"Boring" Vermont Spring Weather A Welcome Change From The Usual Chaos

Daffodils enjoying another mild spring morning today
in their St. Albans, Vermont garden plot.

This spring in Vermont - pretty much this year so far actually - has been remarkably mellow, at least in terms of weather. 

Sure, we had a big February snowstorm, some weird mid-March warmth and a damaging ice storm at the end of March, but - knock on wood - we have not had a chaotic weather year so far in Vermont. 

No epic spring snowstorms, no record summer-like heat waves, no floods to speak of, and few wild swings from hot to cold. 

That's a nice contrast to the extremes and disasters we've seen in Vermont in recent years, and the many dangerous, deadly tornadoes, floods and wildfires many other parts of the U.S. have endured so far this year. 

April so far has been especially quiet in the Green Mountain State. 

Conditions in the past couple of weeks have plodded along with extraordinary ordinariness, if that makes sense. Temperatures and precipitation this month have been close to normal. Temperatures have never really gotten that hot or that cold. 

We've had only one day in Burlington so far this month that was more than ten degrees above or below normal. We sometimes have several April days that are 20 degrees warmer or colder than the average for the date

I know I've probably jinxed it with this post and we'll now face months of scary weather. But for now, I'm not seeing any big weirdness coming our way.

However, things in the weather department are about to shake up from the doldrums just a little. 

On the agenda is a low risk of thunderstorms today, a likely soaking weekend rain, and - perhaps - the first summer like day of the season in northern Vermont. (Southern parts of the state already had one summery day a little over a week ago).

TODAY

A little disturbance racing through late this afternoon and early tonight might be enough to set off some showers and maybe even a couple weak thunderstorms. Anything that develops will be hit and miss and if storms do get going, they not even be close to severe. It's just another reminder that we're getting into that warm season showery regime.

So far this month, when it has rained, for the most part each episode has featured only pretty light showers. There's been a couple of exceptions, but there's been no "wow" factor to any storms.

WEEKEND SOAKER THEN WARMTH?

Friday night and Saturday, it looks like we are in for a pretty good wetting. This one won't be extreme, either, but early indications are most of us should see a half inch of rain at least, with a few places getting an inch.

That amount won't break any records and absolutely won't cause any flooding worries, but it could be the wettest storm of the month for many of us. The gardens could use a good soaking, so that's OK. 

In northern Vermont, temperatures have not gotten above 70 degrees since mid-March. In the past decade or two, it's gotten rare to have an April without any 70 or even 80 degree weather, so this month is so far an oddity.

But as the month draws to a close, it looks like we might finally get a brief squirt of summer-like air. If the showers hold off long enough next Tuesday, places like Burlington could make a run at 80 degrees.

We shall see.

The only disconcerting thing I see in the extended forecast is the possibility of a cold storm stalling overhead or nearby around May 7. If that happened, we'd have a big interruption in spring and maybe even some snow.

I would rate this as highly unlikely, though. Such long range forecasts are seldom accurate, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.    

The Vermont Week Ahead: So Far, Looking Uneventful For A Change

Some showers and storms developed here and there in
Vermont Sunday afternoon, but they were pretty
much garden variety. The week ahead will feature,
for a change, no extreme weather in Vermont. 

 I usually do this kind of post Sunday morning, but was distracting of course by the more important news of new-Nazis co-opting Vermont flood cleanup. 

But I have a break this afternoon to help you plan the weather week. 

 For a major change, so far it doesn't look like I have a lot of drama to bring you.  Yes, the weather will change frequently through the week. But, knock on wood, no big storms, no big floods, no big calamities. Or even mid-sized ones. 

Of course, we've been frequent surprised before. In fact there were a couple minor surprises Saturday and Saturday night. 

We thought we were done with the flash flood warnings in northern New York and Vermont, but the National Weather Service in South Burlington was forced to issue such a warning Saturday evening in the central Adirondacks, southeast of Saranac Lake.   .

This wasn't a widespread event by any means, but it's a reminder that we seem to can't wholly escape from this summer's excessive rain.

Forecasts of a severe storm outbreak to our south and west in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio turned out to be true.  Some of the severe weather made it all the way to Vermont, which was only semi-expected at best. 

I don't have any official reports, but a severe looking storm looked like it passed through northern Addison and southern Chittenden County into central Vermont last evening.

Sone strong to severe storms also seem to have blasted parts of Rutland and Addison counties around 11 p.m. last night. We have reports of downed trees in Shoreham and Castleton, and other towns. 

