Drought Monitor: Vermont Dry Conditions Unchanged Since Last Week

A drought is deepening across eastern New England and
Vermont is on the western fringe of that drought. 
Below normal rainfall is forecast for at least the
next week in northern New England. 

Drought conditions and dry soil conditions remained the same in Vermont over the past seven days, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor.    

 Moderate drought still covered nearly a quarter of the state east of the Green Mountains and north of about Bradford. 

Abnormally dry conditions extended across the rest of northern Vermont east of the western foothills of the Green Mountains, according to the report, which was released Thursday morning. 

Vermont remains on the eastern edge of deepening drought in northeastern New England. Drought expanded a little in New Hampshire in the past week. All of Maine is in at least moderate drought, up from 75 percent of the state. Nearly 20 percent of Maine is in severe drought. And for the first time this drought cycle, a small area of the central Maine coast is in extreme drought.

The outlook isn't good. We've fallen into a weather pattern that soaks southern New England and leaves the north high and dry. 

Here in Vermont, the southern third of the state expect a half inch to an inch of rain between now and Sunday morning. Pretty decent. That tapers off to less than a quarter inch of rain north of Route 2. In Maine, up to a half inch of rain is forecast along the coast in the next day or so, but it won't be enough to really dent the drought. Up in northern Maine, little rain is forecast. 

Another problem: When there's a big El Nino, autumn tend to be dry in northern New England. Especially in September and October.  Not every time, but often. And sometimes that dry weather extends into the early winter. 

The drought could become worse. On top of that, all that greenery out there is going to turn brown and dry. Autumn leaves will fall, and become crunchy tinder underfoot, ready to start a new fire.

Already, there's been a recent forest fire in Vermont. A small, but difficult forest fire is burning on Hogback Mountain, near Bristol. Crews on Saturday had to haul water in backpacks and climb over ledges to get to the half-acre fire.

They dug a containment line around it, but it was burning underground. That's how dry it is. Even the half inch of rain that fell Saturday night did little to stop it. The blaze was likely an improperly extinguished recreational fire, according to the Bristol Fire Department. 

Just another reason to be vigilant about fire as the North Country dries out. 

 

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.

Expected Rainfall In Vermont Was A Bust Except For In Far Northern Areas, Wild, Tornadic Storms Ontario, Western New York

Vermont was hoping to get some heavy rain last night
like this August downpour in Colchester, Vermont.
Instead, most areas south of Route 2 received little
rain, and not much more rain is in the forecast. 

For most of Vermont, our expected rain last night was a bust. 

The rain that we wanted in Vermont split into two pieces.  One area of heavy rain, and severe storms passed well to our southwest. Another area of dousing rain moved west to east across southern Quebec. That  area of rain brushed northern Vermont. 

And unfortunately, it doesn't look like much more rain is in the forecast. More on the northern rain and the forecast in a bit.  But first: 

WILD WESTERN NEW YORK/ONTARIO

The weather excitement yesterday and last evening were some vicious thunderstorms that raced southeastward late yesterday afternoon and evening from Ontario  and on into western New York and northern Pennsylvania. 

In and around Toronto, intense thunderstorms brought winds severe wind gusts.  tornado warning, golf and even tennis ball sized hail and extensive flooding. Roofs were blown off some buildings, many, many trees fell and tens of thousand of power outages were reported. 

Major highways around Toronto were closed due to flooding.

During Wednesday evening, western New York came under numerous tornado warnings. We don't yet have confirmations of any touchdowns, but the National Weather Service will be investigating the damage today to figure out if and where twisters might have hit.

We always expected those storms to miss Vermont, but we had hoped at least a thick line of heavier rain would move west to east across the Green Mountain State. That didn't happen. Except in the far northern reaches of the state. 

NORTHERN RAIN

The heavy rain in Quebec came far enough south to give some areas north of Route 2 a nice dousing. Though the rain came mostly in short, sharp downpours and not a steady, moderate rain that would have been better for developing drought conditions. 

We don't have full reports on the rainfall in northern Vermont yet. Northwestern Vermont appears to be the big winner. My unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans picked up an impressive 1.53 inches of rain. In the Northeast Kingdom, St. Johnsbury reported a solid 0.84 inches of rain. It appears the rain might have been even a little heavier north of St. Johnsbury. 

Maidstone, Vermont, way up there in the Kingdom, reported 0.90 inches

Which is good news because the Northeast Kingdom is the driest part of the state.  The latest U.S. Drought Monitor report, released this morning, is unchanged in Vermont from last week. There's still moderate drought and dry conditions in the northeastern part of the state.

The rain was enough to prompt flood warnings for a time in far northern New York, where 2.5 to 3.5 inches of rain was reported. but the rain doesn't look like it caused any real problems here in Vermont. 

Rainfall in Vermont quickly tapered off as you headed south. Woodbury and Morrisville in north-central Vermont had around a half inch of rain.  Burlington had just 0.31 inches. Montplier received only 0.07. Along and south of Route 4, most places had only sprinkles. 

THE FORECAST

Showers are in the forecast, but they won't amount to much, at least for the vast majority of us.  Here are the dailies:

Today

It'll be a rather warm and humid day for early September. Not anything extreme, but you'll feel the lingering effects of summer. It'll get sunnier as we get through the day, too as highs reach well into the 70s. 

There might be a shower or two around this morning, but don't hold your breath on that. 

Friday

Kind of meh, not bad of a day. Party sunny, maybe some light showers over the hills and mountains. Highs in the 70s. Kind of typical early September.

Saturday

A little cooler. Still partly sunny. A slightly better chance of showers than on Friday, but chances are you'll stay dry. Especially if you're in a southern Vermont valley. Or the Champlain Valley. Highs should be within a few degrees either side of 70.

Sunday and Labor Day

Great outdoor weather, as it looks now. Partly to mostly sunny skies, low humidity and highs in the 70s. Monday will be the warmer of the two days. 

Next Week

Not much rain, unfortunately. We're in a fast westerly flow. That means we'll see a lot of weather disturbances zip through, each of them carrying a risk of showers. But the disturbances and cold fronts will be moving so fast that they won't be able to grab a lot of deep moisture that would dump a lot of rain on us. 

Whatever showers we do get won't last long. 

Vermont Has One Shot At Drenching Rain Before A Likely Long Dry Spell

Hand it to the National Weather Service, whether radar this morning is exactly what was forecast. 

Weather radar this morning showed areas of rain moving
northwest to southeast across central and southern Vermont
The light blue shading on the northern edge is just 
clouds and very light rain evaporating before it hits the
ground.. Heavier, more drenching rain is forecast
to arrive Wednesday night. 

Areas of rain, most of it light but some of it moderate, to almost heavy, were racing northwest to southeast across southern and central Vermont this morning. 

Northern Vermont was missing out. Clouds were thick and threatening in northwest Vermont, close to the rain band, but thinner up in the Northeast Kingdom.. 

That state of affairs will continue to day, though the rain in southern Vermont will tend to taper off as the afternoon goes on

North of Route 2, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some sunshine breaks out this afternoon.

A stalled weather front to our south and west is responsible for today's rainy weather. 

Total rainfall through tonight looks like they'll amount to a quarter to a half inch in the southern half of Vermont with very little north. 

