Fire Weather Alerts In Vermont Today Amid Dry Air, Gusty Winds. When Will The Rain Arrive?

After a long day of enjoying Monday's 
warm sunshine, a tired Henry the Weather
Dog settles down in the evening to watch
TV as evening sun bathes the 
living room in warm light. 

 We hope  you got to enjoy yesterday, Vermont's nicest day of the year so far. Temperatures were in the 70s, the sky was blue, there was a nice breeze making the daffodils dance. It was perfect. Except for the black flies, but you can't have everything. 

Last night turned interesting, at least for weather geeks like me, South winds in the Champlain Valley kept temperatures up, while in other areas especially east of the Green Mountains, light winds created another chilly night. 

It was a summer-like 58 degrees in Burlington at 6 a.m. But at the same time, it was just 34 degrees in Morrisville and 37 in Springfield.

The dry air and those south winds are conspiring to create probably Vermont's highest fire danger of the year so far. 

The whole region has a big fire risk today, but the worst of it is in the Champlain Valley and northern New York. 

A storm that caused severe weather over the Midwest yesterday is pushing east. That storm is rapidly weakening, but combined with the high to our east, it'll funnel stronger wind gusts up the Champlain Valley and into northern New York today. The humidity will stay rock bottom as it has for the past few days. 

With everything dried out and those winds gusting as high as 30 mph, fires could easily get going and then spread fast. And they'll be really hard to control once they do get going.    

Even though winds will be lighter in eastern Vermont, they'll still be enough to propel any fires that start there, too. The Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation says today's fire danger is very high in western Vermont and the lower Connecticut River valley. That's an unusually dire declaration from state fire wardens. Elsewhere in Vermont, the forestry department gives today a high fire danger rating.

As of this writing, there was a fire weather watch in western Vermont and northern New York due to the fire danger. That watch will probably be upgraded to a relatively rare for Vermont red flag warning. Elsewhere in Vermont, a special weather statement highlights the fire danger.

This is not the day to be careless with cigarettes or burn that nasty weedy patch in back of your house. Do that and you can lose your house. Or your neighbors' house. 

That storm coming in will start to spread clouds our way this afternoon, but we won't have any rain to reduce the fire threat. Any showers coning from the Great Lakes area will fall apart long before they reach Vermont.

Otherwise, today will be great. Highs will reach the low 70s again. And the winds might help keep the black flies at bay a little. 

All this will leave us with a quiet, mild night tonight. 

WEDNESDAY

It'll still be dry and relatively warm, so the fire threat will remain. It won't be as windy and the humidity will be slightly higher than it is today. It'll get into the 60s to around 70, so again, fairly warm for this time of year. Clouds will tend to increase again later in the day, in anticipation of a huge change in our weather pattern

RAIN ARRIVES

The next weather disturbance in the pipeline will head northeastward up the western side to the Appalachians and will start to arrive here late Wednesday night. 

That means much colder air and rain for most of Thursday. The steadiest and heaviest rain will probably come Thursday morning but I don't see any real dry periods at all.  High temperatures will only reach the 50s at best. 

Rainfall predictions are always tricky. They do change a lot leading up to a storm like this. But for now, the forecast calls for a respectable three quarters of an inch of rain, give or take. That's more than enough to dampen the fire risk. 

And the dreaded "S" word enters the picture, too. It should cool off enough Thursday night for rain showers to mix with or change to snow at elevations above 1,500 feet.  There might be an inch or two of new snow at the summits. This isn't super weird for late April but still vaguely depressing.

NEW COLDER PATTERN

Nothing's really changed in the extended forecast we've been talking about for a few days now. We have an extended period of mostly cooler than normal weather.  We had several days of sunny, dry weather, now we'll have at least double the amount of chilly, unsettled weather. Like I said yesterday, no good weather in Vermont goes unpunished. 

This will last at least until mid-May. It won't rain every day, and we should have a couple reasonably warm days thrown in here and there. 

Most days will have a chance of showers. The coldest days will be Friday and Saturday, as some of us will probably not break 50 degrees for highs.

On the bright side, chilly ain't what it used to be, as normal temperatures have been rising fast and will continue to do so into May.  Look at it this way.  A day that was ten degrees cooler than normal on April 10 would have had a high of 42 degrees. A day that's ten degrees on the cool side on May 10 would have a high of 57. 

So chilly weather is definitely getting easier. 

And for what they're worth, very long range forecasts call for a potentially hot and unusually humid summer around here. If that comes true, you'll be pining for those damp, cool days we'll have in May this year. 

