A Beautiful September In Vermont Makes Drought Worse; Climate Data Is In

Despite a couple rain storms, precipitation was once
again below normal in September, so the drought
worsened. Pictured is low Lake Champlain water
as seen at St. Albans Bay, Vermont Sept. 22.

If it weren't for the drought, September was a beautiful weather month in Vermont. Lots of sunny days, comfortable temperatures, all great for outdoor activity. 

Unless of course you were trying to save your wilted garden, or watch the leaves on your trees turn brow and curled and fall off ahead of foliage season. 

This kind of weather stayed consistent all month.

PRECIPITATION 

September was a dry month in Vermont, but not as dry as you'd might think, given how the drought kept getting worse.  

The drought worsened in large part because any rain we did get fell in two short bursts, one around September 5-6 and the other mostly from September 24-25. The rest of the month was bone dry. 

Although September is usually a relatively sunny, pleasant month in Vermont, we almost always get a few periods of gray, drizzly weather that can last nearly a week. Those kinds of conditions prevent things from drying out too fast. 

This year, September instead featured day after day of sunny skies

Burlington had 2.89 inches of rain, which was about three quarters of an inch below normal. Most of northern Vermont was about an inch on the dry side. Which means it wasn't among the driest on record, which was a nice change from August. But still we needed more rain than we got.  

Southwest Vermont was drier. Rutland received about two inches of rain during the month, which was 1.36 inches below normal. Bennington was worse, receiving just 1.37 inches of rain  during September. That was about 2.5 inches on the light side. 

Woodstock in the southeast was actually a tad wetter than normal in September with 3.9 inches. However, all except a third of an inch of that came on September 24-26. 

A new weekly Drought Monitor report is due out tomorrow. That one will take into account the rain last week. However, most observers do not expect much improvement in the drought conditions, 

TEMPERATURES 

The overall mean temperature in Burlington was 64.1 degrees, or 1.4 degrees warmer than normal.  That doesn't sound like it was all that much on the toasty side, but remember, as I remind you every month, is the "new normal."

It's based on the average of temperatures from 1990 to 2020, a time at which climate change had already  made things warmer than then were in the 20th century. 

As it was, September, 2025 was tied for the tenth warmest on record in Burlington. That's part of a trend. There are 15 Septembers in the top 10 list of hottest Septembers in Burlington. Including this year  nine of the top 15 warmest have happened since 2011. 

There weren't really any extremes in September. We saw no record highs or record lows to speak of. Just steady warm nights and somewhat chilly nights. 

That's where that weirdness comes in 

The drought also helped make September temperatures a bit odd: Daily high temperatures were much warmer than normal, and daily low temperatures were near or even a little cooler than normal.

That's because on so many days, the air was unusually dry, the humidity was low. On such days, the sun heats up the air more than when it's humid. But muggy nights stay warm, while the temperature craters on drier nights. 

That's what kept happening in September. In Burlington, the average high temperature or 75.2 degrees was 2.6 degrees, but the average low temperature of 53 was just 0.1 degrees above normal -basically average under the "new normal."

In St. Johnsbury and Rutland, the daily low temperature in September was more than a degree cooler than normal, though highs in both towns were three to four degrees on the warm side. 

There were no truly cool days like we normally get in September. The coldest high temperature of the month this September was 63 degrees.  I could only find one other year with a warmer "coldest" day. That was 64 degrees in 2023.

Interestingly over the past decade, the coldest September high temperature in Burlington was at or above 60 degrees on seven out of ten years. But such days were rare before that. Between 1900 and 2002, all Septembers except two had days with highs in the 50s. Or even 40s in some years. 

I say this every month, as well, but I'll say it again: This is not your grandfather's Vermont climate, that's for sure. 

As noted in this morning's post, October is getting off to a relatively brisk start, but the overall warm trend will return within a couple days. It looks like it might stay generally warm through most of the first half of October. We shall see! 

The really bad news is it looks like it will stay drier than normal through at least the first half of October, too. The drought won't be going anywhere.