A Cool, Wet Spring In Vermont Kept Gardens Blooming, Frustrated Warm Weather Fans. With Some Exceptions

The cool, wet character of May, 2026 made it a great daffodil
growing month. This photo was taken May 10 in St. 
Albans, Vermont.

I didn't finish our May Vermont climate summary yesterday, so my bad. 

The weather forecast this week is straight forward enough. Sunny with a warming trend through the week, with perhaps some showers late in the week. Summer weather is here .

So let's 'get into what we Vermonters went through during the month of May

 The month of May in Vermont that just ended was definitely on the cool side, and in most places, wet, too.

We didn't break any records with temperatures or precipitation, but it was cooler, cloudier and more damp that we've gotten used to in recent Mays.

COOL MAY

In Burlington, the average temperature was 57.1 degrees, or 1.3 degrees below what is now considered average. As I always mention, average isn't what it used to be.  Nowadays, we compare months to the average of a recent 30 year period. Months in the 20th century were cooler than they are now. 

You can see that in the stats. Out of the past 135 years, this May was the 82 coolest, or 53rd warmest. So by historical standards, May was a little on the warm side.  

Most weather stations in Vermont were about the same degree cooler than the modern average as Burlington. Rutland, Montpelier and St. Johnsbury were all around one to two degrees on the cool side. Bennington was 2.3 degrees below normal. 

Nineteen days in Burlington were cooler than  normal, but the cold was never extreme. All of the cool days were less than 10 degrees below normal. The month's chill was offset by a brief heat wave that set temperatures soaring to near record heights on May 18-19. The low temperature in Burlington on the 19th was a muggy 71 degrees, a record for the date.

WET MAY

It was a wet month, with rainfall pretty well distributed throughout the month. We never came close to dealing with any flooding issues.  

Burlington had 4.88 inches of rain, which was a little over an inch above normal. It was the 22nd wettest May out of the past 143 years. (The wettest May was in 2013, with 8.74 inches.)

Most other places in Vermont, with the exception of the far south, had a wetter than average May, too. Montpelier had nearly six inches of rain, which was 2.39 inches above average. St. Johnsbury was given a boost by a super soaker of a rainstorm on the 30th. Their month total worked out to 6.46 inches, which was 2.7 inches above average.

Far southern Vermont was drier. Bennington had 2.56 inches of rain, nearly an inch on the dry side.

LOOKING AHEAD

For what it's worth, NOAA's monthly outlook says odds lean fairly heavily toward a warmer than normal June. There's also a somewhat greater than even chance of a dry June, according to NOAA's predictions.

That matches the forecast for the opening week of June, anyway, which will be warm and dry. 

NOAA got May's prediction basicalliy right. They said the month's temperatures would be near to somewhat below normal, and that's true. They also said there were equal chances of above or below normal precipitation. Since most of the state was wet but the south was dry, I'll give it to them.