REST OF TODAY

Some scattered garden variety showers and thunderstorms were roaming through Vermont early this afternoon. No severe weather is expected, at least until the storms reach eastern New Hampshire and Maine. There, the conditions are much better for storms to really develop, so a severe storm watch is up there.

It's still pretty humid in Vermont, but I think as the afternoon goes on, that humidity will diminish somewhat. It'll be generally clear to partly cloudy tonight and seasonable, so any lingering Perseid meteors should be visible overnight. 

MONDAY

Nice enough day. Mostly sunny, warm, moderate humidity. Good day to be outdoors and for any vacationers wandering around the state. The only minor problem will be the usual patchy fog early in the morning, but that will burn off quickly.  Highs will top out in the 75 to 82 degree range.

TUESDAY

A bit of a fall preview.  It'll be overcast, and damp with occasional rain as a storm passes off to the south. This storm will trigger more severe thunderstorms in the Mid-Atlantic states, but we'll be on the cool, northern side of the storm.  We'll be lucky if we make it into the low 70s during the day with all the clouds and light rain.  There won't be nearly enough rain to trigger any new flood worries. 

REST OF THE WEEK

Kinda average.  Any showers will be few and far between Wednesday and Thursday, if they occur at all.

Again, normal temperatures, with lows near 60 and highs within scoring distance of 80.  The next good chance of showers is Friday. That batch doesn't look impressive, so we're good to go there. 

Vermont's Long Streak of Benign Weather: When Does The Other Shoe Drop?

A peaceful scene on one of our decks in St. Albans, Vermont
this morning. We've been mostly lucky with safe weather
in the Green Mountain State for a few years now. When
will the other shoe drop?

 My husband says I can be too negative sometimes.

He's absolutely right. 

Although I very often see the positive side of things, I just sometimes find the dark cloud in the silver lining.  I just can't help it, I guess. That's what I've been feeling about the weather in Vermont lately. 

By lately, I actually mean the past two or three years. 

Every day, I wake up to some new weather extreme and catastrophe somewhere in the world. We've always had weather disasters, but climate change is making many of those calamities worse than they otherwise would be.

Here in Vermont, almost nothing in that regard lately, thank goodness. We've been coasting along with pretty benign conditions for a few years. Our current beautiful, relatively cool summer is Example A.  Don't get me wrong, I'm really, really enjoying every minute of this benign weather. 

Also, think about it.  We've been lucky for awhile now. Oh sure, we've had our share of weird weather. Sometimes stuff we hadn't experienced before, like 95 degree heat in May in 2020, or the unprecedented March tornado that touched down in Middlebury last year, things like that.

And we've had our usual local flash floods, wind storms, ice storms, snow storms, rain storms, droughts, strange temperature swings. It's Vermont. The weather can be challenging every once in awhile. We deal with it.   

But honestly, truly destructive weather has been pretty rare in Vermont since the big flood and windstorm of Halloween, 2019, which prompted disaster declarations in several Vermont counties. (True, another federal disaster was declared for damaging floods in Bennington and Windham Counties in July, 2021, but flooding was fairly localized, and not super extreme by modern standards).

We in Vermont have been blissfully skating by for the past three years. In that time, some areas of the nation have been blitzed by repeated storms, floods, wildfires or other emergencies. Examples are everywhere. It seems like every time I turn around, a new extreme derecho or storm is sweeping South Dakota and Iowa.  Yeah, yeah, I know they get a lot of storms there, but the ones lately have been bizarre.

Fires keeping hitting California, floods seemingly come one after another along the East Coast and Midwest, and hurricanes seem to be competing with each other, trying to see which one can wreak the most havoc on the American coastline. 

Meanwhile, on our safe little island in Vermont, we've been lucky.  T weather has been benign. Nice. Pleasant. Safe. You won't hear me complain about that!  

Arguably the last really serious weather disaster in Vermont
was the flood and windstorm on Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 2019.
This tree fell over in our yard during that storm, '
crushing Jeff's Jeep. 

Today's another gorgeous day in Vermont. We had a lovely sunrise.  It'll be another mostly sunny afternoon with pretty, puffy clouds dotting the blue sky, comfortable temperatures and low humidity. Looking ahead over the next few days, the weather will stay nice. We're blessed again! 

Since I can't help myself, though, a small part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sooner or later, we'll have a year like 1998 or 2011, when weather disasters swept Vermont over and over again. Or will we have something else, like the deadly heat waves that attacked Europe, Russia and southwestern Canada in recent years?

Climate change is in the back of my mind, too. The weather in the Green Mountain State has been generally gorgeous, but still, certainly warmer than what was considered average back in the day.

