Drought Keeps Intensifying In And Around Vermont; Getting Dangerous

A brown hayfield and brown sugar maple leaves in
the background Wednesday near Woodstock, Vermont
as drought continues to intensify. 

 I traveled back and forth between St. Albans in northwest Vermont, and Woodstock in the southeast on Wednesday. 

Our no longer so green Green Mountains scared me a bit. 

I know it's September and you normally see hints of fall colors in the landscape this time of year. But what I saw looked...... scorched. 

On many hillsides, the drought has prematurely turned leaves brown, as if exposed to a nearby fire. 

Underneath those trees, a slight breeze Wednesday afternoon brought down some of those desiccated leaves. Each one landed with a soft, faint dusty clatter on dirt roads, driveways, sidewalks and such. 

Each footstep on walking trails and paths stirred up a bit of dust.  We know the forest fire danger has been high for some time now.  But this drought is getting so intense, I'm beginning to worry about what will happen later this autumn when we get the strong, dry blasts of wind we always get later in September through November. 

We could see wildland fires like we've never seen before. 

Vermont is known for having "asbestos forests."  It's really hard to set them ablaze, at least normally. 

If our forests manage to catch fire, those blazes tend to be relatively small and are extinguished comparatively easily. Flames don't roar through the tree tops. They crackle close to the ground. 

Lots of brown, drought-stricken trees visible on 
this hillside near Quechee, Vermont Wednesday. 

Vermont forests are traditionally too moist, the humidity in the air is too high, and fallen logs and trees are too soggy to support much in the way of flames. 

We don't have those flammable conifers forests of the American West or the blow torch eucalyptus and palm trees that fuel California conflagrations. 

Now, though, climate change is changing the game here in Vermont, as it is virtually everywhere.

What was once almost unthinkable is turning possible. 

Extremes have gotten wild, and we blast from one extreme to the other. After two summers of destructive floods, we're now in a drought more intense than seen in decades, if ever. 

Our asbestos forests are turning into matchsticks. 

I worry that we'll have some super intense Vermont forest fires, the kind that roar through the tree tops like you see on the news when the western United States goes up in flames. I'm not saying that will happen.  I'm saying it's become an improbable possibility. 

It happened in New Jersey last year.  It's been known to happen in places like Maine, in the 1940s, and in Quebec.  We in Vermont might not be prepared for what might be coming, beyond the dry wells, water shortages, damaged crops and struggles with snow making in the ski industry. 

DROUGHT MONITOR NEWS 

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor came out this morning as usual. It shows a still-worsening situation in Vermont, despite some rain last weekend. 

All of Vermont is in drought, of course. It's one of four states - the others being Washington, Utah and Arizona, - in which 100 percent of each state's territory is in at least moderate drought. 

Drought continues to deepen in Vermont, according
to this week's U.S. Drought Monitor.
The more vivid orange is severe drought,
the lighter orange is moderate drought. 

Severe drought has expanded in Vermont, now covering more than half of Vermont, compared to a third of the state last week.  

The severe drought designation covers a much broader section of central Vermont than last week, and also a good chunk of the Northeast Kingdom. 

A spot of extreme drought has cropped up in west central New Hampshire, right near the Vermont border, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. 

Under extreme drought conditions, stream flow is reduced to a thin trickle or stops altogether, many wells go dry, dairy farms struggle financially, crop losses mount and well drillers and water haulers have more business than they can handle. 

Based on weather forecast, I think parts of Vermont are heading for the extreme drought category in coming weeks, unless we are very pleasantly and very surprised by rainfall. 

THE FORECAST

The weather forecast continues to be discouraging and frightening for our region. In other words, the rain dances so far aren't working. 

In the short term, today and Friday will continue the dry weather. The forest fire danger is high for the rest of today, as has so often been the case lately. 

We'd feared the fire danger would be even scarier today, but winds will be somewhat lighter than expectations were a few days ago. Though the air will be dry, the humidity will be slightly higher than in recent days. Dew points will be in the 50s instead of the 40s. Slightly higher humidity nudges the fire risk downward.  

Also there might be some clouds in the sky this afternoon as a weak cold front comes through. That front might even kick off an isolated sprinkle in one or two spots, but don't hold your breath on that one. 

The air will turn dry and clear again tonight and Friday.  There might even be a frost risk again in the coldest hollows of the Northeast Kingdom around dawn Friday. 

Predictions have changed some for this weekend. A few days ago, we thought Saturday and Sunday would bring absolutely no rain,

Now, a little light rain does seem to be in the cards.  Any rain is wonderful, but the anticipated showers this weekend will only temporarily slow the pace at which the drought is deepening. 

There's still some questions as to how much rain we'll get, but most forecasts call for light amounts. A few places might not get anything at all. A small minority of computer-generated forecasts call for a good half inch, but most meteorologist are discounting that idea.

Instead, it looks like a package of weak disturbances will blow through, flinging showers here and there, especially Saturday night and Sunday.  Rainfall looks like it will be a quarter inch or less. Probably less.

After that, it's back to dry weather. To break or even bruise the drought a bit, we need frequent, soaking rains. A drenching storm once every three days or so would be ideal. That's not in the cards. 

Instead, strong, dry high pressure will probably park itself over northern New England again next week.  A weak coastal low might try to send moisture our way, but it will likely get shunted off to our south. 

It still looks like our next shot at rain would be around September 19 or 20. From this distance, early indications are that system would also be on the weak side. The overall weather pattern through the end of the month and quite possibly beyond continues to look sadly dry. 

First North Country Frost Advisories Of The Season Tonight

Summer is definitely over!

A chilly looking sunset Sunday evening over Georgia,
Vermont introduced us to a cool spell that brings a 
risk of frost tonight to the coldest hollows of 
northern Vermont, New York and New Hampshire.
The vast majority of us will avoid any frost.

A few places in and near Vermont might get a little frost tonight. Essex County, in the far northeast corner of the Green Mountain State is under a frost advisory overnight tonight through the hours around dawn Tuesday. 

So are the Adirondacks in New York. And Coos County in far northern New Hampshire. 

In those places, it could get down into the low to mid 30s in some place so sensitive plants there should be brought inside or covered. 

For the rest of us, don't worry. It will be the chilliest night so far this season region wide, but the tomatoes and such in your gardens should be safe for now. 

Most of us will bottom out between 38 and 45 degrees, with a few upper 40s to near 50 right along the shore of Lake Champlain. 

Frosts and even solid freezes in the cold spots is not at all unusual around here this time of year. The National Weather Service this morning put out a list of earliest and latest autumn frost dates in selected cities around here. 

The earliest 32 degree temperature in Burlington was on September 13, 1964.  Burlington won't come remotely close to breaking that record tonight. Their forecast low Tuesday morning is 45 degrees. 

Montpelier's earliest freeze on record was on August 31, 1965.  

Remarkably, at least to me, the earliest 32 degree reading on record in Rutland and Woodstock was on August 25, 1940, which seems incredibly early. I looked it up and that 1940 August cold spell was something. St. Johnsbury endured four consecutive mornings in the 30s from August 25-28 that year. 

It will probably get to 32 degrees early Tuesday morning over in Saranac Lake, New York. It was 34 degrees there this morning, and that mountain cold spot has had frosts every month of the year. 

You might think it odd we're talking about frost tonight on a day when afternoon temperatures will ve way up in the 60s.   But it will be perfect night for it to cool off. Light winds, clear skies and very dry air is the exact recipe you need for temperatures to plunge after sunset. 

THE WEEK AHEAD

After the showers of the past few days, it's back to drought. And generally cool, sunny weather for the foreseeable future. 