Scattered showers overnight tonight might deposit a paltry few hundredths of an inch of rain north of Route 2. Too bad, as the Northeast Kingdom needs the rain more than other parts of the state. 

Under the rain and clouds, highs in southern and central Vermont will only get into autumnal  highs in the 60s. Northern Vermont, outside the rain, could make it into the 70s. 

Our sole chance of soaking rains will come later Wednesday through the pre-dawn Thursday. 

WEDNESDAY

We need the rain, and it's still looking like we'll get a decent dose of rain Wednesday night. 

We'll likely get through the day Wednesday without much of rain. It'll be cloudy and vaguely humid, but any showers should be light and few and far between. Highs should get into the 70s, with some mid and upper 60s under areas with thicker clouds, especially east of the Green Mountains. 

n

A stronger area of low pressure will push that stalled front toward us. The system will fire up severe thunderstorms from western New York southeastward to New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. 

Up here in Vermont, thunderstorms should weaken and fade away before reaching us, but we do have a shot at some fairly heavy downpours. The rain will reach us in the evening and continue overnight. 

Over all, the National Weather Service expects a nice three quarters to an inch of rain for most spots, with over an inch in some areas of the Green Mountains. Unfortunately the far corners of the Northeast Kingdom might receive as little as a half inch of rain.

The rain will be steady enough, without too many short, sharp bursts of torrential downpours, that flooding looks pretty unlikely 

THURSDAY-SATURDAY

The storm system will amble on to the east, but not in any kind of hurry. This will keep cool-ish, sort of moist north winds blowing. That could set off some scattered showers, especially Thursday as a secondary weak cold front drifts through Vermont. 

This rain will not be heavy, and it will be scattered. Northern mountains have the best shot at seeing the showers.

Day by day, the showers will become lighter and more scattered so that by Sunday, there shield be few if any sprinkles left over. 

Daytime temperature should be pretty comfortable through the period as highs should reach the 70s, with some upper 60s on cooler, northern areas, especially the Northeast Kingdom. 

SUNDAY AND BEYOND

We'd better hope the above forecast for a soaking rain comes true, as we look to be in for a fairly long period of dry to mostly dry weather. 

Once we get into September, we often see big, dry high pressure systems hang out nearby.  The next chance of rain looks like it will be just scattered showers ahead of a cold front early Tuesday. 

A storm system riding along that front could bring heavier rain to the south. This is a long way off, so there's always a chance that storm could come closer to us than forecast, and give us some rain.  But we'll wait to worry about that in a few days. 

 

If Things Work Out, We Could Actually Have A Rather Rainy Week In Vermont. We need It.

Somewhat ominous skies greeted early risers over St.
Albans, Vermont this morning. If forecasts are correct.
we could have a week of badly needed off and on
rain over the next several days. 

We got through another gorgeous Saturday in Vermont, with our blue skies and a few puffy clouds in the skies. I savored the gorgeous end of August weather. 

The signs of autumn keep hitting though. This time of year, some of the leaves on the trees are looking tired and ragged after a long summer of insects, wind, dry spells and hot days. 

Also, with a high temperature of 77 degrees and a low of 50, the average temperature in Burlington Saturday was 63.5 making it coolest day since June 7.

As nice as Saturday was, we could use the rain and the National Weather Service is offering hope for a potentially wet week across Vermont. 

The NWS office in South Burlington has at least a chance of showers each day today through next Saturday, except maybe tomorrow.

 It's unclear how much rain we'll actually get. We could use a lot of rain, and we might get that. Then again, at least parts of Vermont might not get all that much. It all depends on the path of several weather disturbances this week zipping northwest to southeast across New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.

Current forecasts give a half inch to an inch of rain today through Wednesday morning across most of the Green Mountain State, with more coming after that. NOAA has Vermont receiving one to two inches of rain over the next seven days. 

Those predictions often shift dramatically, so we can't guarantee we'll actually get that much rain. 

If this forecast plays out, it could blunt a developing drought in  northern Vermont and give a much needed rain in southern Vermont, which is still drought-free, for now. 

Let's get into the detailed forecast like we do almost every day. 

TODAY

A  few showers have already skittered across northern Vermont this morning and more is on the way. I don't think today will be as decent a day as first thought especially in northern Vermont. There's a chance of showers almost everywhere in Vermont. Showers and maybe a rumble or two of thunder are more likely in northern Vermont. 

The forecast for today has become a little more dismal because moisture in the atmosphere all the way from the Pacific Ocean has made it to an area just south of an approaching cold front in Quebec.  Highs today will reach the 70s.

Not everybody in the north will get wet, but many areas will. The showers will taper off after sunset as the cold front slips quietly south through Vermont. 

MONDAY

The front should sag south and west of Vermont and oriented in a northwest to southeast orientation. The front should still be far enough south and west so that we should be out of the rain. The sun should come out, especially in central and northern Vermont. We should see highs in the 70s again. 

TUESDAY/WEDNESDAY

The front to out south and west will mark the battle line between coolish air in Quebec and horribly humid and very warm air in the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic States. The cool-ish air should win out here in Vermont, though it won't exactly be cold. Daily highs should be in the 70s, close to normal for this time of year.

The front will slowly approach Vermont. Nobody is really sure how fast it will come at us. Meanwhile, disturbances will ride northwest to southeast along the front, carrying batches of rain on the north side of the front, and thunderstorms to the south. 

The position of the front will dictate where and when it rains in Vermont and how much. It's too soon to pick out exactly how this will play out. However, so far at least, it looks like the front will stay near or southwest of Vermont. 

That means potential severe thunderstorms should stay mostly in the Ohio Valley and in the Mid-Atlantic states.

THURSDAY AND BEYOND

Another front from the west should begin to sweep everything to the east. As it does so, we'll probably keep up with the rain and showers. 

I'm not sure how fast this thing will clear Vermont, so showers could continue Friday and maybe into Saturday. 

Drought Developing In Northern Vermont

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor indicates
drought conditions have started in
the Northeast Kingdom (orange shading)
Yellow areas are abnormally dry, which
is a precursor to drought. 

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor, released Thursday, indicate a new drought has developed in northeastern Vermont 

About 13 percent of the state is now in drought, the report noted. The area in drought in in western Essex County, northern Caledonia County and eastern Orleans County. 

The area of abnormal dryness, which is a precursor to drought, also expanded over the past week. The dry area is in most northern Vermont, and in eastern Vermont north of White River Junction. 

As of Tuesday, when the drought data is compiled, nearly 42 percent of the state was abnormally dry or in drought. Last week, 32 percent of Vermont was abnormally dry.

This is the first time any part of the state has been in drought since the week of May 14, when the lower Connecticut Valley south of White River Junction was in drought. Heavy rain erased that area of drought during the second half of May. 

Yesterday, a little rain fell in parts of the Northeast Kingdom during some thunderstorms, but the rain didn't amount to much. Mostly a quarter inch or less. A few pinpoint spots with a little more, but the rain won't change the drought. 

Short term, over the next week or two are somewhat encouraging in terms of rainfall. We have numerous chances of rain over the next two weeks, but it's unclear how heavy that rain might be. 

Once we get into September, chances increase that storm systems create a more widespread, steady rain rather than the hit and miss thunderstorms we see in the summer.

