's 
only about half a foot higher than the record low
level for the date. 

It was so nice this morning to wake up and check the weather forecasts and the maps to learn there is a chance of showers almost every day this week. 

Normally, that would seem odd in normally inclement Vermont, where clouds and precipitation always pester us. But our deep and worsening drought needs a bucket of cold water - stat. 

Measurable rain has only fallen on 11 days since August 1, and amounts have been unimpressive. And most of us have gone two weeks with no measurable rain. Even the weeds are dying in the dust. 

The upcoming rain will barely put a dent in the drought, if that. But it will be nice to see the very surface of the ground to get wet to perk up the lawns and remaining garden plants. The forest fire danger will get tamped down for a few days, too. 

More on the the specifics of the rain coming up, but first let's look at what amounted to the first frost/freeze of the season for most of Vermont away from the Champlain Valley. 

SUNDAY FREEZE

Most of Vermont saw their growing season end Sunday, or at least come close to it. The Champlain Valley escaped, with readings there remaining above freezing. The temperature here at my house in St. Albans was at 37 degrees at dawn, actually three degrees warmer than 24 hours earlier. 

But most places had the coldest morning of the season so far. East Haven, Vermont was down to 22 degrees, which was the chilliest place Sunday in the United States outside of Alaska on Sunday.

Other cold spots were Plainfield, at 26 degrees and Bristol, with 27. Most major communities in Vermont, including Montpelier, Morrisville, St. Johnsbury, Newport, and Rutland each made it to or below 32 degrees. 

Note that there might be parts of each town that stayed above freezing. Clear, calm mornings like Sunday feature highly variable temperatures. 

In any event, the cold is gone for awhile. Sunday afternoon was dramatically warmer as south breezes rocketed temperatures into the 70s. 

It's good that it's going to rain soon. The frost and freeze added more dry and dead material to the landscape, more fuel for any drought-induced wildfires. The fire risk won't go away forever, but at lest we'll have a few days in which the chances of a fire won't be as great. 

THE FORECAST

The seven day rain forecast finally brings fairly
decent rains to the East Coast. The blues and purples
over Vermont signify a hoped for inch or more
of rain over that time period. But that forecast
is iffy, and we could receive less than that. 

There was already rain on the radar for a change this morning. But alas, it's not coming into Vermont, A dying cold front was spreading showers into the northwest corner of New York, but since the front is falling apart, so will the showers.

We have another dry day to get through. With south breezes continuing to crank, the fire danger is still there for sure.  

It'll start to rain tonight as a second weak cold front approaches. Unlike the past few cold fronts in recent weeks, some moist air is getting shoved our way from the south. So the skies will be able to yield a little precipitation this time.

The rain will continue off and on through most of Tuesday but fall quite lightly, except for a chance of a locally embedded downpour or rumble of thunder overnight tonight and on Tuesday. 

Total rainfall through Tuesday is forecast to be around a third of an inch, give or take. As mentioned, that's not nearly enough to put a dent in the drought but at least it will temporarily slow or even briefly stop its scary worsening trend. 

The forecast gets muddled after Tuesday as weak, sluggish weather systems linger around. The air will stay relatively humid for September, (but not oppressive, like summer). So we have a chance of some inconsequential, scattered showers both Wednesday and Thursday. 

A relatively strong upper level low is forecast to linger over the middle of the nation this week, causing a flood risk in and around Arkansas and some drought-denting rains in the Ohio Valley.

The hope is that when this upper low starts to break up, it will move toward the northeast and swing some decent rains our way later Thursday, Thursday night and into Friday,  

Preliminary forecasts thrown another half inch of rain our way Thursday night, but it's still too early to count on that. We still might or might not miss out.  Keep doing your rain dances!  Even if we get a half inch of rain, that'll only help a tiny bit. We need inches upon inches of rain and/or melted snow through the autumn and winter. 

Depressingly, the rain this week doesn't really look like it's signaling a big change in the dry weather pattern, at least not yet. A lot of the computer models brint another big, fat, dry Canadian high pressure system over New England most of next week. 

Some models even more frustratingly show that high deflected a nice soggy potential tropical storm heading up the East Coast away from New England. Forecasts that far out can change radically, so don't hang your hat on next week's weather just yet.

Instead, enjoy any bits and sprinkles and sporadic showers we get this week. 

If you want one more glimmer of hope, NOAA's three to four week outlook, released Friday, gives greater than even odds that the period from October er 4 to 17 would feature above normal precipitation.