Damp Vermont Tuesday After Monday Storm Under-Performed

Pretty dark and damp today in northern Vermont, as you
can see from this photo this morning in St. Albans.
Much brighter, more pleasant weather is coming
for the rest of the week, though. 

Yesterday and last night's expected soaking in Vermont wasn't quite the soggy episode that many forecasters had expected. 

But it still rained hard in the bullseye zone of the storm in eastern Massachusetts, parts of New Hampshire and Maine. 

Western Maine had widespread two to three inch rain reports, with a few places getting more than that. Flood warnings were up for the region this morning but have since expired.  

Here in Vermont, I suspected in yesterday's post there would be a sharp cut off in rainfall amounts in the Champlain Valley, and that certainly came true.  Only 0.10 inches of rain fell yesterday in Burlington.  

Central Vermont got somewhat less rain than expected, with amounts, give or take in the half inch range. But southern and far eastern Vermont got an inch or more of rain, so they got what was coming to them. 

Today is looking wetter than we thought it would be only a couple days ago. That's especially true in northern and central Vermont. Frequent, mostly light showers have been ongoing all morning, and that state of affairs should continue through the day. 

Although radar isn't showing it, some of the shallow rain clouds overhead are actually able to produce brief heavy downpours. I passed through a couple such downpours driving through Georgia, Vermont this morning. 

If you do get a downpour, it won't long. They'll fall far, far short of ever being able to cause any high water issues. Just want to mention that in case you're understandably still spooked from Vermont disastrous summer of floods. 

Especially for those of you north of Route 4, today will be a classic raw, dark, autumn day, with temperatures holding in the low 60s again, on the cool side. This type of weather is pretty normal for mid-September. 

For those of you who don't like the gloom, we're still looking a few days of super pleasant, sunny, comfortable September days starting tomorrow. Most mornings will be pretty foggy, though, especially in the river valleys. That's typical of this time of year. The fog will clear up by mid-morning daily

It is nice to have a stretch of normal September weather for a change. 

Wet Vermont Thursday Will Probably Be Chilliest Until September

On a dark, rainy June morning in St. Albans, Vermont,
wisteria begins to bloom.  At least they have enough
water, as we're expecting up to an inch of rain today.

 We in Vermont are experiencing a great indoor day today.  Instead of garden and yard work, or hiking, or playing outside, it's time to maybe straighten up the home office desk. Pay some bills. Tidy up the kitchen. Or just chill with Netflix.  

It's wet and chilly, in case you haven't noticed.

We dealing with a pretty dynamic storm system, at least by June standards.  More often than not, the period from Memorial to Labor Day features hit and miss showers and storms. Some people are winners, others are losers in the rain department. 

This time, everybody is receiving a nice soaking.  Of course some people will have more rain than others. All of us should end the day with at least a half inch of new rain.  Several places, especially in southern Vermont, will see more than an inch of rain.

The heaviest rain will come down this morning and early afternoon.  It won't be enough to cause any real flooding, but there could be some ponding of water on roads, a hydroplaning risk on the Interstates, that sort of thing. 

Even as the rain turns lighter, more showery and spottier this afternoon, clouds will linger.  That'll keep temperatures no higher than the low 60s all day. Except in southern Vermont, where a little evening sun might boost temperatures toward 70 degrees.

Today's highs in northern Vermont will be ten to 15 degrees cooler than normal, but we won't have any record "low" high temperatures.  (Today's record low high in Burlington is 55 degrees, and they were already a bit warmer than that as of this early morning writing).

Still, there's a good chance this afternoon will be the chilliest until sometime in September.

Tomorrow and Saturday look much better with at least some sun and temperatures poking back up into the seasonable 70s.  We'll probably see a few scattered showers here and there both days, but they will be few and far between. 

The overall weather pattern isn't changing quite yet, though, so another period of weather fronts and such will provide more showers Sunday and Monday. I'm not sure yet how much rain we'll get out of that. 

As I said yesterday, the real hot weather will be suppressed to the southern half of the United States for the foreseeable future. Still, though, by the middle of next week, we have signs that we will turn warmer and drier, but not rain-free. 

That suggests we'll have more summer-like weather starting in about a week, but still, nothing torrid. 

 

Atmospheric Pattern Goes Negative, We Get Chilly As A Result

A gloomy, chilly spring day, May 3, 2019.  A weather 
pattern setting up now is forecast to give us more than
our fair share of weather like this. 

Something called the negative NAO is going to ruin your spring. For a while, anyway. 

Our upcoming bout of generally chilly spring weather is brought to you by a negative phase of something called the North Atlantic Oscillation.