That said, Septembers can be quite dry.  Large high pressure systems often slow down or stall over northern New England and southeast Canada in the early autumn. That creates many consecutive days of dry weather. If several such high pressure systems appear, droughts can easily intensify. 

This drought is not nearly as bad as the one that hit last summer and autumn. The current drought in the Northeast Kingdom is considered "moderate."  By October of last year, virtually all of Vermont was experiencing major or extreme drought. 

It would take a very strong shift toward almost no rain to see a repeat of last year. 

Spokane Becomes The Latest City Victimized By Climate Fires. More Surely To Come, Unfortunately

A woman rushes her dog away as her house burns down
Saturday during the Spokane wildfire. She reported lost
other pets in the blaze,

Spokane, Washington has joined the sad list of American towns and cities mowed down by marauding wildfires in recent years. 

Fort McMurray, Alberta in 2016. Gatlinburg, Tennessee, also in 2016. Paradise, California in 2018. Lytton, British Columbia in 2021, the Boulder, Colorado area, also in 2021. Lahaina, Hawaii, 2023. Pacific Palisades and Altadena, California in 2025.

It's been quite a decade for fires blasting through North American towns and cities. The above is only the highlight. Numerous other smaller towns have lost many of their homes and businesses in other fires

Now, it's Spokane.

In just an afternoon and evening on August 1, more than 600 homes burned down in and around Spokane. Once again, we saw the horrible scenes of hasty evacuations, roads clogged with cars with panicked, fleeing families inside. 

History has other big fires smashing through towns of course. A wildfire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin that killed perhaps 2,000 people. 

An 1881 fire in Michigan killed 282 people.  An 1894 Minnesota wildfire killed more than 400 people. And in 1910 the so-called Great Fire swept through five million acres in Idaho, Montana and Washington. 

These urban firestorms seemed to calm down in much of the 20th century. Sure there were a few, like the Oakland-Berkeley  Hills firestorm in 1991, which killed 25 people. But too many of us assumed we had conquered the threat of a wildfire plowing into a town or a city

But now they're back. Especially over the past decade, as we noted.

WILDLAND-URBAN INTERFACE

One problem is the wildland-urban interface. More and more people are moving into woodsy areas as suburbs expand into once unpopulated areas. The appeal is obvious: A beautiful forest in your backyard, wildlife wandering by. It's hard to resist. 

The wildland-urban interfaces or WUI's, are not just in the western states. The states with the most houses in WUIs are California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

There's always talk of adaption in these zones, to keep the house from burning.  Clear the brush and the trees away from the houses. Clean the gutters. That kind of thing. But judging from the way the ravaged neighborhoods in Spokane appeared.you can't fully adapt yourself out of extreme wildfires. 

The neighborhoods that burned were typical suburbia. Nice lawns, flower beds. Scattered decorative trees. The flammable pines and spruces safe in the background. Or so you'd think. 

Under normal circumstances, when a single house goes up in flames, due to an electrical problem, clumsy kitchen cooking, an unattended candle, a small army of firefighters arrive. Neighboring houses get soaked down so they don't burn, too. 

In wildfires, there's never enough personnel to protect every home. The entire forest behind the neighborhoods is on fire. Embers are everywhere, setting fire to the old leaves in the gutters, sneaking into the attic vents, setting the area beneath the roof on fire. The pretty decorative cedar against the foundation - dried out by months of drought - bursts into flames amid the sparks. That blaze quickly sets the house on fire.

On and on the fires go, hopscotching from one house to the next. In the end, in Spokane, at least 700 houses succumbed. That's how it works in the wild land-urban interface.

DRY WEATHER/CLIMATE CHANGE

We knew there would be trouble in eastern Washington on Saturday. It's been building since this past winter. Unprecedented warmth and a lack of snow meant the landscape dried out much earlier in the spring than it usually does. 

It doesn't rain much during the summer in eastern Washington. Normally June precipitation is 1.17 inches in Spokane. This year, Spokane received just 0.26 inches. The city usually gets just under a half inch of rain in July. This year, there was only a trace.

The area is absolutely arid at this point. This weekend a dry cold front passed through the region. West winds with the cold front gained momentum as they raced down the east slopes of the Cascade mountains, drying out as they did so, 

The smallest sparks erupted in to firestorms on Saturday, and the disaster landed.  

By Sunday, 920 firefighters were battling the blazes in and around Spokane. That number was expected to rise to 2,000 during this week. More than 65,000 people had been evacuated, with no word yet on when all of them will go home. 

The weather forecast across the Pacific Northwest is discouraging. The wind has diminished, but it will remain dry and hot for the foreseeable future. Winds are expected to increase this coming weekend, but they won't be as strong as they were last Saturday. 

 It's no coincidence that these urban and suburban wildfires have increased over the past decade. It's not just the wildland-urban interface.  Spokane is a great, sad example. Climate change helped make the winter warmer, the summer drier. You see it over and over again. Paradise, California hit because the winter rains were late. Same thing happened in Altadena in 2025. 

Climate change has made things so much more extreme. So much more predictable. And this summer, the extreme weather continues, given an added boost by a wildly strong El Nino.

The fires near Spokane, in the rest of Washington State and the West overall will burn indefinitely. Probably until the winter snows fly. 

LOUSY CONDITIONS/LOUSY PEOPLE

Spokane wasn't the only wildfire problem. As of Sunday, seventeen major fires encompassing 260,000 were burning across Washington. In Oregon, wildfires have burned more than 2 million acres, by far the most acreage on record. August and September tend to be the peak fire season in Oregon. 

The record for an entire fire season - set in 2024 - is about the same as what has burned so far this year in Oregon

On Saturday, the wind and the dry air around Spokane and other areas of the Northwest made fighting the fires impossible. They basically morauded unimpeded through forests, scrublands and finally neighborhoods, 

 "There is not a fire department in the United States that can handle a wind-driven event this size," said Assistant Spokane Fire Chief Lance Dahl. 

The spikes in wind over the next couple of months will likely lead to more homes burned this year. Maybe not hundreds at a time like in Spokane but enough to hurt many, many more families. 

The end result of this conflagration in Spokane was so many moments of normal daily life cruelly interrupted. Per the Spokane Spokesman-Review:

"Signs of children lingered on sidewalks where hopscotch was chalked. Stone stairs that once led to a wraparound porch led to nothing Smoldering foundations were still hot enough to melt shoes."

At one, the homeowner found nothing salvageable except for a muffin tin. At another house, it was complete devastation except for a koi pond. The fish in the pond somehow survived. At yet another destroyed home, a father instructed his son to take a brick from the house as a memento. He'd already done that. 

The most infuriating thing about the Spokane disaster is its apparent cause - arson. On Monday, Aaron Farinacci, 37, was arrested in Spokane for allegedly starting the Old Trails Fire, the largest and most destructive of three large fires in and around the city.  

As NBC News reports, the fire began at around 10 a.m. Saturday A witness told police the saw the man looking into the trees an was later seen crouching at the side of the road near some grass before he "stood up and looked very nervous" and walked away, said Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels .

Police detained Farinacci Saturday about a half mile from where the fire started. He had waterproof matches and a butane lighter on him. Authorities let Farinacci go, apparently mostly because the most important job at the moment was understandably evacuating people hastily. 