We felt the winds of autumn yesterday, for sure. The last in a series of cold fronts came through in the afternoon.  The accompanying light showers and stiff wind gusts brought temperatures down into the low 60s by mid afternoon. 

Strong, dry highs pressure is taking control, so the sun will shine brightly today through the rest of the week. 

After those 60s for high temperatures today, it will warm up a little with daytime highs in the low to mid 70s Tuesday and well into the 70s, with some upper 70s Wednesday and Thursday. Because of the dry air, nights will still be chilly - mostly in the 40s all week, with 50s in milder, broad valleys. 

Since the nights will be so cool, overall temperatures this week will come out a little cooler than average for this part of September. 

A new cold front should arrive Thursday or Thursday night to reinforce the autumnal air. I see maybe another frost risk for the cold hollows of the Northeast Kingdom and Adirondacks early Friday and Saturday mornings. It should start to warm up slightly next weekend. 

DROUGHT REASSERTS

Notice I haven't mentioned rain yet.  As I keep saying the drought goes on. And it will start to get worse again. Plenty of sunshine and rock bottom humidity will dry things out quickly. The only moisture we'll see until at least Saturday will be the patchy fog that usually forms in river valleys this time of year. 

We might or might not see a weak disturbance blast down from Quebec Saturday and that, I suppose, could give us a few light showers or sprinkles if it aims at us just right. 

But that pattern of one big, fat, dry high pressure system after another lumbering slowly across our region looks like it might pretty much continue all month. 

It looks like it might end up being a pretty dusty autumn. 

Probably The Biggest, Worst Fire Risk Of The Year Today In Vermont

If this National Weather Service forecast rainfall
map comes true, that will be great. Two weather
fronts will come through by Saturday night.
Combined, they might produce roughly an
inch of rain in Vermont. But the wetter of
the two fronts is on Saturday and the heavier
rain might or might not pan out. 

Sometimes a nice day can be a bit dangerous, too. 

Today in Vermont we'll deal with bright sun most of the day, rock bottom humidity, and a gusty breeze which will feel great. But those very conditions will give the Green Mountain State probably its highest risk of brush and forest fires of the year. 

Winds have already picked up in the Champlain Valley and that will follow soon in the rest of the state. By afternoon, winds will gust to 25 mph in much of the state and over 35 mph in the Champlain Valley.  

At the same time as the winds peak this afternoon, the relative humidity will dip down to around 30 percent. A dry, arid, windy day. You know what that means, and so does the National Weather Service office in South Burlington. 

Just read their special weather statement for today: "If any fires were to start, the weather and fuel conditions could cause fires to quickly get out of control and be careful to contain." 

Even places that got a decent wet down last weekend are at risk.  Last Friday and Saturday, we received 0.55 inches of rain here in St. Albans, By Wednesday, everything underfoot was super dry again, and plants were trying to wilt again.  

Today's not the day for your backyard campfire near or in the woods, carelessly flicking your cigarette out the car window or setting off fireworks. 

SOME RAIN RELIEF

The good news is at least some rain is on the way. And quickly. 

If God forbid any fires start today in the Vermont woods, or in neighboring states or southern Quebec, enough rain will come tonight to start controlling the blazes. 

Clouds should start to fairly abruptly obscure the sun late this afternoon in western Vermont and evening in the east. Rain should start maybe two or four hours after the clouds arrive. 

Tonight's rain comes courtesy of the first of two cold fronts coming at us. This first one will be fairly strong in New York State, giving areas from the Adirondacks west a good half inch or more of rain. 

By the time the front makes it into Vermont, it will be weakening, like so many weather systems have this dry summer. Expect maybe a third of an inch of rain in the Champlain Valley and northern Green Mountains and a quarter inch or less (probably less most places) elsewhere in Vermont. 

The rain will be lightest in the driest parts of the Green Mountain State, so that's not good. The new weekly U.S. Drought Monitor comes out later today which would have updates on how Vermont is doing with its dry conditions. I hope to post an update sometime between later today and tomorrow morning. 

A SECOND SHOT?

We still have one more shot at another dose of rain Saturday. We hope. 

The rain from the first front should clear out early Friday and we should have another partly sunny, warm day, with highs well into the 70s to around 80.

Then the next front comes along. There is still hope this second front will be wetter than the first, but there's still discrepancies in various models. Which means it's still iffy. 

But if this morning's forecast holds, this second front could dump a half inch to as much as an inch of rain on much of the Green Mountain State. If that happens, it would be fantastic. It's too bad the rain would hit on Saturday, but we'll have to take it when we get it.

The second front has more moisture along it and a bigger temperature gradient than the first, which is why we hope the rain is heavier with Saturday front. 

As the National Weather Service in South Burlington explains the stronger front and the fact it's passing through during the day makes forecasting the high temperatures Saturday much more tricky than for most days. 

If it comes through early, it would be a cool day. If it's later than expected, it'll be warm. For now, they're going for highs barely near 70 northwest to the low 80s south and east. 

RAIN SHUTS OFF AGAIN

After Saturday, the rain will go away for a good long while again. So,  unfortunately, the hoped-for rain over the next couple of day is not a shift toward wetter weather pattern. It looks like only sprinkles or very light rain showers will come through on a few days through at least the middle of the month. 

The only hope is that long range forecasts are a little less accurate, so we can just hope for a wet surprise later this month. But it's nothing we can count on. 

It will be a cooler weather pattern, too. At least for most of next week. We're heading deeper into September so the chances of warm days are dwindling. It'll stay pleasant enough, with highs in the 60s and low or even mid 70s most of next week. But we'll probably have very few super warm, summer days until, well, next summer.  

After Being Mostly Cheated On Monday Rain, Vermont Faces Autumnal Week In One Of Its Driest Augusts On Record

Last evening had a bit of an autumnal look and feel
to it here in St. Albans, Vermont, and this week
will definitely be pre-autumn in Vermont. But
rain faltered Monday, and not much is in the 
forecast. This will likely be one of the driest
Augusts on record in the Green Mountain State., 

As always with summer rains, there were winners and losers with showers on Monday.

Things usually even out, but with our Vermont drought deepening, the stakes are much higher now. Yesterday's misses make the situation for many much more dire for many of us. 

It turns out a small area around where I live in northwest Vermont was the big winner. 

The more than three quarters of an inch of rain that fell around St. Albans and Georgia early Monday was more than anyone else in the Green Mountain State received by a pretty large margin. 

A patch of showers that passed through early this morning slightly added to the wet bonus in the Champlain Valley. 

My place in St. Albans received another 0.1 inches of rain early this morning, for a three day total of 0.95.   That's better than almost all the rest of Vermont. 

So I'm damn lucky. And gloating,

Elsewhere,  most places received a third of an inch of rain or less. Widely scattered showers and thunderstorms Monday afternoon provided a bit of additional help in a handful of places, but most of us stayed dry.   

August now stands an excellent chance of becoming one of Vermont's top 10 driest Augusts. In some towns, it might well be the driest August on record. 

So far this month, Montpelier has only had 0.31 inches of rain. They should have receive about 3..2 inches by now.. St. Johnsbury has logged only a half inch of rain so far in August. By now 3.3 inches should  have accumulated this month.  

If no more rain falls in Burlington this month, it'll be the second driest August on record with just 0.93 inches. (The driest August was in 1957 with just 0.72 inches.) The tenth driest August in Burlington was 1.49 inches in 1894, so we should make the list.  

It would take a big surprise this coming weekend for this August to become one of the ten driest. 