This refers to changing weather and pressure patterns in the North Atlantic.  When it goes negative we get colder. 

It's now going negative.  A negative NAO means that high pressure takes residence up in and near Greenland. This suppresses the jet stream southward, especially in eastern North America. When the jet stream slips south, we get colder. 

In the winter, a negative NAO means subzero weather and a risk of nasty nor'easters in New England. 

This time, it's all happening in late April and the opening week or two of May, so it won't be a dramatic as a negative NAO in the winter.  It'll just be chilly most days between now and at least the first week in May. Not every day will be colder than normal, but the trend will go in that direction. 

Most, but not all of the time, it doesn't rain (or snow) all that much in a negative NAO around here during the spring. We get a lot of cloudy days and light showers, but blockbuster storms tend to be lacking in this regime. 

The very cloudy weather with this pattern in spring is in large part due to the interaction of the strong spring sun and the nippy atmosphere. The sun heats the ground strongly causing updrafts. Those updrafts form lots of clouds as they rise into the colder air.  The colder air causes moisture in the updrafts to condense, and you get clouds.  

This weather pattern does have its benefits, at least elsewhere in the nation.  The negative NAO tends to suppress severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in the Midwest. That's a good thing as we head toward the peak of severe weather season.

This doesn't mean there won't be tornadoes. It just means there will be fewer of them. 

The weather pattern is also causing some late season rain and mountain snow in California. It won't be a huge amount of precipitation out there, but anything will come in handy after a remarkably dry second half of winter in much of the western U.S.

Back here in Vermont, the next few days will be only slightly cooler than average. We will get a quick squirt of warmer than  normal air Monday and Monday night before we settle into the cool pattern again.

Vermont/New England Remarkably Chilly; But At Least It Rained

Lilies in my garden, dressed up in water
droplets from Saturday's light rain, get
a glimpse of sun this morning.

If you had big outdoor barbecue and beach plans yesterday in Vermont or anywhere else in New England, I'm sorry. 

It was about as chilly and raw and damp and rainy as you can possibly get on a Fourth of July weekend. Boston set a record for the coldest high temperature for any July day, as it got only to 60 degrees on Saturday. This just three days after Boston tied its all time high for June at 100 degrees.

Worcester, Massachusetts only managed a "high" of 57 degrees.

Up here in Vermont, Burlington on Saturday only had a high of 63 degrees. That is actually colder than the high temperature we had on Christmas Day, which was 65 degrees.

At least some needed rain fell. A swath through eastern New England reported one to three inches of rain Saturday, on top of more rainfall in the previous days. 

In Vermont, rain was spottier, but everybody except the northwest corner of the state got some decent rains, with most places over a half inch since Thursday night. Even up here in the drier northwest corner of Vermont some rain fell, and I'll take anything I can get. It was only 0.2 inches in St. Albans Friday and Saturday, but that came after a 0.8 inch dump on Wednesday, so that helps.

It will be interesting to see more detailed reports of Saturday's rainfall when that data comes out later this morning. It appears that last evening, several hours of pretty heavy rain fell on the eastern slopes of the central and northern Green Mountains from roughly Route 4 to at least east of St. Johnsbury if not further north. 

That zone has officially been in drought for months now, so if that area really did get a drenching, yesterday and last night will help. despite the chill.

THE FORECAST

This July at least so far and in the forecast for the next week or so, is incredibly different from the past three Julys, which were terribly hot and dry in and around Vermont. As noted yesterday, the past three Julys were the hottest on record, at least as measured in Burlington, Vermont.

It looks like July, 2021 will probably end that hot streak. 

Most days for the next week or so will be a bit cooler than normal, but certainly not as shiver-inducing as Saturday was. Plus, we have several more shots at getting additional rain, which we still need.

It seems today will have a bit of a split personality across Vermont.  The upper level low pressure system that brought us our dank Saturday has moved to near Maine. 

That means areas east of the Green Mountains should stay mostly or completely cloudy, with a risk of some more showers. There won't be nearly as much rain as yesterday.

West of the Green Mountains, today is looking OK. The sun was already out, briefly at my place in St. Albans, Vermont early this morning.   There still will be quite a few clouds around, but at least the sun will come out fro time to time. 

It'll still be cool for the season west of the Green Mountains --highs in the 68-74 degree range, I'd say.

It'll turn warmer tomorrow, and Tuesday will actually be kind of on the muggy side. There should be showers around later Monday night, and a good chance of showers and storms Tuesday.

Cooler air returns Wednesday and stays for the rest of the week, but we're not talking cold. Just 70s as opposed to the low 80s readings that are more typical for this time of year.