On Sunday, investigators determined the Old Trail Fire started exactly where the witness saw Farinacci crouching, leading to Monday's arrest. At last check he's being held on $1 million bond.

So far, I haven't seen a motive for the arson. 

Farinacci is (allegedly!) the worst but not only horrible idiot associated with the fires. We saw at least 26 incidents of people flying personal drones over the fires. That mean officials had to ground air support for safety reasons, hurting the firefighting efforts. 

By the way, flying drones over an emergency zone is a federal crime. 

In Oregon, the Jefferson County Sheriff's office are warning boaters on Lake Billy Chinook could be completely shut down for recreation if people don't stop interfering with firefighting efforts. Onlookers have repeatedly gotten too close to planes and helicopters as they scoop water from the lake to fight nearby fires, Central Oregon Daily News reported.  

Goons are watching the fires, for afar, too, coldly trying to make money off the blazes. These days you can bet on anything. 

Prediction marketshare allowing people to place bets on wildfires. 

According to OregonLive:

"In a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates prediction markets, Sens. Ron Widen and Jeff Merkley joined lawmakers from other wildfire-stricken states in urging the agency to crack down on wildfire-related contracts. The group warned the markets could create financial incentives for arsons and criticized what they described as profiteering from disasters affecting vulnerable communities."

Reportedly, the 2025 Los Angeles fires prompted more than $1 million in wagers. Since then the betting market has grown exponentially. 

THE REST OF US

As is always the case with these big wildfires, it becomes everybody's problem. Thick smoke is billowing across the Pacific Northwest, set to create intense air pollution in cities like Portland, Eugene, Vancouver and Seattle.

 The smoke, combined with smoke from dozens of other western wildfires is drifting across the nation. Virtually everyone across the continental U.S. is either experiencing occasionally hazy skies and smoke, or will soon.

So, our lungs will once again suffer the consequences. 

As we've already noted, these huge wildland-urban interface wildfires have become disconcertingly common. Pretty much every year now. The droughts, the heat, the weird extremes brought on by climate change continue to take their toll.

Sadly, there's plenty of time for another Spokane this summer and fall.  There are so many towns and cities in California, Oregon, Washington and other western states that are sitting ducks for these kind of extreme wildfires 

Climate change won't stop anytime soon. It's another new normal in our abruptly hotter world. Some parts of the world are taking serious steps to combat climate change. The United States meanwhile, remains completely unserious about the problem.  

The money from the fossil fuel industry is too tempting for our so-called leaders. Too many Americans are willfully ignorant, as they prattle on about chemtrails and conspiracies and shrill references to an irrelevant hot spell in the 1930s. 

Nobody deserves to have their home burn down in a wildfire of course. Including those who say climate change is a hoax. But unfortunately, these firestorms will continue. Denial or not.  

Last Of Vermont Drought That Began Last August Ends. But Could It Quickly Return?

For the first time since the August 21, 2025. U.S. 
Drought Monitor, there is no drought in 
Vermont as of this week. The yellow area
depicts "abnormally dry," which is sort of
on the cusp of drought. The drought
could return as relatively dry weather
is in the forecast after it rains Sunday. 

 For the first time since the middle of last August, there is no drought in Vermont. 

The U.S. Drought Monitor in their report issued Thursday. downgraded drought in southeast Vermont to an area labeled "abnormally dry." That means conditions are still on the cusp of a drought, but it's still not quite there. 

It looks like the soaking rain we had on May 14-15 made a difference and moistened things up a bit. That left Vermont with no areas of drought in the state since the August 21, 2025 edition of the U.S. Drought Monitor was released. 

The question is whether the drought will come back. After this weekend, what appears to be a fairly long, relatively dry spell will arrive. Depending  upon how long mostly dry weather lasts, at least parts of Vermont could end up in drought trouble again. 

Sure, it's going to rain this weekend, and the most rain will fall in southeast Vermont, where it's most needed. 

But the expected rainfall isn't a tremendous amount. 

Total rainfall late tonight through Monday looks like it might range between a quarter inch north and  three quarters of an inch far south. Central Vermont would get a third to a half inch of the forecast holds.

SPECIFIC FORECAST

I'll get into the specifics of this weekend, and the outlook into next week further explains why drought might come back.

Today

High overcast has spread across all of Vermont's skies.  It'll remain that way all day, but tend to thicken up later in the day. Weak sunshine getting through in the north should allow temperatures to reach 70 degrees or so. Temperatures should hold in the 60s south.

Sunday

NOAA's 8 to 14 day outlook has our area on the dry
side at least through June 5

The day will begin with light rain falling roughly south and west of Interstate 89. The light rain will spread into the Northeast Kingdom by at least noon. 

Since the rain will be steadier and somewhat heavier south, and the clouds will be thicker there, many areas of southern Vermont could stay in the 40s pretty much all day. That's ridiculously cold for this time of year, but there you go.

In the north, since rain will be lighter, and in some areas won't start until later in the morning, highs should only get into the low 50s, which is still damn chilly for this time of year.

 Even worse, breezes will make it feel colder. Those breezes will probably be especially gusty along the western slopes of the Green Mountains. 

If you had warm weather outdoor plans for Sunday, you are s*it out of luck. I guess we have to pay for the 90 degree weather we had earlier this week. No good weather goes unpunished.

Memorial Day

Well, it can't get worse than Sunday, so there's that. We will actually see a fair amount of improvement, especially as we get later into the afternoon. It looks like some showers will come through in the morning, but they'll tend to taper off in the afternoon to allow some afternoon sunshine, fingers crossed.

If the sunshine develops, highs should get into the low 70s. If it stays cloudy, we'll settle for 60s. Again, that's a LOT better than Sunday's misery.

NEXT WEEK

A brief warm up, then a cooling trend starting Wednesday and continuing at least into next weekend. 

A steep dip in the jet stream will develop just to our east, and a pool of cold air might settle overhead by next weekend, Though a forecast that far out is iffy, so you can still take it with a big grain of salt. 

If the forecasts do pan out at least sort of correctly, Tuesday will bring us nice highs in the low 80s.  Then it cools into the still very pleasant  70s Wednesday, near 70 Thursday, in the 60s Friday and even cooler than that next weekend. In fact, some models make us quite cold, so we'll see how that works out.

This type of weather pattern features a chance of showers, and we'll have that chance daily starting Wednesday and going into the weekend. But these should be very light scattered showers. And they're more likely to hit northern Vermont and not so much in the south. 

Also, I know long range patterns are shaky, but NOAA has the dry weather in all of New England lasting well into the first week of June. Even longer range forecasts into the middle of June do moisten us up a little to near normal precipitation.  

After The Nice Rains, Parts Of Vermont Still Need More. Instead, Get Ready For A Quick Heat Flash

NOAA's "water year" map. A water year goes from
October 1 to September 30. In the water year so
far, almost all of New England is behind
schedule with rainfall. Some places are eight
inches or more shy on rainfall. The only place
in New England that's near normal is northwest
Vermont. Click on the map to make it bigger
and easier to see. 

We have a much more complete accounting of that nice rain we received this week in the increasingly Green Mountain State. We have a lot to be thankful for. 