RAIN PROSPECTS

We do have a remote, outside chance of a decent rain this weekend, but I'm to holding my breath. Still, it seems increasingly likely that at least some parts of Vermont will get a little bit of rain Thursday night and Friday. And maybe continuing a bit on Saturday. really doubting it. 

We're in what I would guess pre-autumn now, and weather conditions will be classic September. 

Last evening, I really did feel start to feel the cool autumnal aspect of autumn, even if in reality it really wasn't all that cool. Just seasonable, but it's been mostly a hot summer until now. 

For the rest of the week, we'll have a pretty typical regime for autumn or even winter. A northwest flow with embedded weak disturbances will continue today and tomorrow. 

That means cool air and party cloudy skies with a risk of a few light showers, mostly in the mountains. It'll be sunniest in the southeast with virtually no chance of showers down there. Which is bad, because that part of the state really missed out on the rain Sunday and Monday. 

Today's showers won't amount to much, so in general, we'll either start drying out, or continue drying out. The drought lives on.  

On Thursday night a stronger cold front will approach. It also looks like an upper level storm will want to get going overhead or nearby, with a small corresponding small storm down where we live.

The front itself will have some oomph to it. So we might briefly get some moderate intensity showers and maybe a little rumble of thunder with it toward Friday. 

The upper level low will have a pocket of pretty chilly air with it, so highs Friday and Saturday probably won't get out of the 60s. Or even 50s in some colder, higher northern spots. Burlington on Friday will probably have its first sub-70 high temperature since June 13. 

Showers, mostly along the west slopes of the northern Green Mountains should continue into Saturday. That's a very typical winter pattern. At least it's going to be rain, not snow, right?  

Some - but not all - forecasts have the chilly upper level low lingering through the Labor Day weekend, If that chill remains, it won't be much of a farewell to summer. Too cold for the beach, and possibly too showery to enjoy hiking to the mountain summits. 

The late week storm and cold front are coming in from the north, so it won't be able to scoop up a lot of humid air from the south. So even though the front and storm might have a lot of energy, it probably won't be able to generate a huge amount of rain. 

But, as I keep saying, we'll take anything. We'll have a better idea of how much rain as we draw closer to the event. 

Longer range forecasts have high pressure stalling over us starting around Monday and continuing much of the following week. That will keep us dry with a bit of a warming trend. 

After this thing we're getting at the start of Labor Day weekend, the next chance of decent rains wouldn't come along until around September 5 or 6, as it looks now.  

Cooldown Coming To Vermont (Eventually) But No Throwback To "Frigid' Augusts Of The Past

If you're tired of the smoky, hazy, hot air we've experienced
in Vermont this summer, I present you with this image
of a crystal clear, clean frosty day, taken Feb. 4, 2021.

 We've still got a few more warm days to go before the strongest cold front since early June blows in on Sunday. 

Dry weather will mostly continue, keeping me concerned that a flash drought is starting. At the very least, Vermont will remain abnormally dry. 

The drying trend will continue big time today.   We can expect sunshine, warm temperatures and very dry air.  

The dew point - a rough measure of how humid it is out there, will stay relentlessly low today. Those dew points could fall into the upper 40s this afternoon which is quite arid for an August afternoon in Vermont.

We've still got a quick squirt of very warm to hot air coming in Saturday. The warmer valleys could reach 90 degrees which might well be the final day this year of 90 degree heat. We don't know for sure, of course, as sometimes we get heat waves into the first half of September.

The humidity will only rise modestly, so our crops and gardens will continue to get more and more parched. 

The cold front Sunday means business, but only in terms of temperature. At this point, rainfall looks lame with it, amounting to a quarter inch or less. Maybe a little more than that north, maybe a little less south. A few pinpoint places could get a little more in local downpours, but it won't be anything exciting. 

You'll certainly notice the temperature drop behind the cold front.  You'll feel it cooling off quite a bit  later in the day Sunday. By Monday, highs will only make it to within a few degrees of 70. Monday night will be in the 40s for most of us. 

There's a slight chance we'll get lucky and the cold front will stall just to our south. If that happens, a storm might form along it and give us a little more rain Tuesday. Especially south. But that scenario is iffy at this point. I'm not holding my breath yet for any showers then.

It will only slowly warm up the rest of next week, but still stay slightly cooler than average. Nothing unusual for August. We will be nowhere in the league of notable chilly Augusts of the past.  

PAST COLD AUGUSTS

The Death Valley heat earlier in the week was definitely a bit much.  But let's face it, at least we're getting a summer.  They're kind of short here in Vermont, even with climate change, but you want to at least get through most of June, July and August with at least several days of beach weather. 

It wasn't always like this.  We've had our share of disappointing Augusts that masqueraded  as Septembers.  

It started in the cold summer of 1962, when August four consecutive days mid month in which highs never got out of the mid-60s. 

Then came 1963. That year, only seven August days made it as high as 80 degrees, with the warmest being 84.. (For comparison, this year, we're only halfway through the month and Burlington has had 14 days that were at least 80 degrees.  

In 1963, eight days never made it to 70 degrees. One day, the 13h had a low of 46 a high of just 59 with over a half inch of rain. In other words, a somewhat raw October day in the middle of August .

The next year, August, 1964, brought slightly warmer afternoons, but way to chilly nights. Fifteen mornings that month in Vermont's banana belt of Burlington got under 50 degrees. On both August 1 and August 7, there was frost in some of the cold hollows of Vermont. On August 1, the temperature got down to 30 in South Londonderry and 32 in both Chelsea and Somerset.   

August, 1965 brought some summer weather early in the month, but fall made a very strong, early showing toward the end. Daytime temperatures stayed in the 50s for the final three days of the August, 1965  culminating in a hard freeze in some spots on August 31,

It got down to 25 degrees in South Londonderry, 26 in West Burke and 27 in Northfield. 

For the remainder of the 1960s ,each August was also cooler than normal, but not as bad as the years I mentioned here.

I don't know why 1960s summers were so chilly. It could have been just a natural cycle. Particulate and sulfur pollution in that era might have blunted the warmth of the sun a bit, too.  

Now that climate change has taken hold, it's highly unlikely we'll have such cold Augusts that we had in the 1960s. We'll still have relatively chilly Augusts from time to time. After all, climate change has not stopped weather patterns from bringing cooler air down from Canada. 

But that climate change has altered our perspective of summers. Actually the whole year.  The chances for hot Augusts, or hot any month are way up. For August, the top four hottest Augusts in Burlington have all happened since 2016. 

Burlington has 15 years in the top ten list of hottest summers due to ties. (Measured as temperatures between June 1 an August 31).  Eight of those hottest summers have happened since 2005, and there's a chance this summer might join this list. 

As I always like to say, this ain't your grandfather's climate. 

Closely Watched Monitor Says Vermont On Cusp Of Drought, But It's Probably Already Started In Some Respects

These trees along Interstate 89 in Colchester, Vermont
turned brown and wilted for lack of moisture during
the hot, dry weather we've had recently. 

 The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor came out today, and technically, we're not in drought here in Vermont, but for all practical purposes, we are. 

It's a developing flash drought, meaning it's setting in within a matter of weeks instead of several months like a "traditional" drought. 

As of this morning, the U.S. Drought Monitor said 87 percent of Vermont was "abnormally dry" up from 72 percent last week and absolute no place in the Green Mountain State the year before.

Abnormally dry is a designation the Drought Monitor gives when a region is on the cusp of a drought, and things are drying up too much. But it's not a declared drought. 

