Dry, Warm Windy Sunday Yields To A Rainy Vermont Monday.

Lingering fall foliage near Proctor, Vermont Sunday, which
might have been the last truly warm day of 2025 as highs
got well into the 70s. We're now going into a wet week
which is great, given the deep drought Vermont
is still experiencing. 

Sunday brought Vermont and surrounding areas a last gasp of summer. The high temperature Sunday in Burlington reached a balmy 76 degrees, just four degrees short of the record for the date. 

Over in northern New York, it was even warmer. Massena reached 82 degrees, enough to break the record high for the date. 

The wind and the warmth brought us a high fire danger Sunday. One fire broke out in the woods at the Vermont National Guard Ethan Allan Firing Range in Jericho.  The Guard was dealing with it instead of local fire departments, because it is a firing range, after all. There's the risk of live ordnance. 

At last report, fire departments in Underhill and Jericho were standing by, but not involved in battling the blaze, WCAX reports. Hikers atop Mount Mansfield could clearly see a large plume of smoke rising from the area. 

TODAY

The warm air is lingering into this morning. At dawn, temperatures in much of Vermont were in the low 60s, which is something you'd expect that time of day in July, not the second half of October.

 It won't warm up all that much today because of the clouds and rain, but highs in the mid and upper 60s are still pretty comfortable for this time of year. 

The big news is the badly needed rain, which was arriving as scheduled as dawn broke today. 

If that fire is still burning at the Firing Range in Jericho, the Vermont National Guard is still going to get an assist from the skies today.  

We're still expected a little more than an inch of rain
through Thursday morning in all but far southern 
Vermont. This is no drought buster, but at least
it'll prevent things from getting even worse. 

Early this morning, the showers were pretty light and scattered, moving rapidly south to north across Vermont. It appears the rain will stay showery, but become much more widespread and occasionally fairly heavy starting mid morning and into the afternoon. 

One change in the forecast from yesterday is it looks like most of today's rain will stay out of far southern Vermont.  Yesterday, we thought the heaviest rain would hit the south most, with less north far north. . 

This morning's forecast is the opposite. Through tomorrow morning, as little as a quarter inch of rain might fall along and south of Route 9, though east facing slopes of the Green Mountains should do a little better.  Yesterday, we were thinking those areas could get close to an inch. 

The rainfall is still forecast to amount to an inch, give or take,  in many places along and north of Route 4. Even the Northeast Kingdom, which was forecast to see a half inch of rain, is now expecting maybe three quarters of an inch.

It's a pretty dynamic weather system, so it might power up enough to give us a few rumbles of thunder here and there. Nothing severe, though.  

The National Weather Service has removed the wind advisory from the western slopes of the Green Mountains. It won't be as gusty as first thought.  

WET WEATHER CONTINUES

Though we won't get rid of the drought, this will be the best week we've had in months for rainfall. After today, we have more shots at rain all week. Which is good, because we need frequent bouts of rain to ease the drought. 

For awhile, anyway, we're out of the pattern of long, weeks long dry spells between rainfall. After today, the rainfall won't be heavy, and there will be winners and losers when it comes to amounts. But there's decent chances rain Wednesday, Thursday and maybe Friday. 

Tuesday will be the driest day of the week. And the last warm day. Today's storm will be gone, and the next one coming in from the west won't be here yet. So well, have a pleasant late October day: Partly sunny skies, and high-up in the 60. 

The thing coming in from the west is a slow, lumbering thing. It'll be mostly cloudy, with frequent showers Wednesday and Thursday. The best chance showers and the most precipitation will be in the central and northern Green Mountains. 

Total precipitation Wednesday through Friday looks to be as little as a tenth to a quarter an inch in southeast Vermont and maybe parts of the Champlain Valley, with a half inch or more in the northern and central Green Mountains. 

Some of that precipitation in the mountains will probably be in the form of snow. It's that time of year, folks. I expect the mountain summits to have their first real accumulating snow of the year. It will only be a few inches at most, but it's something. 

For us valley dwellers, it'll be our introduction to November. Cloudy, cool, drizzly. Usually, ,that's depressing. But in a drought year, we'll take it!