The only disappointment was the heaviest rain avoided southern Vermont where it was more needed, but at least they got a decent wetting to get them through a few more days. 

The big winner in the Vermont rainfall sweepstakes seems to be Orange County. Good, because much of that county was regarded as dry in the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor and the southern tip of the south was in drought. 

In Orange County and southern Caledonia counties, rainfall exceeded two inches, including 2.63 inches in Corinth, 2.43 inches in Stratford and 2.34 inches in Groton. 

Virtually all of central and northern Vermont received one to two inches of rain. 

Windham County in southeastern Vermont is the most droughty area of Vermont. They got anywhere between 0.75 and 1.25 inches, so, not bad.

Bennington County was regarded as abnormally dry, too, especially near the Massachusetts border. Unfortunately, the rainfall distribution there was wrong. They got anywhere from a quarter inch near the Mass border to an inch as you get closer to Rutland County to the  north. 

NEED STILL MORE RAIN

It might seem like the streams are running strong and the soil is mushy underfoot. Yet there's still a water deficit left over from last year, sort of our drought hangover.

NOAA watches something called the water year. It's the accumulation of precipitation - rain, melted snow and ice - from October 1 through September 30. 

Here in the Northeast, as of mid-May, most places are having a below normal water year, and some places are ridiculously below normal.  Parts of southern and eastern New England are more than eight inches behind normal as of now 

Here in Vermont, Bennington County is one of those places that is at least eight inches short on rainfall since the beginning of last October. Most of the remainder of Vermont is lacking in rainfall.  The rest of southern Vermont outside of Bennington County is   between four and eight inches shy on precipitation. North central and Northeast Vermont is one to four inches behind schedule.

The only lucky place in all of New England is northwest Vermont. Precipitation there since October 1, 2025 is pretty close to normal.

Next up, not much rain is in the forecast, but it's going to turn much warmer. And overall, warm air creates more evaporation than cooler air, so it'll dry us out faster. Some details: 

TODAY

We started the day mild and sunny, which is a fantastic way to start a Saturday. It'll get breezy, and you'll see more and more clouds mixing this afternoon. There's even a chance of a light spot shower late in the day, but most of us will say dry. Highs get well into the 70s, so that'll be a nice switch from what we endured all week. 

By the way, today, and over the next few days,  it will be quite a bit cooler near Lake Champlain. The water is still cold, and winds blowing off the lake will dramatically cool the air in places next to the lake. 

SUNDAY

The disturbance that would bring the widely scattered showers later today includes the lamest of cold fronts. So northern areas will probably "only" make it into the low 70s under sunny skies. Somehow, I think we'll endure those "chillier" conditions. Southern Vermont stays warm with highs in the 70s to around 80

MONDAY

Summer preview is on!  There still might be a spot shower early in the day north with a warm front passing through, but overall, sunny and breezy with highs in the low 80s in most valleys is on tap. In the grand scheme of things, low 80s isn't exactly hot, but we're not used to such temperatures, so take it easy with the heavy outdoor work

TUESDAY

It looks like it's going to be hotter and more humid. For now, forecasters are expecting highs right up there in the 80s. How hot it gets depends on afternoon clouds and the timing of scattered showers and thunderstorms  If it stays clear until later in the day, some areas could flirt with 90 degrees. If there were more showers and storms than expected, readings would hold near 80 degrees. 

Either way, it'll get kind of humid, so take it easy out there

WEDNESDAY

A wild card. It all depends when an expected cold front comes through. If it's late in the day, it'll be in the 80s again, and humid. A late day cold front also increases the chances of scattered strong thunderstorms. 

If the front comes through earlier in the day, the chances of big storms goes very much downhill. And you'll notice refreshingly drier air late in the day. Stay tuned on that one.

LATE WEEK

Definitely cooler, but not nearly as chilly as this week has been. Highs then should be in the 60s.

Chilly And Rainy In Vermont Again Today, But Big Changes Are On Their Way

My "pink tree" as a call it, bloomed out this week despite
relatively cool weather. This tree was just about dead
when I bought the property nearly 20 years ago, 
but I managed to save it and I've gotten it to thrive. 

We endured another nippy May day on Wednesday, with the afternoon arguably being the coldest of the month. 

Light rainfall held temperatures in the 40s until evening, when the rain temporarily ended and parts of Vermont made it into the low 50s. 

That's still ten to 15 degrees colder than average for this time of year. Even the fleece I was wearing yesterday didn't seem warm enough. Shiver me timbers indeed!

Not far upstream in New York yesterday, though, things were different. Watertown and Fort Drum were at 61 degrees at 3 p.m. The air was warm an humid enough to trigger a few severe thunderstorms in western New York.

There was even a tornado warning for northwestern New York. I don't have any word on whether anything touched down, but if it did, it would have been not far from Pulaski, New York. That's an area south of Watertown that is much more famous for epic lake effect blizzards than it is for tornadoes. 

Our (sort of) proximity to severe weather and warmer temperatures is a sign that our cool weather will end soon. 

On the bright side, this morning was much warmer than in recent days. As a gray, rainy dawn broke, temperatures across Vermont were within a few degrees either side of 50.  That makes it probably the warmest morning since May 

Clouds and rain,  however, will give us one more cool day. But that's OK, we need the rain. Vermont got about a tenth of an inch of rain yesterday, give or take, so we still need a good soaking. Meanwhile, the warm weather that's been knocking on our door will finally begin to make its move into Vermont tomorrow. 

Here are the details. 

TODAY

The upper level low that was in New York yesterday has settled down to our south a bit, and is trying to funnel a band of deep Atlantic moisture into New England. Vermont is sort of near the western edge of that moisture, but we should still get a good soaking. 

If you're in the western Adirondacks or St. Lawrence Valley of New York, you're out of luck for rain today. You'll only get a little. But you guys got more rain than Vermont yesterday, so let's call it even. 

For Vermont, most areas should have a storm total of at least an inch of rain. That includes rain from yesterday and last night and whatever falls today through early Friday. 

The wild card is western Vermont. One decent slug of rain went through all of the state, including the Champlain Valley early this morning. Will the rest of the rain hit that area? This morning's forecast seems to say yes. Maybe places like Burlington and St. Albans will get slightly less rain than the rest of Vermont, but still get a little under an inch total.

But, if the moisture feed shifts just a tiny bit east, far western Vermont could get cheated. As of this morning,  the forecast seems to suggest after a bit of a morning lull, western Vermont will still share in the bounty of the rain. Fingers crossed. But if the rain doesn't materialize, now you'll know why. 

The big winner for Vermont in this storm looks like it will be southeastern Vermont. The U.S. Drought Monitor still has drought conditions in the lower Connecticut Valley, and New Hampshire, and western Maine. 

In fact in Vermont, this week's U.S. Drought Monitor, hot off the presses at 8:30 this morning, shows the drought expanded across a much larger portion of southern Vermont since last week. Drought now covers all an area from the Green Mountains east below White River Junction. 

Those drought areas should get the most rain today and tonight. We're talking a good inch or inch and a half, with locally higher amounts. 

So in a sense, this is a perfect storm. Not the violent, scary, deadly Perfect Storm of 1991, obviously. But a perfect storm of drought-denting rains, which should make everyone happy. 

