Glorious Rain Soaks Much Of Vermont, Slightly Denting Drought

One of a series of downpours approaching West Rutland,
Vermont Monday morning. This one even had sort of
a shelf cloud feature you'd see 
with a summer thunderstorm, 

One of the most beautiful sounds I've heard in ages came while I was watching "The Voice" last evening. 

Nope, it wasn't the talented singers on the TV screen. It was the roar of a heavy, long lasting downpour overhead on the roof of the house. 

We got a lot of rain, with a grand, unofficial total of 2.8 inches of rain here in St. Albans. 

Rainfall reports for Vermont were still sparse as I wrote this around 8 a.m. today. 

But it seems rainfall totals were impressive across all but far southern Vermont. Almost everyone along and north of Route 4 had at least an inch of rain.

 In the Green Mountains and in northwestern Vermont, it was closer to 1.5 to 2.5 inches of rain. There were spot reports of 3.5 inches. Plattsburgh, New York set a rainfall record for the date of 2.1 inches. 

Other totals include 1.60 inches in Burlington, 1.43 inches in Rutland, and 1.27 inches in Montpelier. 

If we were not in a deep drought, we might have even had some minor flooding this morning. 

The drought is so severe, though, that I'll bet the rain, as wonderful as it was, only put a small dent in the drought. We'll need several more storms this fall and winter to get us out of trouble with dry ground, empty wells and low water. 

Still, the rain had some immediate benefits. 

Satellite view of Monday's storm, taken around 4 p.m.
Judging by this image, I'd guess the center of the 
storm was about over Fair Haven, Vermont at the time.

A fire sparked by ammunition Sunday at the Ethan Allen Firing Range in Jericho is contained. Because of live ordnance, it's too dangerous to send firefighters in. But Monday's rain certainly helped.

Several wild and forest fires blew up in northern New York Sunday. The largest ones were in Plattsburgh, Hogansburg and Bloomingdale, New York, according to WPTZ . 

The fires were being brought under control Sunday night, but torrential rains in eastern New York Monday had to  have helped immensely. 

THE STORM

The storm system Monday was a best case scenario for all but southern Vermont. 

The center of circulation passed up through western Vermont. Ahead of the storm, a feed of deep Atlantic moisture swept northwestward into all but southwest Vermont. 

During the evening, what is known as a deformation zone formed mostly in northwest Vermont and northeast New York. The storm was generally heading slowly north, while moisture was wrapping around heading westward. 

This stretched the atmosphere in a sense, helping create rising air over the northern Champlain Valley. Rising air helps created rainfall, especially if a lot of moisture is already in the area. Which is why the rain was drumming so hard on my metal roof in St. Albans while I was watching TV last evening. 

It was interesting to watch the radar of the rainfall yesterday afternoon. By 4 p.m. the storm center was close to Rutland. Rain was moving southeast to northwest roughly along and north of Interstate 89.  South of Interstate 89, showers were traveling in the exact opposite direction, northwest to southeast.  

Around 8:30 last night, the rain let up for a little while here in St. Albans. The radar showed heavier rain swirling in a circle centered more or less on St. Albans,  meaning the storm was nearly overhead. 

Far southwest Vermont missed out on that initial moisture feed off the Atlantic. And places like Bennington were too far south to enjoy much rain from that deformation zone. So they only received 0.34 inches of rain. 

We hope the Bennington area gets hit with a storm soon, but there's no immediate sign of that. But Vermont is still in for a little bit more rain. 

UPCOMING

We don't have another drenching storm on the horizon to batter the drought even more. But it's going to rain again this week, so that'll help hold the bit of gain we got yesterday. 

A few light showers were lingering in northern Vermont this morning, but those should evaporate before noon.

Rainfall forecast now through early Friday. This is subject
to change, but right now we're looking at maybe a 
quarter inch additional rain in western Vermont 
with up to half an inch east. 

We'll see some sun behind our big soaker of a storm today and it will be mild-ish for this time of year, with highs reaching the low 60s

Enjoy today. because it's going to get chilly and damp. A slow, lumbering storm -much weaker than the one we just had, should spread frequent showers across Vermont tomorrow. 

This thing may even have enough energy to spit out a rumble or two of thunder. 

This thing will linger through Thursday night or Friday, so expect continued light showers to continue until then. 

Rainfall won't amount to much, but anything is still good at this point. Early guesses that between late tonight and Friday morning, western Vermont could see a quarter inch or so of rain with up to a half inch east. 

It still looks like mountain summits might get cold enough to see a little snow. It'll only accumulate near the tippy top of the highest peaks. So you won't have to worry about winter driving. But the mountain snow might get you thinking about, and putting yourself in the market for winter tires. 

It's coming sooner than you'd think.