More Quiet Vermont Weather, "Popcorn" Showers Are Over, Sunshine To Win

Changeable skies over St. Albans, Vermont on Saturday. 
It rained a little five minutes before and 10 minutes 
after this photo was taken. It was about as
changeable a day as you can get. It should
turn much sunnier by this afternoon. 

 We got through a very changeable Saturday, didn't we?  

Sun, light rain, sun, clouds, wind, light rain, every minute was different. Life in Vermont, I guess. The rain didn't amount to anything. If you got the showers, you received a trace to a few hundredths of an inch of rain. So the light showers didn't exactly wet things down. 

All that Saturday keep-on-your-toes weather came from an old storm in the Maritime Provinces of Canada is departing. Good for them, as the system caused severe flooding around Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

TODAY

It was still cloudy, with areas of fog early this morning, a typical state of affairs for an early morning in September. The fog should lift by mid-morning, as usual. The clouds might take a little longer, especially in southern Vermont.

One last disturbance spawned by that Maritime Provinces moving south through New England produced a few early showers, especially in southern Vermont. That's heading south. Clouds and perhaps a very light showers might linger for a time south. 

But eventually, the sun will come out, and forecasters are insisting it will be a sunny, pleasant afternoon. Still a little on the cool side, with highs within a few degrees either side of 70 degrees.

Tonight will be among the coolest nights of the season so far, as we continue to sink into the autumn. Lows will be in the 40s in most places, with low 50s again in the Champlain Valley. 

LABOR DAY

A very nice day to unofficially end summer. After that cool start we should get well  into the 70s under sunny skies. Enjoy the outside

TUESDAY

Back to school, back to work. Under generally sunny skies once again, we should get right back in the 70s for highs. An incredibly lame weather disturbance from Quebec could spread a few clouds in during the day. but that won't disturb our stretch of good weather. 

WEDNESDAY

Our best shot at some needed rain. Yet another cold front will come at us. It will be able to grab just a bit of moisture from that horrible hot, humid air far to our south and bring it our way. As south winds pick up, you'll feel the day starting to turn a little more sticky. Showers should arrive  in the afternoon and last through the night, as it looks now. 

It's a little early to know how much rain we'll get, but early guesses are we could get a half inch or so, Maybe. We'll take anything we can get. It's still dry out there

It's also still early enough to expect some changes in the forecast for the timing and the amount of rain. 

THURSDAY/FRIDAY

It'll cool down again, as it almost always does after a cold front goes by. Originally, it looked like this next shot would have been our first chance of frost of the season. Even then that frost would have been only in the very coldest hollows.

Lately, computer models have been backing off on the how cool the air might get.  So, our early guesses will be highs back down near 70 and lows in the 40s. Typical September weather. 

Beneficial Rains In A Corner Of Vermont, But Dry Conditions Carry On Elsewhere In State

The swirl in the clouds in this satellite photo 
clearly indicates an upper level low centered
just about over Montreal Saturday afternoon.
This arrangement sent bands of welcome
showers into northern Vermont, but
breaks of sun kept southern areas dry. 

Well, some of us got some badly needed rain, anyway.

We had a nice, rainy couple days in far northern Vermont, and I think that actually must have dented the building drought in that part of the state. 

The cold upper low that was parked near Montreal Saturday gave northern Vermont an extra dose of decent rains.  We were only expecting a few hundredths of an inch of rain. We got a quarter inch up north. A small bonus for once!   

That upper low kept us cold, but it was worth the price because of the rain. 

The high temperature Saturday in Burlington was just  64 degrees - which is normal for about October 4, and about 15 degrees chillier than normal for the end of August. Southern areas like Springfield, which got some sun, made it to a reasonable 73 degrees

Over the past week, the northern Champlain Valley did the best of anybody with rain.   Burlington had only 0.4 inches of rain during the month through August 23. But then, in the past week, another 1.26 inches of rain poured down on Burlington. 

That's not a huge amount, but for a change it was more or less normal for a week. Here in St. Albans, we've had 1.4 inches in the past week. So my garden plants have definitely perked up.  

Elsewhere, in Vermont, the latest chance at drought relief over the past couple of days was a bit of a whiff, especially in southern Vermont. Very little rain fell down in that neck of the woods. The area around Springfield has had only a trace of rain in the past week  

Burlington will not have one of its driest Augusts on record due to rain in the past week, but other Vermont communities definitely will.   Montpelier has had only 0.62 inches of rain so far this month. St. Johnsbury just 0.94 inches.