The only unhappy aspect of the day will be the temperatures. The rain and clouds will hold us down in the mid and upper 50s. Normal highs this year should be between 65 and 70 degrees. 

FRIDAY

This will be our transition day toward what I call "pre-summer." During pre-summer, which usually goes from late May to mid-June, most days are pretty warm, in the 70s. You still get some nasty cool days that hold in the 50s, but other days are full-on summer with temperatures getting into the 80s or even to 90.

That's what we have coming up. 

Tomorrow might still be a wee bit on the cool side for this time of year. Early showers will give way to clouds, then some afternoon clearing. Instability in the air might allow Ma Nature to sneak in a scattered afternoon shower, but those should be few and far between. And those temperatures will get into the reasonable 60s. It'll be the hottest day since this past Sunday, and that's only the beginning.

WEEKEND

Ah! Pre-summer arrives full on. Under sunny skies, temperatures should soar way up into the 70s on Saturday. A weak disturbance might bring us a few scattered hit and miss showers Sunday morning, but it won't be anything widespread. The disturbance will probably knock temperatures back down to near 70 north Sunday, but southern parts of the state should still get well into the 70s. 

EARLY WEEK

It looks like we'll get a brief burst of full summer weather. It should get into the 70s Monday under sunny skies. That will be a great opportunity to install your window air conditioner. The reason for that is Tuesday. Unless something goes completely wrong with the forecast, it looks like Tuesday's highs could soar well into the 80s. And the humidity might creep up a tad.

We're not used to 80 degree weather, says Captain Obvious. The last time it was in the 80s in Vermont was during a record-breaking heat wave on October 5-7, 2025.

A cold front should arrive later Tuesday and Wednesday, which would knock temperatures back down tot the 60s and low 70s later next week. That's a long range forecast of course, so take it with a giant hunk of rock salt. 

 

 

Big Parts Of Colorado Just Had Their Biggest Snowstorm In Almost A Quarter Century; Up To 28 Inches Reported

Apparently, no al fresco dining in Estes Park, Colorado
after 28 inches of snow fell yesterday and today. 
Photo via Facebook from Matt Levitt Weather

A late season snowstorm has hit large swaths of Wyoming and Colorado which sounds depressing for so late in the season.  

Instead, people are rejoicing, because as the snow melts, it will put the first real dent in the areas's drought in months. 

New snow was reported as deep as 26.1 inches way up in the high country of Boulder County. The city of Boulder itself got about 10 inches. Up in Estes Park in Larimer County, between 22 and 28 inches fell. 

All of Colorado is experiencing a drought. The snow is great news.  What had been expected to be an extraordinarily early start to the fire season might be postponed by a few weeks.  At least in the Front Range.

There was quite a bit of water in that snow. As of late this morning, Fort Collins reported 5.3 inches of snow with total melted precipitation of 1.75 inches. 

Denver itself reportedly got around three or four inches downtown, and around 4.5 to 5 inches around the rest of the city.  This means this was the second or third largest snowstorm of the "winter" even though it hit well into spring.  It was the biggest May snowstorm in Denver since 2003. 

The Denver snow, melted down, amounted to at least 1.1 inches of what is basically rainfall. 

 Final tallies aren't in yet, which is why I"m saying "at least." 

As the snow falls. the warm ground is making it melt from the bottom, and the water soaks into the soil. Once the snow stops, rising temperatures will make the remaining snow melt, which will continue to add moisture to the soil. Gradually, instead of running off like downpours would. So this is perfect. 

Northwestern Colorado is experiencing the worst drought conditions in the state. Many areas in western Colorado unfortunately mostly missed out on the precipitation. Grand Junction, Colorado only had 0.05 inches of precipitation. Gunnison had a little under a quarter inch. 

Which means the drought and potential fire problems are not at all over in Colorado. And most of the rest of the West. 

This isn't to say the storm caused no problems. It did. 

Trees has mostly leafed out in the Denver and Boulder areas thanks to a record warm winter and toasty early spring. Peonies were even blooming. The weight of the snow on leafed out trees caused many branches to snap. Some of them onto power lines. 

About 47,000 Colorado homes and businesses were without power as of early this afternoon. 

Coloradans face some garden misery tonight. The snow is ending, but a snow covered ground means it'll get very cold very fast tonight. A freeze warning is in effect for the entire area that had snow. 

The snowstorm in Colorado will soon be forgotten. The snow will melt and quickly!

 Forecasters expect the highs in the low 60s around Denver tomorrow, near 70 Friday through Sunday and rising to the low and mid 80s by early next week.

And the snowstorm isn't traveling anywhere else to hassle any springtime enthusiasts. It's just kind of dwindling away to nothing and drying up.

Spring Rains Easing Lingering Vermont Drought: A Dry Week Will End In A Wet Spell

All winter and early spring, the U.S Drought
Monitor showed continues moderate drought
in northeast Vermont, (orange) and 
abnormal dryness south (yellow)......

Lingering drought in Vermont was literally frozen in place all winter. 

The very serious drought the state experienced last summer and fall had eased somewhat thanks to decent rains in the late autumn. 

Severe drought in northeastern Vermont improved to moderate drought as we went through December, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. But then the improvement stopped. 

The northeastern third of the state remained in moderate drought, and southern Vermont was abnormally dry through the winter and early spring. 

Rivers, lakes and the ground had frozen as we'd gotten deeper into winter. Most of the precipitation fell as snow. Snow is only potential drought relief. It doesn't really help anything unless it melts.  The question remained: Was the drought continuing to est. 

The thawing of spring has cleared that up. The dry conditions are improving. 

We didn't actually see any change in the weekly drought reports until the April 16 weekly report. Drought had been reduced to a small area in the Connecticut River valley. The Northeast Kingdom and southern Vermont were still abnormally dry, but not quite in drought. 

This week's U.S. Drought Monitor report, released yesterday, shows just a sliver of the Connecticut River Valley between about White River Junction and Springfield still in drought. That area represents only about 4% of Vermont's land area were still in drought. 

Most of the rest of southern Vermont was still abnormally dry, but that designation was removed in the Northeast Kingdom. The drought in northern parts of the Green Mountain State that began last August  is finally over, at least for now. 

The measurements the U.S. Drought Monitor uses go up to Tuesday, two days before the report is released. 

This week's U.S. Drought Monitor, released
yesterday. has only a small area of drought
near White River Junction and Springfield
and abnormal dryness in southern
Vermont. Elsewhere the trough is over. 

This week, Vermont has entered a notable dry spell. Nothing other than isolated sprinkles and a few snowflakes have fallen since this past Tuesday. 

No rain is forecast until at least next Tuesday. The air will remain very dry over the next few days, with rock-bottom humidity levels. Strong April sun will penetrate to the ground through still-leafless trees. 

That means we might  have a little backsliding in next week's U.S. Drought Monitor report, but I wouldn't worry too much.

Week-long spells of very dry weather are common in late April and early May. It doesn't mean they will last that long. 

In fact, forecasters have relatively high confidence that we'll enter a wetter period starting in about five days or so. I don't' see boatloads of rain coming,

Most of the time over the next couple of weeks, we won't have any actual storms bringing steadier rain to the North Country. We'll probably have a couple such storms, but they won't represent the majority of the weather we'll face.

