Vermont October Was Warm, And Surprisingly Wet. Maybe The First Hints Of Drought Relief?

Very low water levels on Lake Champlain, seen here in
Milton, Vermont during a record late season
heat wave on October 6

November is here, so it's time to look back on an October weather.

The month brought more warmth to Vermont, and also provided the first hopeful signs that a few cracks might be forming in our deep, relentless drought. 

October in Vermont had its extremes, and a rainy end made the month actually turn out to be on the wet side. That's a trend we hope we will continue for the next few months.  

 The drought appeared to peak during an early month heat wave that shattered record highs. A rainstorm just after that heat wave offered a hint of wetter times ahead. 

We had to wait until the final 11 days of the month for the skies to finally open up. 

The rainfall was uneven, focusing on northwest Vermont, while cheating other parts of the state out of the heaviest downpours. Here in St. Albans, 6.76 inches of rain came down in those 11 days. In Burlington, those 11 days featured 4.55 inches. 

For the month as a whole, Burlington had 6.27 inches of rain, which surprisingly makes this past month the fourth wettest October on record in Burlington. 

Elsewhere in Vermont, rainfall wasn't nearly as heavy in Burlington, but it was least everybody got some rain.  Most weather stations in the state had October rainfall just slightly above normal, with most reports coming in at 3.8 to 4.5 inches. 

Such rainfall is, of course, not enough to emerge from a deep drought. We'll watch anxiously for any heavy rain or even big snowstorms we can get our hands on.  

WARMTH

October was yet another warm month in Vermont, punctuated by an extreme late season heat wave on October 4-7.  Burlington tied its all time high for October with a high of 86 degrees. Montpelier tied its October record at 84 degrees. 

We were on the edge of an incredible October heat wave in southeast Canada that shattered monthly record highs by wide margins. 

All those 80s have been adding up in our age of climate change. In Burlington, 76 days this year got to 80 degrees or more,  Only five other years out of the past 130 have had more 80 degree days in a single year. Four of those years were since 2016. 

Storm clouds gather over South Burlington, Vermont
on October 20, signaling a welcome wet stretch
to close out the month. 

After that early October heat wave, the rest of the month featured no more extreme temperatures, but it remained consistently mild. Burlington ended up with a mean temperature of 52.9 degrees, which is 2.6 degrees above the climate-change influenced "new normal."

That "new normal" is the average of the years 1990-2020. Those years were warmer than the 20th century average, due to climate change.  

October, 2025 in Burlington was tied with 2012 as the 12th warmest on record. In general, most other weather stations in Vermont were also very roughly two degrees warmer than average for October. 

For only the seventh time since the 1880s, this October in Burlington had no days with a high temperature colder than 50 degrees. 

Unlike some Octobers, absolutely no snow fell in the state except in the highest elevations. That is until late last night.  Even before midnight switched the calendar to November, some places above 1,500 were snowing. 

LOOKING AHEAD

The outlook heading into November is mixed. 

Long range forecasts, always a bit of a crapshoot, predict near to above normal temperatures for November. The ever-important precipitation outlooks is a tossup, with mostly equal chances of above or below normal rain and snowfall. 

Despite the nice, wet end of October, we still need many drenching rainstorms to fully emerge from our tough drought.  

There's a little rain and mountain snowfall in the Vermont forecast, but nothing big enough to rock our world. 

Impressive Storm Departing Vermont, Big Rain Totals Northwest, Snow, Wind, Power Issues Too

The city of St. Albans released this photo of some
flooding Friday at the intersection of South Elm and
Lower Weldon streets. Heavy rain, clogged
storm drains are driving especially wet. 

The storm that came blowing through Vermont really dumped a lot of rain, especially in the northwest, cut power in two rounds and gave upper elevations their first snow of the season. 

Rainfall

I don't have a lot of rainfall reports yet, as full reports about storms like these usually come out in the late morning. 

But I bet some areas of the western slopes of the Green Mountains had a good three inches of rain. Burlington logged an impressive 1.89 inches. 

My unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans collected a whopping 2.66 inches.That brings the total here since October 20 to 6.76 inches. Pretty impressive for a drought! It's past gardening season, but it's safe to say my perennial areas are dusty no longer. 

Elsewhere in the Green Mountain State, drought relief wasn't quite as soggy. Montpelier had a respectable inch or so of rain in this storm. St. Johnsbury was left out, receiving only about 0.36 inches. 

Down in southern Vermont, Rutland got an OK 1.39 inches, Springfield got about an inch and a half, and Bennington logged a nice 2.28 inches. 

Despite the drought, there was actually some very minor flooding in northwest Vermont.. Rivers behaved themselves, of course. Water levels rose, but stayed far, far, far below flood stage.

But the combination of downpours, leaves clogging drains, and soil that resists water due to drought created a lot of puddles, flooded intersections, swampy back yards and full drainage ditches. 

Droughts harden the ground, especially areas with clay soil, so rain can't penetrate as easily. It's another way that droughts sustain themselves. It's also why we had quite a bit of standing water around the Champlain Valley on Friday. 

Despite the relative inability of soils to soak in all that rain, I do think the storm will ease the drought somewhat, at least in northwest Vermont. We probably won't see all that much improvement in other parts of Vermont, but you'll never know. The next weekly drought report is due next Thursday. 

 Strong winds/snow

 After a round of power outages from strong east winds Thursday night, the wind shifted and picked up again, causing more outages Friday afternoon and night. Nearly 5,000 Vermont homes and businesses had no electricity shortly before midnight last night. 

Vermont Agency of Transportation web cam revealed
a wintry Route 242 in Westfield, Vt. this morning. 

Peak gusts yesterday included 57 mph in Jay, and 54 mph at Camels Hump State Park and Colchester Reef. 

Web cams are showing a couple inches of snow along high elevation roads like Route 17 in Buels Gore and Route 242 in Westfield. It looks like those roads were pretty slippery overnight, but road crews have gotten them back into shape. 

Get used to it. Last night was just the opening salvo of a long Vermont winter. 

LOOKING AHEAD

The good news for those who aren't prepared is no snowstorms are in the offing. There might be some snowflakes in the mountains, but that's about it. 

The big, deep, windy storm will still have an influence on us here in Vermont today as it lumbers away toward Newfoundland and Labrador. 

Winds will stay blustery out of the northwest, with some places gusting to 40 mph. The northern and  central Green Mountains will continue to see some snow showers, but nothing much. Northern valleys might see a few sprinkles. Clouds will dominate this morning but breaks of sun will arrive in the valleys this afternoon. That's especially true in southern Vermont. 

Behind today, we have no more big storms coming, at least not here in Vermont. Instead, we're settling into a pattern of changeable day to day weather. Small storms and cold fronts should come through roughly every two or three days for the next couple weeks. 

A couple of these storms will blow up to become fairly impressive blasts in Atlantic Canada, but when they come through northern New England, they'll just be in their weak infancy. We'll just get splashes of showers, and some mountain light snows 

Maybe one of those small storms coming up will surprise us with a few downpours, but don't count on it. We do need more of the kind of drenchers that hit parts of Vermont on Friday. 

But I guess near-normal precipitation is better than none at all.