Tropical Storm Elsa is expected to move northeastward off the U.S. East Coast Thursday and Friday, and be too far to Vermont's south and east to directly affect us.

But moisture will flow into our neck of the woods Thursday to give us another good shot at rain, especially in southern Vermont. 

For those craving a return to hot weather, there are chances of it settling in after next weekend. We'll have to wait and see how that pans out. 

Frigid Vermont Weekend, But Some Parts Get Drought Relief. Snow, Too!

Traffic cam from relatively high elevation Searsburg in 
southern Vermont fortunately shows rain, not snow, but
it's going to be a remarkably chilly, damp weekend 
and Memorial Day, especially in the southern 
half of the state

UPDATE:

While it's nice and sunny this morning way up where I am in St. Albans, Vermont, I can confirm snow HAS fallen on parts of Vermont. 

It was nearing 60 degrees by mid morning in St. Albans. It's actually turning into a nicer, warmer day than first though in the northwest corner of the state.

But web cam images from the summit of Stratton Mountain, in southern Vermont, showed snow falling this morning and a slushy accumulation on the ground. 

Mid-mountain cams showed a slushy coating on the ground at Stratton at 2,275 feet of elevation. Just before 11 a.m., it was snowing pretty hard and it looked like there was at least a couple inches of snow on the ground at the Stratton summit, at 3,875 feet above sea level

Video by @VermonsterWx  on Twitter showed snow flakes mixing with the raindrops this morning at his high elevation home not far from Readsboro.

Awfully late for snow in Vermont even at high elevations, but not unprecedented. 

On May 25-26 2013, a whopping two feet of snow piled up on Whiteface Mountain, New York and Jay Peak, Vermont got 18 inches. Elevations of just 900 to 1,800 feet above sea level got two to six inches of snow in that episode.

Nothing nearly like that is in store with this episode. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Boy, the Vermont forecast for the rest of the weekend just keeps going downhill, especially those who like warm sunshine. 

On the bright side, some parts of the state are now in for some drought relief. 

Screen grab from live video atop Stratton Mountain, Vermont
shows a full-blown snowstorm in progress shortly 
before 11 a.m. today. 

A few days ago, the outlook for this weekend was lots of sunshine and cool temperatures. Good for the mood, but the then-anticipated super dry air would make the drought worse and the forest fire danger rise. 

Now, nearly stalled storms in the upper atmosphere and near the surface are bringing clouds, very cold weather for this time of year and rain to at least parts of Vermont and surrounding areas.

The veil of high clouds over northern Vermont prompted a spectacular sunset last evening, but that's basically it for brightness for the rest of the weekend. 

In northern Vermont, there actually be an OK amount of sun today, and it will be a really a nice enogh day. 

With the sun peaking through, we'll manage highs north of Route 2 in the low 60s.  That's still cool for this time of year, but still ten degrees warmer than yesterday and far better than what's going on in southern Vermont. 

There, clouds will hang pretty tough today.  In some mid and high elevation along and south of Route 4, temperatures didn't make it past the upper 40s yesterday afternoon and won't crack 50 degrees until Monday at the earliest.

That's almost as bad for sensitive garden plants as frost. Tomatoes, cucumbers and the like crave sunshine, warmth and humidity, so this weather will stunt things for awhile. On the bright side, earlier forecasts of frosty mornings this weekend are now off the table.  

Rain will move south to north across Vermont on Sunday, with the day being a miserable washout in the south. 

The rain, or the risk of it, anyway, will continue Sunday night and well into Monday.  It looks like southern and eastern Vermont will get a nice, slow batch of soaking rain, maybe up to an inch or more of it in some spots 

This slow, gradual rain is better for drought busting that harsh, quick downpours, which tend to run off and not soak into the ground. 

It seems like northwestern Vermont, where I live, might well be screwed out of this needed rain once again. There's still a lot of questions as to how much rain will make it into the northern Champlain Valley, but early indications are not much.  We could get less than a tenth of an inch of rain, which isn't really helpful. 

There's still some hope some of the good rains will push a little further northwest. Let's hope so 

Earlier forecasts had said Monday would turn brighter and warmer, but no. Turns out we'll still be stuck under thick clouds and unseasonably cold daytime readings. Highs will be in the 50s Monday instead of the normal low to mid 70s we get this time of  year. 

The slow moving storminess might even delay the expected real warmup that was to have begun in earnest on Tuesday.  Still, the end of the week does look much more seasonable.  Shower chances ramp up late in the week, too, giving a little hope for needed rain in northwestern Vermont, and perhaps a little more drought-busting rain to the southern part of the Green Mountain State.