The only part of Vermont not regarded as "abnormally dry" in today's update is the Champlain Valley, which generally had a wetter July than the rest of the state. 

Even so,  the dry, hot weather weather of recent weeks has left its mark in the valley. I traveled between Burlington and St. Albans along Interstate 89 this morning and saw a lot of wilted, brown or yellow trees where the soil is thin atop rock ledges. Those spots dry out first, and the soil completely ran out of moisture to feed those trees during out recent "Death Valley Days" arid heat wave.  

In the entire Northeast region, which encompasses an area from West Virginia and Maryland up to Maine, 44.6 percent of the region was abnormally dry Thursday, up from 17 percent a week earlier. Coastal Maine and New Hampshire, and parts of western New York, have fallen into drought. 

Back here in Vermont, signs of the increasingly dry conditions are noticeable everywhere. Lawns have gone from green to brown within days. 

Lake Champlain is continuing a rapid drop. It was down to right around 94 feet this morning, down from 95.3 feet just a month ago 

There have already been a number of reports of boat groundings at Hogback Reef and Colchester Shoal between Burlington and Malletts Bay in Colchester.

Forest fire danger remained high in much of Vermont today, though it temporarily fell to moderate in the Green Mountains, which saw some showers and thunderstorms Wednesday. 

Aside from isolated showers south and east this afternoon, and mostly light showers Sunday, the immediate forecast is for continued dry weather here in Vermont. The last seven-day precipitation forecast issued this afternoon, calls for as much a half inch of rain over the next seven days in northern Vermont, to less than a tenth of an inch in the far south. 

On average, Vermont receives roughly an inch of rain per week. 

"Death Valley" Weather Hit Vermont Today. I've Never Seen Anything Like It

I left this thermometer in the sun against the west side
of my St. Albans, Vermont house and it ended up at 120 
degrees. The actual temperature (in the shade)
was still a record 97 degrees. 

Today will go down in history as one of the strangest and really, one of the more worrying weather days I've ever seen in Vermont. 

The high temperature in Burlington today was 98 according to preliminary data. That broke the old record high for the date of 93, set in 2002.

Yes, it's been that hot in Vermont before, but not that often. But the combination of heat and dryness is absolutely unprecedented as far as I can tell. 

At 3 p.m. in Burlington, it was 97 degrees. The dew point was a bone dry 46 degrees yielding a relative humidity of 17 percent. 

 That kind of heat/low humidity combination is something you see in places like Phoenix or Death Valley. 

For comparison, at noon local time Tuesday, it was 113 degrees, dew point 44 with a relative humidity of 10 percent at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, so you can sort of see the similarities.   The relative humidity in Phoenix was 22 percent, so it was "muggier" there than in Burlington. 

As you can imagine, crops in Vermont are stressed. The forest fire danger is sky high. Burn bans are in effect statewide. There was already a relatively small grass fire in Georgia, Vermont Monday. A fallen power line in Shrewsbury sparked another fire Tuesday, but that one was quickly contained, too. Another one-acre wildfire in Au Sable Forks, New York today was at last report mostly contained.  

Those were small fires, but showed the potential of what could happen. 

What we're going through now in Vermont is a classic example of weather whiplash - when conditions go from one extreme to another. When summer began, it was really, really wet in the Green Mountain State. As recently as July 10, damaging flash floods hit parts of the Northeast Kingdom.

Now, suddenly it's super dry.  These one extreme to another events are getting more frequent in the age of climate change. Get used to it. 

For all I know, we'll be talking about floods again in another month or two. Watch this space.

HOT DAYS ACCUMULATING

Today was also the 16th day this year it's gotten into the 90s in Burlington. This is only the tenth year of the past 140 or so in Burlington that has had that many days reaching 90 degrees or  more. 

Tomorrow, ahead of our desperately anticipated cold front, it will get much more humid. The increase in clouds will keep actual temperatures a little lower than they were today, but the higher humidity will make it feel worse than it was this afternoon. 

So, the heat advisory in the Champlain Valley has been extended to Wednesday evening. It might or might not reach 90 degrees in Burlington. It depends on how fast the clouds and showers arrive. 

That cold front still looks like it will set off some badly needed showers and thunderstorms. But typical of summer, they will be hit and miss. A few towns will receive nice downpours, other places will get a little rain. A few of us will get nothing at all.

Even those neighborhoods that have a brief torrential blast of rain won't be out of the woods. It will dry out quickly again amid low humidity Thursday into Saturday. Especially in northern Vermont. Southern areas might at least stay somewhat more humid, with a low risk of showers. 

Another cold front Sunday still looks like it might spark off more showers, but no heavy rain.  But it is looking like a bonafide spell of cooler than average August weather will come in early next week. Good news for those of you thought upper 90s temperatures were a little much for Vermont. 

Startling, Weird Desert-Like Heat Wave Instantaneously Dries Out Vermont, Rest Of New England, Canada

Temperature sign in downtown Burlington, 
Vermont on Monday says it all. 

 I don't think I've ever seen a weirder heat wave, and such a rapid drying in Vermont.

Temperatures are near record highs, but we've seen that before. Climate change has us breaking high temperature records all the time, it seems. 

This heat wave is different, though.  Usually, summertime hot spells in New England are humid, oppressive, tropical. This time the air is desert dry.   Monday somehow managed to turn out even a bit drier than dusty Sunday.

The temperature peaked at 96 degrees in Burlington Monday. Not a record high because it fell on the anniversary of the city's hottest reading ever, which was 101 degrees in 1944. Montpelier did reach a record high of 91 degrees. Plattsburgh, New York also had 

Monday's dew point was in the mid-50s, reading to a relative humidity of just 27 percent. That's remarkably arid for an August hot spell.  This extreme heat and dry combo will continue today. More on that further down, but I'm still agog at how fast we went from wet to parched.  

I've seen Vermont get this dry in some past droughts, but not nearly this fast. Within just a few days, leaves on some of the trees along Interstate 89, the ones on thin soil above rock ledges, wilted like lettuce left on a hot stovetop. 

Lawns turned from green to brown seemingly overnight. Even the weeds on parts of my property shriveled up and died. 

I couldn't keep up with the watering on Monday.  I'd notice some perennials wilting in the arid heat, the same ones I'd thoroughly soaked the day before.  I'd water them, then move the sprinkler somewhere else. Those  perennials I'd just watered early in the afternoon were thirsty again by sundown.  

The only plant I have that seemed happy was a cactus in one dry, sandy corner of my gardens. Today will be another 

RECORD HIGHS 

Wilting goldenrods and parched ground in St.
Albans, Vermont this morning amid our
developing flash drought. 

Some places did have record highs Monday.  Montpelier reach a record high of 91 degrees, beating the old record of 90 in 2016. Montpelier's records only go back to 1949, which is why that 1944 heat is missing from Montpelier's data. 

Plattsburgh, New York also had record high of 91 degrees Monday. 

I don't know for sure whether the summit of Mount Mansfield set a record high but it must have, having reached an incredible 86 degrees, pretty remarkable for a Vermont weather station at about 4,300 feet in elevation. 

The summit of Mount Washington was 66 degrees at 3 p.m, - very hot for them. 

The heat and drought if anything  has been crushing in southeast Canada. Bathurst, in northern New Brunswick set their all time August record high on Sunday, only to have that record beaten Monday with a high of 99.5 degrees.  It was 95 degrees in both Montreal and Ottawa. 

In Nova Scotia, record highs included 99 at South Ingonish Harbor and 36.2 at Ingonish Beach. So much for a cool, refreshing vacation in the Canadian Maritimes!

