Rain Oddly Lacking In Vermont's "Florida Weather" Spell; Gradual Trend To Big, Long Cooldown Starts In Upcoming Week

Chaotic looking sky over St. Albans, Vermont early
last evening as showers and storms tried to develop
over New York state. By the time the showers or
their remnants reached Vermont later in the
evening, most of us got very little rain. 

 It's really sticky out there again as we wake up this Saturday morning, but the end is in sight. It will be a gradual trend toward cooler, less humid air but we'll get there. More on that in a bit. 

One thing that's sort of surprising me about this spell of super humid air is the lack of rainfall in most places. I tend to associated such high humidity with lots of downpours and even flash flooding. 

A few places have experience just that, but the majority of us so far haven't. 

For instance, through around mid-morning yesterday, most places in Vermont had received less than a quarter inch of rain. 

Many places had nothing. There were just a few exceptions to that. Shoreham was drenched with 2.4 inches of rain in the 24 hours ending midmorning Friday. 

The widely scattered towns of Shelburne, Orwell and West Rutland picked up about an inch during that time. t 

More showers and storms formed yesterday afternoon and last night, but they also didn't wet down all that many people.

Overnight, the National Weather Service office in Burlington saw fit to issue a flash flood warning for an area on the New York side of Lake Champlain due to slow moving downpours. This was in a zone generally encompassing Elizabethtown, Westport, Essex, Moriah, Willsboro and Keene. 

Burlington is just about the only major town or city in Vermont that has made out well with the rain. They've had an inch of rain since Thursday. Here in St. Albans, we've at least had some wetting, but not much. We had just 0.12 inches overnight for a two-day total of right around a quarter inch. I'll still have to keep the sprinklers handy, even if there is more rain in the forecast. 

The same state of affairs with scattered showers and storms will continue today. Many of us could get a little wet, but probably only a small number of us will get thoroughly drenched. The details:

TODAY

Whatever overnight rain we did receive had mostly moved out. as of 8 a.m. today. Some showers were lingering in the Northeast Kingdom. 

More scattered downpours had already gotten going in central New York and those might head toward central Vermont, if they hold together, Which is iffy. More showers and storms will develop in the horribly humid air this afternoon and evening. 

As always, it's hard to say exactly who gets the storms. Though there are some tentative indications that central Vermont has the best chance, we'll see. The showers and storms won't be moving all that quickly.  So there's a minimal risk that a handful of places could see some very local flash flood issues if a downpour stalls overhead,  No guarantee, but it's slightly possible.  

In any event, all of us will continue to wilt in high humidity today. Highs should make it back into the low and mid 80s. Maybe some isolated upper 80s where it doesn't rain, especially in the lower Connecticut River Valley. 

Tonight will remain humid with patches of fog forming. Some lingering widely scattered showers could linger well into the night.

SUNDAY

Actually, not terrible. Pretty darn good, in fact! After a risk of early morning showers, skies should become at least partly sunny. The humidity will be down, too. It won't exactly be refreshing, but it will feel only a little on the sticky side. Highs should get well into the 80s again. Winds will he on the light side, so we should have a decent beach and boating day. 

MONDAY

The shift in the weather pattern will be beginning, but we won't quite feel it yet on Monday. An approaching cold front will gradually cloud up our skies. Humidity will rise again, but not quite to the level we saw in the past couple of days. 

We'll have a rising chance of shower and maybe thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening, with highs in the 80s.

TUESDAY

This will be our first step down as we enter a cooling trend that will also gradually lower our humidity levels. Dew points should be in the low 60s again by afternoon, which isn't terrible. Highs will be seasonably near 80 under what we think will be partly sunny skies.

WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY

A series of weather disturbance will zip through in a fast west to east flow. Each one of these will bring our temperatures down a couple notches. Since these disturbances will be moving fast and we'll be out of the super humid air, we probably won't get all that much rain. 

By the end of the week and into next weekend, we'll be seeing daytime highs in the 70s and lows probably in the mid and upper 50s. That's actually a little cooler than average for mid-August. 

With the usual caveat that long range forecast can change, I really don't see any signs of more heat and humidity until at least the last week of August. Maybe beyond that, who knows. Could this be the end of summer? 

The answer is probably not. But after this weekend, I think we might be passing the peak risk of heat and humidity for the summer. We've actually entered solar autumn. The 25 percent of the year with strongest sun and longest daylights ended earlier this week. That puts us in "solar autumn" the 25 percent of the year when daylight shortens the quickest.  

However, in our topsy-turvy climate changed and El Nino world we're in now, we could still see some torrid weather in September. It's just that the chances of that happening are diminishing.