Vermont Drought Continues To Improve, Still Bad NEK; Overall Improvement In Northeast U.S.

This week's U.S. Drought Monitor released this
morning, shows improvement in Vermont. 
The Champlain Valley is no longer in 
drought, just "abnormally dry."
The area of extreme drought (red) has
decreased some in eastern Vermont. 

Vermont continues to slowly dig its way out of a severe, months-long drought, but we still need several more rainy (or snowy) months to escape the clutches of this terrible dry spell. 

This is according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, the latest edition of which just came out this morning. 

The best news concerned  the Champlain Valley, which is no longer in drought as of this week. Depending on where you are in the valley, it's the first time since either August 21 or 28 that drought conditions no longer exist in that part of the northwest Vermont 

The Champlain Valley is still regarded as abnormally dry, which means if there's any shift to dry weather again, drought could resume. 

The improvement in the Champlain Valley can also be seen in the Lake Champlain level. On Tuesday (November 11) , the lake level went above 94 feet for the first time since August 14. 

That's still about six inches below normal for this time of year. But it's better than back on October 20, when the lake was 1.3 feet or so below normal.

I've also noticed Vermont rivers are still on the low side, but stream flows have improved some from those sad little trickles we saw back in September and October. 

DROUGHT CONTINUES ELSEWHERE

The rest of Vermont is still in drought, according to this morning's Drought Monitor, but there are signs of improvement elsewhere in the Green Mountain State, too.

The area of extreme drought in the eastern and northern part of the state is a little smaller than last week. Extreme drought now covers 25 percent of the state, compared to 41 percent last week. 

The Green Mountain range, and much of Addison County improved from severe drought last week to moderate drought as of this morning. Also, most of Windham County in far southeastern Vermont was in severe drought last week, but improved to moderate drought today. 

The rest of the Northeast generally improved from last week too. Areas of extreme and severe drought shrank a little in New Hampshire. 

Northern Maine got a little drier but the rest of the state saw some improvement. The percentage of Maine in severe drought declined for the first time since mid-September. 

New York saw a little improvement in drought conditions, too.

OUTLOOK

Vermont got lucky in the past week because storms brought heavier precipitation than forecast. That trend of unexpectedly heavy rain and snow can't continue forever, but we do want it to.

Over the next week, we're not expecting boatloads of rain, snow and ice, but some precipitation is due. Which leads me to believe next week's drought monitor should, I hope see no reversals. 

Maybe it'll stay about the same as it is this week, unless the storm due Saturday night and early Sunday really surprises forecasters with a lot of rain, ice and snow. 

For now, a quarter to a little over a half inch of rain and melted snow and ice is expected in Vermont over the next seven days. Somewhat more than that is forecast in the northern and central Green Mountains 

That's not a spectacular amount of precipitation but it's now awful either. 

Long range forecasts taking us to near the end of November indicate Vermont would see near normal, or perhaps slightly above normal precipitation.