FORECAST

It was chilly this morning, but now that skies have cleared up statewide, the sun will go right to work today. Everybody will be well into the 70s by mid afternoon. A nice day to do anything outdoors, for sure. 

Labor Day looks nice, too. We might have some extra clouds in the afternoon, but it will still be warm and partly sunny after another chilly early morning. Continued low humidity should keep things quite comfortable. 

We do have another shot at some decent rain - maybe - at the end of the week.

Before we get there, we have a slight change to what had been a wall to wall sunshine forecast that would have lasted until Wednesday evening

A weak disturbance on Tuesday might kick off a few showers. Not many, and probably most places will stay dry. But those scattered showers might dampen a few places, especially over the mountains. 

Even though it will be seasonably warm all week, the overall weather pattern still features odd early cold blasts coming into the eastern half of the U.S.

The next such chilly outbreak is nippier than the last, and promises frost in northern Minnesota and maybe even snowflakes up near Lake Superior.

Since the core of the cold blast is coming down into the western Great Lakes, that opens up the possibility of a nice flow of humid air coming up from the south ahead of a cold front that will be approaching us Thursday and Friday. 

If things work out right, that could give us a decent dump of rain here in Vermont. 

A lot of things might still go wrong. Perhaps the core of the heaviest rain might pass just to our west. Or the cold front could speed up, and whisk its way through here without having a chance to dump much rain. 

We'll need to wait  until we get closer to the event to see what's really going on. 

But if we get lucky, that end of week cold front just might wet the entire state down, not just a few places. We'll keep an eye on it. 

Odd, But Welcome Quiet Labor Day Weekend Nationwide, Including Here In Vermont. Plus Welcome Rain

Shower clouds seen bubbling up in St. Albans, 
Vermont Friday. The rainfall wasn't much, about
a third of an inch, but we'll take anything we can get.

It's Labor Day weekend, and you want to get outside one last time for summer fun.

Nationwide, it's easy to do this year, as the weather is unusually quiet.  It's rather cool in parts of the eastern half of the nation. I don't know how beach time would work under these chilly breezes.  

But there's not much in the way of big storms or extreme heat waves, or anything like that. 

First of all, there's no hurricanes to be found anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean. That's strange for the Labor Day weekend. We're nearing the peak of hurricane season, and there's almost always something lurking out there this time of year. 

On many Labor Day weekends, some part of the U.S. coast is getting hit by a hurricane, is being threatened by one or is just beginning to recover from a hit. Not this year. 

The only thing out there is a disturbance coming off the west coast of Africa. There is some chance it could develop into a tropical storm in a few days. But this thing won't become a threat to anybody for several days, and might not amount to anything at all.

Also, no big outbreaks of severe thunderstorms are in the works this weekend anywhere in the U.S. There could be a few bad storms here and there in the Plains states through the weekend, but any strong storms would be few and far between. 

We do have one weather problem going on, though. This has been the summer of flash floods in the United States, and that is continuing into the Labor Day weekend. 

There has been flash flooding over the past day or two in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, and in parts of New Mexico, Kansas and Arkansas. 

More flash flooding could occur in Texas, New Mexico and the central Plains today and tomorrow.

A heat wave that broke record high temperatures in the West has faded for now, though the heat is continuing in British Columbia, Canada. 

The eastern half of the U.S. is mostly cool for the season today, but a warming trend is starting so the it will be pleasant enough in most places in the East through the weekend

VERMONT WEEKEND

Some places in Vermont got some needed rain Friday. A few spots received as much or even more rain yesterday than they'd gotten all month. 

Through Thursday, Montpelier had only 0.34 inches of rain in August. Friday, they got 0.28, almost doubling the meager amount so far this month. 

A few places in western Vermont and over in New York received over a half inch of rain. But most places, like Burlington and here in St. Albans, had only about a third of an inch of precipitation Friday. 

Southern Vermont missed out again.  Bennington reported just 0.12 inches rain. Springfield logged just 0.02

For places south of Route 4, those sprinkles were the last rain they'll see until at least Thursday. So the drought will keep worsening there as we have another spell of dry, warm weather. 

In the north, a large area of mostly light showers, with some embedded spots of moderate rain, was moving into northern Vermont this morning as activity rotates around a pool of upper level cool air just to our north over southern Quebec.  

The rain won't amount to much. Maybe most towns north of Route 2 could see a few hundredth of an inch of rain. The clouds and rain will keep things cool across the north, as highs only reach the 60s. 

Southern Vermont should stay at least partly sunny, with highs near 70.

For the rest of the weekend, both Sunday and Monday, we'll see sunshine and comfortable temperatures both days to bring summer to an unofficial close.