Here in Vermont, more record highs will be broken today, as we'll have almost exactly the same weather as yesterday. The record high in Burlington today is 93 degrees, so we should get past that. A heat advisory is still in effect for the Champlain Valley, but really, it will be hot everywhere in the (slightly less) Green Mountain State today. 

The rapid drying should continue. As you might imagine, the forest fire danger in Vermont is very high. That's also true across northern New York, northern New England, southern Quebec. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland remains very high and dangerous. 

HEAT RELIEF, AND A LITTLE RAIN?

Tomorrow will be the day we're waiting for as that cold front is still expected to come through. It will be one more hot day, especially in southern Vermont, which will see the clouds and showers from the front later in the day. It will also be noticeably more humid for just one day. 

It now looks like many of us will get some rain Wednesday. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington is thinking about 75 percent of Vermont will see some rain tomorrow. 

Most of us won't get all that much, and whatever comes out of the sky won't solve our new drought problems. But at least we'll get a break.

Some unlucky towns won't get any rain at all, which is bad news. Some areas will see a nice if brief torrential downpour. In general, the northern Vermont will do a little better than the south.  In the northern half, rainfall for most people (but not everybody) should be in the quarter to half inch range, with a few lucky devils seeing three quarters of an inch or so.

Southern Vermont should get somewhere between practically nothing and a quarter inch. With a few pinpoint spots seeing a little extra. 

All this will help with the dry weather temporarily but will be no cure. As I keep saying, we need several day long, soaking rains, which are not in the cards for now. 

A few of Wednesday's thunderstorms might be on the strong side, but the atmosphere doesn't look like it will support any widespread severe weather.

RETURN TO DRY

Thursday and Friday will give us a break from the heat, but the humidity will be at rock bottom again, so the drying will resume.  It might be briefly warm to hot, but dry Saturday before another cold front arrives Sunday. 

So far, that Sunday cold front does to look that impressive, so don't count on a lot of rain with that. 

The weather pattern is looking like it will shift into a new configuration after this coming weekend. But it's not one that will help with the dry conditions.  It's a change from previous forecasts that indicated it would stay very warm through the end of the month. 

The latest extended forecasts favor mostly cool,  maybe sometimes almost autumn like weather through the end of the month . But with an air flow from the northwest, weather systems might tend to be moisture-starved because the overall air flow would prevent deep moisture from moving up from the south. 

The blast furnace heat will end after today but a drought looks like it might want to continue to develop and deepen.   

Heat, Dry Weather Still Over-Performing In Vermont; At Least Two More Torrid Days Coming

Clear skies over Taylor Park in St. Albans, Vermont
Sunday afternoon.  Yes, it was a nice summer day
but HOT. And oddly dry for a 
New England heat wave, 

The heat over-performed in Vermont once again Sunday. In Burlington, the high got up to 95 degrees, about four degrees warmer than forecast. 

.Dry air allows temperatures to get a little higher than they would if it was more humid. 

And dry it was on Sunday. The sky was nearly cloudless, with just a small amount of lingering wildfire smoke in the atmosphere.

 It's odd to see a cloud-free sky in a heat wave around here, as the humidity that usually accompanies a New England heat wave will often generate towering clouds that turn into a few scattered cooling thunderstorms. 

But the high pressure was so strong, and the air so dry that we had now showers. No clouds. No cooling. Outside of Burlington it was hot everywhere in Vermont, St. Johnsbury got to 92 degrees. It was 93 in Springfield. There was no escaping the heat up in the mountains. The summit of Mount Mansfield was at 83 degrees. 

This has been a strangely dry heat wave so far.  Dew points were in the upper 50s during Sunday. That's normally considered comfortable, but actually temperatures were so hot it sort of nullified that "comfort."   A normal heat wave would bring us uncomfortable dew points well into the 60s or low 70s. 

That's why there wasn't any kind of heat advisory on Sunday.  It was a dry heat, as they might say in Arizona.  Not as bad as the humid East, supposedly.  But when that the humid East went dry this weekend, at least in Vermont, it still felt uncomfortably hot for us in the alleged Great White North.   

The relative humidity Sunday afternoon was around 32 percent in Burlington and much of the rest of Vermont. That's awfully low. The hot sun, the hot temperatures and that dry air really accelerated the developing drought in and around the Green Mountain State. 

Needless to say the fire danger in New England and southeast Canada continues to worsen.  Around here, the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation today upgraded the fire danger in most of Vermont from "high" to "very high" which is somewhat rare designation.

If this keeps up, we're going to have to start worrying about crops quite soon, too.

HOT, DRY FORECAST

The dry, hot state of affairs will continue for at least two more days.  What appears to be our developing drought will continue on, despite the chances of a few showers and thunderstorms Wednesday. I'll get to those in a minute.

The humidity - dew point - has crept up a little since yesterday and will stay mostly in the low to mid 60s. 

It'll be interesting to see what that slightly higher but not ridiculous humidity does to actual temperatures. The National Weather Service is going for expected highs of 93 in Burlington both today and tomorrow. 

If those temperatures come to pass, that's marginally cooler than Sunday, but it will feel a bit worse.   It's enough to finally trigger a heat advisory in the Champlain Valley.  We'll barely meet the criteria for a heat advisory, as it will feel like it's in the mid-90s this afternoon.  

The heat advisory is on in part because the longer a hot spell goes on, the more effects it has on the human body.  This has been going on for a few days now, so it's wearing us out. Vermont outside the Champlain Valley doesn't quite qualify for a heat advisory, but just know you need to take it easy in today's weather, no matter where you are.  Tomorrow, too

Probably the best you can do is accidentally shoot yourself with your garden hose while watering your veggies and flowers.   There is no chance of any welcome, cooling showers today or tomorrow. Just lots of blast furnace sun.  

COLD FRONT

The cold front to end the heat is still due Wednesday. I am still unimpressed by the prospects of a lot of rain with this thing. Chances appear good that most of us will see some rain, but it won't be much.

It will temporarily get really, really humid Wednesday, which would make you think we're going to get blasted by torrents of rain. But the atmospheric dynamics don't seem to be there to generate lots of strong storms. 

There's probably a risk of a severe storm or two but that risk is low. NOAA's Weather Prediction Center even has us in a marginal (very low) risk of flash flooding Wednesday, which might seem surprising. 

It's possible but pretty unlikely that one or two spots could get a torrential enough downpour to cause some minor washouts, that sort of thing.

 But even the lucky few that get a good downpour won't benefit much. Any local torrents won't last long, and won't have a chance to soak into the ground. As I mentioned yesterday, we need a slow, steady rain to undo the dustiness and lack of water underfoot, and in our streams, rivers and wells. 

After Wednesday, it's right back to the super low humidity and sunshine. That'll probable last Thursday through Saturday. At least the air temperature Thursday and Friday will be reasonable, with highs near 80s and lows in the 50s amid that dry air. 

There's a chance of another weak front with lame, scattered showers Sunday, but that doesn't look impressive either. That Sunday thing looks like it might be followed by another batch of dry high pressure from central Canada.

Since those two cold fronts will introduce air from central Canada, we might have a couple more big smoke attacks amid the dry air. Those two new air masses, the first one on Thursday the next tentatively schedule to arrive a week from today, are coming from those places in Canada with the huge ongoing wildfires, 

So chances are, the relatively cool bursts of air won't make you breathe easy. Instead, it could well be more smoke and gunk and haze and yuck.  

Heat Wave Has Arrived In Vermont/Northeast. Bad Through Wednesday

The heat is expected to peak Tuesday, which
this map depicts. Those spotty red zones
include in Vermont, mean the it's hot enough to
really start impacting health systems
and industry. Orange means there is
those systems are beginning to truly
see some impacts from the heat. 