Climate change is also driving storms that are more fierce, wetter, more violent than in the past.  When will our luck run out? 

I guess it's not worth obsessing over, because all we can do is enjoy what we've got. Sure, we can adjust our lifestyle to help combat climate change and elect leaders who will do the same. Yes, we can still mitigate things and make the future climate less bad than it otherwise would be.

But really, the next Big Bad Thing in Vermont is inevitable, and we'll just have to brace for it. Hopefully it will not come anytime soon.  After work today, I'll go out on the deck, maybe with a gin and tonic or a glass of wine, enjoy the gorgeous summer landscape, smell the flowers Jeff and I planted and listen to the symphony of bird song. 

If that's what it takes to calm me down and erase my fears, well, there are worse things I can do. 

After A Gorgeous Fourth Of July Weekend, Some Showers

Well, kind of red, white and blue. A patch of astilbe with
a barely visible small blue flower in the foreground,
enjoyed the mild sunshine in my St. Albans, Vermont
gardens during this Fourth of July weekend

 The nation is facing lots of trouble and our Fourth of July weekend was bittersweet because of it. 

Since this is a weather and climate blog, I have to be a bit trivial in this instance: One saving grace here in Vermont to this Fourth of July weekend was that the weather was absolutely stellar. 

There's no data, of course, on what was the "nicest" Fourth of July holiday. You get figures like coldest, hottest, wettest, but not nicest.

For the record, the hottest Fourth of July in Burlington reached 98 degrees, in 1911. The coldest had a morning low of 40 degrees, back in 1962. The wettest had 1.89 inches of rain, in 2013. The most "violent" probably was in 2012, in which a severe thunderstorm brought gusts to 70 mph to the Champlain Valley and up to 1.5 inches of rain within an hour. 

That said, this one was one of the most pleasant Fourth of Julys, at least in terms of weather, I've seen. We dealt with warm afternoons with low humidity and a breeze. Scattered clouds to add interest to the sky, and provide a few short intervals of shade. Plus cool, comfortable sleeping weather. We had a happy medium with temperatures on July 4 with a high of 80 degrees on Monday and a low of 56, with no rain.

The only rain and humidity we had to deal with all weekend was on Saturday morning as a cold front departed, ushering in the good weather. 

All pleasant things must come to an end, and you'll notice it's cloudy out there today. Some rain will move through, especially this afternoon and evening, but I don't see anything huge coming through. Just more gentle showers

The relatively cool regime in Vermont will hold through at least next weekend. Two high pressure systems from Canada will pass through, with more cool nights and mild days. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington says there could be a couple nights mixed in there with temperatures in the upper 30s in the coldest hollows of the Adirondacks and Northeast Kingdom.

June Heat Wave Intensifies, So Does "Ring Of Fire" Vermont Sits On Sidelines

National Weather Service home page this morning shows
huge areas under varying heat alerts (the pinks, purples
and oranges on the map). The heat is not headed
toward us here in Vermont. 

 It's been a rather rough weekend weather wise for a good portion of the United States with widespread heat, and large patches of severe storms on the edges of that heat wave.  

Once again, Vermont if blissfully sitting on the sidelines of this bad weather. 

Nothing notable will happen here in the next few days. No extremes in temperatures, nothing impressive with rainfall, and little if any risk of severe storms. 

The Green Mountain State has been lucky in the past couple of years, really, missing out on most of the constant parade of extreme weather events afflicting the nation in the world. 

Over the past two years or so we in Vermont have had a few spells of record heat, and some weird storms, but nothing as off the charts as many other areas have seen. 

The heat, as expected, is expanding eastward from the Desert Southwest. Heat warnings and advisories cover an enormous patch of real estate. These advisories extend from California to Nebraska to Alabama. CNN reports 65 million people are covered by these heat alerts. 

Record highs keep falling. Denver on Saturday tied the mark for the earliest 100 degree reading on record. 

Record highs on Friday included 113 in Phoenix, 109 in Las Vegas, 103 in Austin, 100 in Grand Junction, Colorado and 87 degrees up in the mountains at Flagstaff, Arizona.

Between now and Wednesday, record high temperatures are forecast to be scattered across almost the entire southern two thirds of the United States. These high temperatures will even sneak up to the upper Midwest and Great Lakes early and midweek with highs in the mid and upper 90s forecast in places like Minneapolis, Des Moines, Chicago and Detroit.

While it will briefly turn warm and humid here in Vermont around Thursday, the worst of the heat will miss us as cold fronts will shove the heat to our south.