Instead, a pool of very cold, subfreezing air will settle in several thousand feet overhead. In the winter, that would have meant a long, miserable slog of overcast skies and light snow flurries.

This time of year, with the strong spring sun, that means the cold air aloft will create tall, billowing clouds.  That means frequent showers, especially in the afternoons and evenings, mixed with a few breaks of clouds. We might well get into an early May pattern where it rains every day or close to it, but very few days would be a washout. 

We'll have to wait a few days to see if the weather will work out exactly that way. We'll also have to wait until next week to determine which days turn out mostly wet, and which turn out mostly dry with just a few showers. 

SPECIFIC VERMONT FORECAST

In the meantime, sunshine is the name of the game.

Here are some specifics

Today/Saturday

Today will be the coolest day of the bunch. Most of us had a frost and freeze this morning. No worries, we always get those this time of year and it wasn't enough to harm garden plants. 

Highs this afternoon will only get to the upper 40s in the Northeast Kingdom to the low 50s elsewhere. There should be some mid-50s on southern valley floors. 

It will feel a little confusing out there, just as it did yesterday. When there's a lull in the wind, it will feel warm and you'll wonder why you're wearing that damn fleece.  Then a little gust of wind will come along and you'll know why. 

Tonight will actually be a little colder than last night. Almost everyone will get into the mid and upper 20s. It might be closer to 30 in the warmer valleys. 

Such temperatures would be a big problem in mid-May when everything is blooming. But the early stuff out there now should do just fine. 

The storm that caused the tornadoes and rough weather in the Plains Thursday is shearing apart. The remains of the storm will create an area of rain that will dive down from basically Buffalo, New York, to New York, City on Saturday. 

That will leave us in the clear, with maybe some high clouds, especially in southwestern Vermont.  It'll be a few degrees warmer than today, but still just a touch on the cool side. 

Sunday/Monday

The sunshine fest will continue, as highs top out near 60 degrees both days. That's roughly normal for this time of year. Yes, 60 is normal. We're in full spring now. 

Tuesday and Beyond

We might squeak out one more sunny day Tuesday. It depends on the pace of a weakening storm that will be headed our way. After that, the showery regime I mentioned should settle in for awhile. 

April Wildfires Rage In U.S. There's Even A FIre Threat Here In Vermont

Screen grab of a report from WPTZ of a brush fire that
got out of control in Shelburne Wednesday. Much
of the state has a high fire danger today. Elsewhere
in the U.S. much, much worse wildfires have been raging

It's been a terrible wildfire year already in the U.S. and it continued to get worse on Wednesday. 

Fires raged in Georgia, Florida and other states. It's a continuation of a fiery spring in the United States. 

So far this year, through April 17, the nation has seen 20,915 wildfires, the most in recent history and far above the average of 13,597 through that date, the National Interagency Fire Center reported. 

As of April 17, 1,748,490 acres have burned, far above the average of  875,957 through mid-April.  With drought raging in much of the nation, the fires will only get worse as we head into the summer. 

The last few days have made things even worse.

In drought-stricken southern Georgia, at least 50 homes were destroyed by wildfires.  Hundreds of people have been evacuated. Much of Georgia is under mandatory burn bans for the first time in the state's history. The fires are mostly in southern Georgia and northern Florida, where an intense drought is worsening. 

In northern Floria, firefighters battled more than 130 wildfires that burned 39 square miles, NBC News reported. 

Further north, a smoky haze engulfed Atlanta.

In Colorado, a fast moving fire southeast of Colorado Springs prompted evacuation. 

Today, fire alerts run from New Mexico and northwest Texas all the way to eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota.

VERMONT FIRES

Here in Vermont, things are not nearly as dire as they are in Florida, Georgia, Colorado and other places beset with big wildfires.

But April and early May represent peak wildfires season here in the Green Mountain State. Mostly because said Green Mountain State is not that green yet. Last year's dead brush and leaves, exposed to the sun through leafless trees, dry out in a flash. Even a day or two after rain or snow. 

We've already a few dry episodes with fires this spring. This year through yesterday, 28 Vermont fires have burned 143.6 acres, according to data from the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. 

 Just yesterday in Shelburne, WPTZ reports that somebody called the town's fire department for a burn permit after already setting the field alight. The fire department turned down the request. 

Meanwhile the fire got out of control as winds gusted to as high as 25 to 30 mph. Firefighters from three departments got the fire contained after it burned about a half acre. No word from the report as to whether the property owner was cited. 

Officials are warning of potential fires today, especially in lower valleys. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington has issued a special weather statement warning of fire danger in the Champlain and lower Connecticut River valleys and the valleys of southwest Vermont. 

Very dry air and gusty winds could really spread fires today. Now is not the time to burn your brush pile, or flick a cigarette out your truck window. 

Dry weather will continue through the weekend, which keeps the fire danger going. But winds starting tomorrow will be lighter than the 25 to 30 mph gusts we'll see today. 

GREAT WEATHER!

A daffodil enjoying some early morning sunshine
today in St. Albans, Vermont. We have great
spring weather coming for the next few days
but there is a high fire danger, especially today.

Aside from the fire danger, we have just launched into a spell of great spring weather. Skies should have at least a fair amount of sun daily through Sunday or Monday. April showers bring May flowers, but so does April sunshine. 

Cool weather, especially today and tomorrow will be invigorating for those of you who want to go out and get yard work done. 

Highs today and tomorrow should mostly be in the low and mid 50s

We will have freezes tonight and tomorrow night as readings  fall to between 25 and 30 degrees both nights. This won't be cold enough to endanger spring plants like the sharper, colder spell we had Monday and Tuesday morning. 

At least around my area in northwest Vermont, most of my spring plants survived Tuesday morning's frigid temperatures. They'll do fine this time, too. 

But if you are hardening off more tender plants on your deck or whatever, bring them in tonight, tomorrow night and maybe the night after that, too. 

The weekend will turn a little warmer, with highs near 60, which is about normal for this time of year. It looks like skies will be partly to mostly sunny, so we have a fantastic weekend coming up, fingers crossed. 

The Vermont Maple Festival is this weekend in St. Albans, so it'll be a perfect weekend for that, too! 

Unprecedented Heat From March Still Has Climatologists, Others, Losing Sleep At Night, But It's All A Scary Sign Of The Times

March was so hot in the western and central U.S. was so
extreme it's still keeping climatologists up at night.
These kinds of "unprecedented" hot spells and 
extremes are now becoming regular occurrences
in this age of climate change. 

There's patches of record warmth remaining in the United States as we make our way through the first week of April, but the extreme, whackadoodle heat of March has subsided. 

Scientists are still agog from March, which is easily going down in history as among the most extreme, over the top, seemingly impossible climate-related events hot spells ever seen.  The heat wave completely rewrote the March weather record books in the western and central U.S. 

It was the kind of event that keeps climatologists up at night.  Especially since these "impossible" events are coming along in a steady stream now. Each one bigger than the last. And each one potentially more deadly. 

We're lucky this one hit in March, months before summer. Had it happened in July, who knows how many deaths would have been created by just the hot days themselves? Even so, the heat set the stage for a potential summer of out-of-control wildfires and deep water shortages. 