The heat wave is here, and it's going to be a long one, by Vermont standards anyway. 

It still looks like this hot spell might over-perform, given the trends already. It got up to 91 degrees Saturday in Burlington, a little warmer than the 88 that was forecast. 

That 90 degrees was the 13th time this year it's been 90 degrees or above.   Only 16 out of the past 125 years have had that many.  

We're going to pile up more 90s. Today through Tuesday, and maybe Wednesday should make it over 90 degrees. 

We won't make it to the single -year record of 26 days with 90 degree temperatures, but we'll definitely be up there in 2025

Today should be a wee bit hotter than Saturday, for most of us, with most warmer valleys topping 90 degrees. 

A decaying patch of clouds this morning ,moving into northwest Vermont might delay today's warming a smidge, possibly making today's highs near or a degree "cooler'" than yesterday in the northern Champlain Valley.  But don't count on it. 

NO HEAT ADVISORY - YET

Given that the heat has already started and is forecast to intensify, you might be surprised that there's no heat advisory or warning in Vermont. That's a change from previous heat waves we've seen this summer. 

The reason is the humidity is lower this time, compared to previous hot spells. High humidity makes it feel hotter outside than the kind of relatively drier air we have now,

 A heat advisory is issued in Vermont if the combination of heat and humidity makes the air feel like it's between 95 and 104 degrees. An excessive heat warning is issued if it will feel hotter than 104 degrees outside.  

A heat advisory might go into effect for at least parts of Vermont tomorrow and Tuesday as actual temperatures should get into the mid-90s in warmer valleys. Since this hot spell is so far turning out to be hotter than forecast, I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple places  in the Champlain and lower Connecticut Valley hit the upper 90s on Monday and especially Tuesday. 

When the ground is dry, as it is now, sunshine can heat the air more effectively rather than putting all its energy into evaporation. That's why this hot spell might end up hotter than originally forecast. 

Even though there's no heat advisory, at least not yet,  in at least one way, this heat wave could be more dangerous. Even more so than the historic heat wave in June that broke records for the hottest June temperatures on record in Vermont and the rest of New England, 

That June heat wave lasted just two or three days. In this case, it already started to get quite warm Thursday, and now we'll have daily highs in the 90s probably through Wednesday. 

Nights have been a little cooler than they were in June, thanks to the lower humidity, but still kind of warm. And they'll get worse as tonight through Thursday night. 

The effects of heat waves on human health are cumulative. The longer they go on, the worse it gets for vulnerable people.  Especially if you are elderly or have health problems, you need to take it easy, and find air conditioning if you can. 

Outdoor workers should go easy (and their bosses should let them!) and provide plenty of water. Once again, this would be a good day for us to "kidnap" people without air conditioning and who are vulnerable to hot weather and take them to air conditioned places like a movie or shopping mall or museum. 

DRY TIMES

This dry heat wave continues to worsen the fire danger across Vermont, the rest of New England, and northern New York. Along with southern Canada.

It's gotten so bad up in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia that the government has banned people from the forests there. That means no fishing, camping, hiking or vehicles. By the way, forests comprise 70 percent New Brunswick so this is a big deal. 

It's not quite that dire here in Vermont, but you'll want to be extremely careful.  No unattended camp fires, please. No fireworks in the woods, no careless flicking away the cigarette out the car window.  If you do have a small backyard fire, like I plan today, have water ready, keep it away from the forest, and put it out completely when done. (I have that check list all worked out).

 Local officials have imposed burn bans in some Vermont towns, so check with your community before setting that bonfire. Better yet, postpone big burns until it rains. 

Good luck with that. The next chance of rain is Wednesday, in the form of hit and miss showers and thunderstorms with that  cold front.  Wednesday will be our only truly very humid, oppressive day of this heat wave as a little moisture pools ahead of the front to fuel the storms.  

Although some of those Wednesday storms might have locally torrential downpours, it's not the kind of rain you need to really tamp down the fire threat.

The brief, heavy rains quickly run off and the ground stays dry an inch or two below the surface. Once the sun comes back out, that top wet layer dries off within a couple days and you're back where you started from. What we need is a few to several day long, soaking rains. Those are not in the forecast. 

LONG RANGE FORECAST

Following Wednesday's cold front, it now looks like we'll have a decent push of cooler air. At least briefly. By "cooler"  I mean, temperatures at the end of the week will only be a little warmer than average with highs in the 75 to 84 degree range.   That's better than mid-90s, I suppose.

Worse, that push of air starting Thursday will be quite dry once again, intensifying our trend toward a flash drought.  The very dry air that'll arrive Thursday appears it might linger for a number of days. 

As I always say, long range forecasts are iffy, but for now, those forecasts seem to indicate only a couple weak, moisture-starved weather fronts until at least the last week of August.  

Hot, Dry Vermont Forecast Looks Even Worse. Some Places Might See No Rain For At Least A Week

Plants are wilting in gardens. This photo was taken
after I rescued a patch of white phlox that had seriously
wilted in the dry weather. This photo was taken
as they started to revive after I drenched them in
water for nearly an hour.  

I'm stunned by how fast my gardens have dried out.  Rainfall up here was pretty good all the way through late July. Aside from fast-drying potted plants, I didn't water anything until a little over a week ago.   

Now, I can't keep up. 

The ground moisture has evaporated under the relentless, hot August sun.  It doesn't help that despite the heat, it's not all that humid. 

Any moisture out there evaporates quickly in these conditions. And as the heat intensifies over the next few days, the humidity won't immediately increase  too much more to help preserve moisture. 

The forest fire danger continues to rise in Vermont.  I'd hate to see any forests in the Green Mountains state start to burn, but I'm sure at least a few small brush or woodlands fires have become inevitable this month. 

Our rapid march to a possible drought races on. 

DRY FORECAST

Weather radar late Friday afternoon showed a few 
scattered little showers and thunderstorms, but they
missed most spots. Radar images today through
Tuesday will show no or almost no rain
which will worsen our dry conditions. 

If you like summer heat, you're in luck. If you like cool intervals and showers, you're seriously out of luck. Quite possibly for the rest of the month at least. 

I haven't seen such a rapid summer drying since at least July through the first couple days of September, 1999. (But if you want a glimmer of hope, September, 1999 in Burlington ended up being the wettest on record, with 10.26 inches).

Once again, a very few lucky devils, mostly near hills and mountains in Vermont, the Adirondacks and in New Hampshire, received some brief thundershower downpours on Friday.  Mount Mansfield received 0.08 inches of rain, which isn't exactly a deluge. 

However, most of us endured the everlasting sunshine.  And a little wildfire smoke, that has been continuing to fade, for now.  

Prospects for any more thundershowers are poor. Sinking air with the incoming hot spell will seriously block any attempts by the atmosphere to generate showers and thunderstorms, 

The next chance of any real rain looks to be about Wednesday, but for now, that looks like it will take the form of some hit and miss showers and thunderstorms that won't give us the soaking we need. 

Long range forecasts to the end of August continue to call for above normal temperatures. Precipitation outlooks range from sort of close to normal to well below average. A new NOAA long range forecast released Friday leans us in Vermont toward mostly drier and warmer than normal conditions through September 5. 

THE HEAT

Long range NOAA forecast to September 5 continues
to lean toward the dry side in our neck of the woods

Believe it or not under our new, warmer climate changed "normal"  the first week of August fell short, coming in marginally cooler than the average based on 1990-2020 data. However, that first week was a bit warmer than 20th century averages. 

