Drought Spreading In Northern Vermont, Last Night's Rain Should Only Help A Little

This morning's weekly U.S. Drought Monitor shows
drought expanding across northern and eastern Vermont

The latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows drought slowly spreading in northern Vermont. 

Last week, drought covered only 13 percent of the state, up in the Northeast Kingdom. 

That moderate drought has now spread southward through most of Orange County, as far south as around Bradford. It covers almost a quarter of Vermont. It extends to the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains.

The area deemed "abnormally dry," a precursor to drought, also expanded, so that the area that's abnormally dry or in drought covers the northeastern half of Vermont. 

The dry area extends to the western slopes of the Green Mountains in the northern half of the state.

 A tiny corner of far southeastern Vermont is also abnormally dry, as it has since July. Before July a slightly larger portion of far southern parts of the state had that abnormally dry status. 

Last night's rain deposited about a half inch to three quarters of an inch of rain on the dry and drought areas of Vermont. A small handful of places saw as little as a quarter of an inch. 

That rain doesn't count toward the data in this week's Drought Report. Any effects would appear in next week's data. However the rain probably wasn't enough to change the drought all that much. Also, very little rain fell in far southeast Vermont, so the dry conditions there could certainly deepen

Looking ahead, we are going to get some rain, but probably nothing too torrential. At least over the next week. Probably beyond.

It's actually a little hard to know how much rain we will actually see. As noted in my post earlier this morning, the weather pattern over us involves a speedy west to east upper air flow.

Usually, that means that any rain we see comes in short, light amounts. But this weather pattern features very hot, humid air trapped in the southern half of the nation. If a front stalls nearby, we could see some beneficial, heavier rain. So far, that doesn't appear to be in the cards, but you can only help. 

Vermont seems to be on the western edge of a drought that has stubbornly hung on all year, and has recently strengthened. 

For instance, last week, 20 percent of New Hampshire was in drought. This week, it's a little more than half.  Meanwhile, at least 90 percent of Maine is dealing with drought.