Already, fires are burning months before they should. A raging wildfire threatened homes in Moreno Valley , California last week. It was the kind of fire you see in parched late summer and early autumn and not moist March. But the rules have changed. March is the new summer, apparently.  

Nebraska just experienced their largest wildfires in history, burning an area larger than Rhode Island. 

And we've probably only just begun with the fires.

THE EXTREME MARCH HEAT

It's hard to know where even to begin with the accounting for March's heat. 

AccuWeather gives just a glimpse of the breadth of the March heat wave: 

 "During the unprecedented mid-March heat waves in the central and western United States, more than 8,200 daily records and more than 2,000 monthly records were broken at weather stations across the West."

Incredibly, 17 states set new March record highs.  And these are large western and central states, not smaller Eastern states where it's a bit easier to accumulate numerous record highs. Many of these states broke monthly record highs, only to have those records broken in subsequent days. 

The nation saw its hottest March temperature on record at 112 degrees. It came close to setting the April national record of 113 degrees.

No fewer than 16 western cities not only broke their all-time highs for the month of March, they also broke or tied the mark for April, which is beyond insane. 

On March 19 alone, nearly half of the 900 or so long term U.S.. weather stations in the Global Historical Climatological Network set or tied daily record highs. 

More than four dozen major reporting stations with data since at least the 1960s had their warmest March in history.  Major cities that had their warmest March on record, - most of them by a wide margin - include Dallas, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

Once all the numbers are crunched, it looks like Colorado will end up with a March that was three or four degrees warmer than any other in the past 130 years or so. For a state to break its statewide record for hottest March by a degree is wild. By three degrees ----there's no words for it. 

We still don't have confirmation as to whether March, 2026, is the nation's hottest on record. That will come in a week or two. But it was at the very least as warm as what was considered the impossibly hot March of 2012.

CHAIN OF EXTREMES 

Climate change doesn't just warm up the world uniformly. It sets traps. Springs surprises. 

As Yale Climate Connections notes: 

"Since climate change is also fundamentally disrupting atmospheric circulation patterns, we now have mega-unprecedented extreme events occurring with regularity. These circulation changes allow the biggest regional and local heat extremes to intensify by a much larger margin than the roughly 1.4 degrees Celsius increase in average global temperature since preindustrial times."

Honestly, climate change contributes to new extremes every weeks, or so it seems. But the standouts - the weather events that make climatologists and other scientists deeply worry about the future  - seemed to begin almost exactly 14 years prior to this March's heat.

In March, 2012 most of the heat focused on the central and eastern United States.  Thousands of daily record highs were set, as were hundreds of all time record highs for March.  Among those thousands of record highs, nearly four dozen were broken by at least 22 degrees, which is beyond insane. Four record highs were smashed by 30 degrees. In a handful of cases, the low temperature on a particular date on March 12 was warmer than the record high.

 "An initial assessment led by Martin Hourlong at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratories concede that human-produced warming likely contributed on the order of 5% to 10% of the magnitude the heat woven March 12-23, 2012, The report added: "the probability of heat waves is growing as (greenhouse gas)-induced warming continues to progress," notes Yale Climate Connections. 

Still, we figured we wouldn't see another March, 2012 in our lifetimes again. Until we did.

The March heat of 2012 came at the tail end of a La Nina, and led to an extreme, punishing drought across the nation's middle that summer.  We're in the same situation now. It might not be just the western mountains that are running out of water. 

Much of the central and southern Plains are already in serious drought. Will this key crop growing area further dry out? There's already plenty of other stresses out there with food production - political instability, tariffs, war, a feckless president.  

We are set up for a rough summer, and March probably just made it much, much more rough. 

WATER SHORTAGES?

Colorado's snow pack ended the month at less than a quarter of average. Eighty-nine of 94 snow pack measuring stations were at record lows by the end of March. 

It's not just Colorado. It's virtually all of the West. Per the Guardian: 

'This year is on a whole other level.' say Dr. Russ Schumacher, a Colorado State University climatologist, speaking about the intense heat that began rapidly melting the already sparse snowpack in March. 'Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning."

On April 1, media went out to join California water officials to take a measurement of the water content of snow at a spot in the Sierra Nevada. Normally, the group would be standing on five feet of snow. This time, they were standing on a muddy field, flecked with melting remains of snow patches. 

Snow water equivalent is a measurement is the amount of water of that would melt out of the snow that's still on the ground.  This figure is now terrifying throughout the West. 

The overall snow water equivalent in the Sierra Nevada on April 1 was just 18 percent of average for this time of year.  In the Great Basin, snow water equivalent was just 16 percent of normal. In the lower Colorado River basin area, including most of Arizona and Nevada, it was 10 percent. The Rio Grande, which covers New Mexico, Texas and Colorado was at 8 percent. 

Because of a record warm winter, the snow pack was far below normal before March arrived. Everyone hoped for a "March Miracle," as some bad years in the past were relieved by cold, stormy Marches. Not this year. Not by a long shot.

If this were just one bad year, we'd be OK. But the six lowest April 1 snowpacks in California have happened since 2007. The state thought it was finally catching a break in January as it fully emerged from drought for the first time since in a quarter century. 

Reservoirs are pretty full in California, thanks to warm rains in recent winters that filled them even though the state couldn't build a decent snowpack. So at least for this year, the problem for most of that state would be intense wildfires but not necessarily widespread water shortages. 

Elsewhere, things are not nearly so serene. 

In the Colorado basin, Lake Mead is 25 percent full. Lake Powell was only 33 percent or so full at last check. Both lakes usually rise somewhat in the spring due to snow melt. It doesn't look like that's really happening this year. 

Water managers area already urging conservation in the West. 

Salt Lake City has called on residents and businesses to start conserving now, with a goal of cutting overall water usage by 10 percent, Also, as the Guardian reports:

"Across Colorado, there are local orders that list lawn watering, and in Wyoming, residents were warned that full restrictions on outdoor irrigation could come come as early as May."

Farmers and ranchers across the West are also having to make hard decisions and big adjustments with smaller allocations of water and a recognition that supplies will be strained. 

TIMING

What if a heat dome like the one we just saw in March hit during the middle of summer? And hit in a place not accustomed to extreme heat. 

We found out in late June and early July, 2021 when an unprecedented - here's that word again - intense, heat settled into southwestern Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

 All-time heat records in the Pacific Northwest were not just broken, they were obliterated. Portland Oregon reached 116 degrees. Salem, Oregon was 117 degrees. Rainy, cool Seattle reached 108 degrees.

The heat of 2021 was even more punishing in British Columbia, Canada. On June 29, 2021, the town of Lytton, British Columbia reached 121 degrees, the hottest temperature ever recorded anywhere in Canada. By a long shot. Before this heat wave, the hottest it had gotten anywhere in Canada was 113 degrees back in the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. 

The next day, Lytton burned down in a massive wildfire brought on by the scorching heat and drought. 

The 2021 heat wave is estimated to have caused at least 1,400 deaths in Canada and the U.S. 

What if a heat dome like that in 2021 settled into the heavily populated eastern United States and southeastern Canada? And what if it lasted a month, not a week? Nobody is prepared for such a nightmare. 

However, we'll find out soon enough. Perhaps this summer. Or the next. And it won't be pretty.