However you slice, it, the second week of August is coming in hot, The forecast for hot weather is mostly unchanged. It might have felt kind of hot Friday, with a high temperature of 87 degrees in Burlington.  

But that will end up being the "coldest" day until probably next Thursday at least.  A few towns in Vermont should reach 90 or better today. Many places will make it to the low 90s Sunday, Monday Tuesday and possibly Wednesday.  

The hottest two days will be Monday and Tuesday. There will be no record high in Burlington because it falls on the anniversary of its hottest day ever, 101 degrees, August 11, 1944.  Burlington's forecast high Monday is 94. 

Unless the forecast seriously changes,  the daily record high of 93 degrees in Burlington looks seriously threatened, as the forecast high for Tuesday is 95. 

 There's some questions as to how cool it will get behind that weak cold front that is due Wednesday.  

The consensus is: Not that cool. By the time we get to Thursday and Friday, it'll probably still be a little warmer than average on the supposed cold side of that weather system.  We also don't know for sure whether that lame cold front will limp through on Wednesday or maybe later. Who knows? It might not make it all the way through Vermont at all.  

At least we can take solace that some places are having it worse than we are.   

I mentioned the other day that Japan broke its national heat record with a reading of 106 degrees. Well, that news is now outdated. Japan got up to 107 degrees on Tuesday.

Phoenix, Arizona on Thursday reached 118 degrees, their hottest August temperature on record. (The hottest day ever in Phoenix was 122 degrees on June 26, 1990). Palm Springs on Thursday had a record high of 119.

As we get into the second half of August, we usually start to get into cooler pushes of air from Canada as autumn begins its approach. This year, those cooler spells might be delayed a bit until September. 

Weird Vermont Wet Spots Amid Very Dry Week; Heat Wave Looms

National Weather Service radar from around 6:15 a.m. 
today showed slow moving showers and downpours
in southern Vermont. While most of us are bone
dry, a few isolated places are picking up a lot of
rain. More widely scattered storms all day today.

 As you know, I've been harping about how dry it's getting out there, and how the forest fire danger is rising and all that.  

That's all still very true. 

Interspersed with the dryness is some isolated very wet spots. It's the strange winners/losers situation we sometimes see in the summer. 

The few showers and thunderstorms developed Wednesday, just as they did Tuesday. Almost all of them were in central and southern Vermont. 

The storms that got going moved very slowly,  managing to dump quite a bit of rain on just a couple spots. There's not much in the way of specific reports, since most of the showers and storms have avoided major reporting stations. 

But there are isolated spots in New England that are soggy amid an overall dry spell. Lebanon, New Hampshire, just over the border from White River Junction has 0.83 inches of rain in a late Wednesday afternoon thunderstorm.   

Just over the Vermont border in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, as much as 1.75 inches of rain fell Wednesday.

A patch of rain early this morning over far southern Green Mountains east of Bennington and southwest of Springfield this morning has surely dumped at least a half inch if not more in a few towns down there. I say that because those storms were just sitting there, hardly moving.

We'll continue that state of affairs today. 

More thunderstorms will erupt today here and there. With nothing to steer the storms, some might sit over the same spot for quite a while. So, though the risk is very low, there could be one or two pinpoint spots maybe in the central and southern Green Mountains that could have a local minor flash flood. 

 The chances of you seeing a thunderstorm today is pretty low,  probably not much better than 30 percent, if that. They could pop up almost anywhere, based on just local breezes, the remnants of old storms or subtle ripples in the atmosphere. There's really no real weather front or storm to kick off anything. Just August summertime doldrums. 

The more likely spots are in the Adirodacks and Green Mountains, where the slopes create the start of the updrafts needed to get storms going. There could be some storms near the western shore of Lake Champlain, where a breeze off the lake might interact with updrafts along the eastern edge of the Adirondacks. 

I'll emphasize that at least 99 percent of us will have no trouble. And the majority of us will see another day with no rain at all.  So, while it pours like hell in one or two towns, the rest of Vermont and surrounding areas continue to endure our dusty, smoky weather.  

SMOKE/HEAT

Other than the isolated thunderstorms and downpours, the trend now is for slowly decreasing smoke and noticeably increasing heat. 

The smoke is still sitting over us, with no place to go, no real wind to flush it out.

National Weather Service calling for moderate
to major heat wave in the Northeast. This map
is for Monday. Red areas will be the most
uncomfortable relative to local averages. 

 But the air is slowly getting better as the smoke particles continue to slowly fall out of the sky. 

Air quality alerts have expired, but some pollution remains, so it's not clean and refreshing out there. This slow trend toward less smoke will continue, but it'll stay hazy out there into the weekend. 

The real story is the heat coming in. That big high pressure system that's been over Quebec is now moving off the New England coast. It'll work in concert with the famous summertime Bermuda high to pump hot air our way. 

This hot air will last awhile,

The warmup has already started. Wednesday was a couple degrees warmer than Tuesday. This mornings readings were was a couple higher than yesterday's dawn, but still comfortable, 

Each day today through Monday will be a little hotter than the day before. An example, forecast daily highs today through Tuesday go as follows: 83, 85, 88, 91, 94, 92.  Nights will grow increasingly uncomfortable as we head into the weekend. 

So yea, hot. The humidity will also slowly increase, and will become pretty oppressive by early this week, The strong high pressure means sinking air, so the will suppress the chances for showers and storms Friday through Monday. 

That doesn't mean there won't be any widely scattered storms through that period. It just means if any do manage to get going, they'll be few, far between and brief.

It looks like a weak cold front still wants to approach us about next Tuesday, Judging from the forecasts, I'm still pretty unimpressed with what the front will look like. It probably won't bring temperatures down all that much, and I still question how much rain it might bring. 

 

Air Quality Still Crappy In Most Of U.S., Canada Including Vermont As Wildfires Rage

Wildfire smoke from Canada turned the setting sun over
Georgia, Vermont on Sunday into a weird, red dot.
The dot eventually disappeared in the smoke before
reaching the horizon. 

After choking our way through a smoky Sunday, we'll do the same today - here in Vermont and in huge swaths of the United States and Canada.  

Forests across much of Canada and parts or the United States West   are burning ferociously, having dried out in a long, and in many cases hot summer. 

In the Great Lakes and Northeast, and in central and southeast Canada,  the smoke is stuck beneath sprawling, stalled high pressure.  There's nothing coming along to produce a wind shift to flush the crud out.  

Instead, this week, we'll have to wait for the smoke particles to gradually precipitate out of the air to ever so slowly improve the air quality to something other than gross. 

If we eventually do see a change in the weather pattern, it could backfire. Perhaps weather fronts would grab new batches of smoke from the still-raging fires in central Canada and send them to populated areas.

Meanwhile, wildfires are increasing in the United States West, which are also starting to contribute to the bad air. This is turning out to be a rough month for those of us who like to breathe. 

For now, as of this Monday morning, air quality alerts are up in parts of Colorado, all of Wisconsin, Michigan and New York, and almost all of New England. Not to mention huge chunks of Canada. Major global cities in the top ten list of worst air this morning included Detroit, Michigan and Toronto and Montreal, Canada. 

VERMONT SMOKE/WEATHER

This morning's map from IQAir.com shows a band of
bad air across northern New England and southern
Quebec. Click on the image to make it 
bigger and easier to see. 

Here in Vermont, most of the state remains under an air quality alert. The alert that was to expire at midnight last night was extended to at least midnight tonight. 