Normally, along the edges of heat waves, batches of severe storms often form. The heat can make the air highly unstable.  Little pushes of cooler air, or nearby cold fronts just to the north of the heat can be triggers for intense clusters of storms. 

Huge areas of the nation have at least a little risk of severe
thunderstorms today. (dark green and yellow). Light green
areas might have some non-severe storms. Once again,
Vermont avoids the extreme stuff. 

That's precisely what we've been seeing this weekend and will see for the next few days. There were a smattering of tornadoes in Nebraska and Kansas Saturday, with many other reports of baseball and tennis ball sized hail.

Today, areas of severe storms are forecast in a broad area from the Dakotas to Virginia and North Carolina. Many of those same areas are under the gun tomorrow.

Back here in Vermont, all is quiet once again. We should see some showers and rumbles of thunder scattered around very late today and tonight. This won't be a big deal at all and some areas might not see any rain at all. Or very little. It'll be hit and miss.

Then it will be very pleasant again Monday through Wednesday with near normal temperatures (highs in the mid 70s to around 80).  Showers come back into the picture Thursday and Friday, again not looking like that big a deal. 

Then we turn cool again.  No heat waves for you, kiddies in Vermont. We'll just stay in our calm little Green Mountain bubble. 

Strangely Quiet Out There Due To An Atmospheric Traffic Jam

Mild temperatures for this time of year prompted snow
to slide halfway off my St. Albans, Vermont roof and 
hang there. Light winds and relatively mild 
temperatures might keep this little snow sculpture
going the rest of the week, who knows?

This time of year, the heart of winter, the atmosphere is really dynamic.  The jet stream overhead screams by, powering big storms and dramatic changes in weather from stormy to frigid to warm back to frigid and our stormy again. 

Except now over Vermont and much of the Northeast and Midwest. 

Crickets. 

I mentioned this yesterday, but it's worth looking at more: There's a big traffic jam in the atmosphere, caused by an unusual ridge of high pressure in the atmosphere near Greenland. 

This is causing the usual parade of weather systems in North America and the western Atlantic come to a screeching halt. 

We're in the middle of this traffic jam, so the kind of weather that settled in Sunday won't change much at all during the week.  It'll feature light winds, cloudy skies and no excitement in the weather department. 

Even the strong upper level winds many thousands of feet overhead have gone mostly silent for now.  The guns of January - cold winds, storms, blowing snow - have gone quiet for awhile. 

The usual January weather excitement is avoiding us. Just like motorists in a traffic jam on Interstate 89, weather systems have to find some way to get around the mess. So storms from the Pacific Ocean take a detour, turning right so that they cross the southern United States instead of further north as usual.  

These storms eventually head off the southern U.S. coast and spin up nor'easters way offshore, too far away to have much effect on the East Coast.

These storms end up becoming part of the jam out in the Atlantic Ocean.  Like impatient motorists on Interstate 89, they just eventually make the problem worse. 

Those stalled offshore nor'easters, just sitting and spinning out there, do manage to throw back a little moisture our way, so we get clouds and even flurries. 

High pressure stalled to our north also contributes to the clouds. A temperature inversion forms beneath this high pressure. An inversion is when temperatures rise with elevation, instead of dropping with height like they usually do. 

This inversion creates a low level cloud deck. In the warmer times of the year, strong sun helps mix the atmosphere, breaking up the inversion and the clouds. The sun is low and weak this time of year, so the inversion holds pretty much all day.

So we linger under mostly cloudy, boring skies.  The sun does manage to peek through sometimes, but it's hit and miss.  We will also get virtually no precipitation for the next seven days. That's an oddly long time to avoid the snow or mixed precipitation we so frequently get in January. 

Usually, high pressure to our north in the winter feeds frigid Arctic air towards us.  Not this time. This high pressure is strangely warm.  At least for Canada.

That means for us this week, high temperatures during the day will be near or just above normal. Not that big a deal. However, nights will be toasty by Vermont standards, only dipping into the 20s, with some upper teens later this week.  It's usually in the single digits at night this time of year. 

The traffic jam extends into the Midwest.  It's so calm out there that freezing fog has been developing at night, making roads slick but creating beautiful frost on trees.  

It's possible we'll get patches of freezing fog at night here this week, though it's fairly unlikely. 

This traffic jam will eventually break, but probably not until mid-month at least. Despite the blocking in the atmosphere, some storms or weather systems might somehow get through and affect us more than a week from now, but it's hard to predict how that would happen this far in advance.