Early this morning, Bennington and Windham counties were exempted, for now anyway, as the air is marginally cleaner there.

The air over the past couple of days hasn't been the worst it's been this year. We've had moments, like on July 26, where it was incredibly bad, much worse than it is now. But that's not exactly great news. Our latest batch of bad air is seemingly lasting forever. 

Since Saturday, the air has generally and persistently been in the orange "unhealthy for sensitive groups" category since Saturday.  Sometimes it flirts with the red, unhealthy for everybody zone. 

But really, even the unhealthy for sensitive groups doesn't mean the perfectly fine, fitness specimens among us aren't being affected. That persistence that's troubling. The longer you breathe bad air the worse it is for everybody. 

A weak cold front today and tonight won't do much to disperse the smoke.  If the cold front goes far enough south, the air near the Canadian border might temporarily get a little better. The center of strong high pressure in central and northern Quebec has - for now  - clean air under it, so some of that better air might sneak in late today before the smoke returns tonight.

SMOKE AS FOG MACHINE

This time of year, we often see early morning fog form in the valleys. The fog gets less and less likely the longer you've gone without rain. Except when there's smoke. In their forecast discussion,  National Weather Service/South Burlington meteorologist Tyler Danzig gave us an excellent explanation as to why smoke encourages morning fog:

"Canadian wildfire smoke is the culprit for fog development with all other signs pointing to no fog Increased cloud condensation nuclei from the smoke acts as a binding agent, similar to butter and eggs in cooking for water molecules. As it cools overnight, the can collect and condense the moisture more easily than normal air molecules, leading to enhanced fog development."

So yes, we're experience the joys of smoggy mornings lately. Get used to it, I guess. I expect more of this as long as the smoke lingers. 

REST OF THE WEATHER

Dry and warm with an increasing home grown fire danger is the story for the next week at least. 

That weak cold front coming through later today will stall across central New England and dissipate. It has almost no moisture to work with so don't expect any rain. For most of us. It might help squeeze out isolated showers and storms each afternoon today through Thursday,  mostly in the high elevations of southern and central Vermont.

These will produce little rain, and the vast majority of us will stay dry. This type of weather pattern makes me wonder about the risk of "dry lightning." That's from thunderstorms that produce little rain but do generate lightning strikes that can set forest fires. They're common in the West, but more rare here. But I can see that happening in this weather pattern.  

The wicked strong high pressure will keep deeply humid air at bay for most of the week, which would make forests dry out faster in Vermont than we usually see in August.  

The high pressure will also keep super hot weather away from us for the next few days. Daytime temperatures will be in the 80 to 85 degree range for most of us through Thursday, with lows fairly comfortable in the 55 to 62 degree range, give or take.

That's only slightly warmer than average for this time of year. Hotter, and maybe more humid air looks like it might start making a run at us toward Friday or the weekend. 

Oh, one more thing. It did not rain at all in Burlington this weekend. So the record for most consecutive weekend with precipitation stops at 32.  The last time before these past two days we had a rain or snow-free weekend was on December 14-15, 2024.

Sunday Vermont Update: The Smoke Is Back, And How Dry We Are, And Will Be

Image from firesmoke.ca  shows smoke from fires in
central Canada is spreading far and wide in
North America, including here in Vermont 

The smoke is back. 

And it will probably harass us off and on all week while rain (mostly) stays resolutely away from the Green Mountain State. 

Oddly strong high pressure will take the blame and the credit for a long period of dry weather, often smoky skies and warm summer weather. 

Saturday started off pretty clear but the haze thickened through the day. The thickest smoke stayed aloft, but some of the pollution, inevitably, made it to the ground. Evening was a hazy mess, at least in northern parts of the state.

Canada has gotten even smokier as fires have intensify and grown widespread in central parts of that vast nation. New, large fires have also exploded in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

There's now a hell of a lot of smoke belching into the skies above North America. 

This is a widespread smoke attack. Air quality alerts have been in effect for a few days, and remain on in places like Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.    Most of Maine and the northern half of New Hampshire joined the air quality alert party Saturday afternoon, warning residents that most of today would be smoky.

By late Saturday afternoon, the National Weather Service office in Burlington, in their forecast discussion, were already monitoring the smoke, which had already turned our skies hazy and greyed out some of our Green Mountain views.

Before dinnertime, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources issued our own air quality alert.  

TODAY 

That bad air alert is now in effect at least until midnight tonight. The breezes, which had been from the north, have shifted to the south. That will keep the worst of the air toward northern Vermont. The smoke will be even thicker up in Quebec and Ontario.

Still there is some air flow aloft coming from the opposite direction - the north, which would bring more smoke our way.  High pressure systems feature sinking air, so some of that smoke aloft will make it down here to the ground, where we all live and breathe.

The bottom line is that air quality was moderate to unhealthy for sensitive groups this morning.  That already kinda bad air might worsen a little more through the day,  but will not be as bad as the abysmal air quality we endured on July 26.

It'll still be a little rough on the lungs, though.     

Otherwise, another comfortably cool morning will morph into a warm, sunny, if hazy day.  The humidity will stay perfectly reasonable, 

MONDAY

 Weather systems - both storms and areas of fair, sunny weather - tend to be weak this time of year.  But high pressure is growing over Quebec and New England.

This high pressure will be at near record strength for August. It's more typical of the super strong high pressures that give us periods of Indian Summer weather in October if we get lucky. High pressure means sinking air. Sinking air means it's really hard for rain clouds to form. Hence the very dry forecast. 

The southern end of this high pressure over New England is weakening in favor of a center over Quebec. This will send a weak cold front our way tomorrow.  

The air is so dry that at most the front might produce isolated light showers. More than 90 percent of us won't see any rain at all. The very few of us that do see raindrops will get only a trace to maybe a couple hundredths of an inch, Not even enough to wet things down at all. 

The front will bring another wave of smoke with it. so I anticipate some possible new air quality alerts this week. Highs should make it into the 80s again. 

REST OF WEEK

The high pressure will sit strong all week, only slowly dropping south from Quebec through New England between now and next weekend. It's huge, and will extend down as far south as Georgia this week. 

Monday's cold front will make Tuesday a degree or two "cooler" with highs "only" in the 78 to 84 degree range for most of us. 

The orientation of the high, and the fact that it pushed last week's cold front almost all the way to the Gulf Coast. That will deep tropical humidity away from us probably at least through the end of the week. 

That means the air will stay fairly comfortable (aside from any smoke).  I suppose an isolated shower or two could figure out a way to develop over the mountains on one or two afternoons this week, but almost everybody will stay dry. 

We might, maybe could get a bit of a break from the smoke later in the week. Southerly winds in the worst often fire zone in Manitoba and Saskatchewan later this week might temporarily drive most of the smoke north into Nunavut and western Hudson Bay.  

Back here in Vermont, the odd August combination of daily sunshine, sort of low humidity and warm temperatures sets the stage for a growing forest fire risk.

The brush fire risk was already high in the Champlain Valley this weekend, and I imagine the moderate risk on most of the rest of the state will increase to high this week. Watch those campfires, cigarette butts and backyard burns. 

Also, unlikely but possible is the risk of a flash drought.  

This is a weird, long stretch of dry weather with a lack of humidity, quite uncharacteristic of August. If this continues all month, then we have to start worrying about too-dry conditions and possible drought.

It's too early to sound the alarm on that. We could still get a lot of rain starting mid month, we just don't know yet. But I already have to water my gardens thoroughly today for the first time this summer, and that state of affairs should continue. 

The next chance of any more widespread showers looks to be a week from tomorrow, and even that looks iffy at this point.