Chilly Morning In Vermont; Even Colder Start To The New Week. Garden Killer?

These vibrant flowers in my window boxes in St.
Albans, Vermont might not be so vibrant after the
upcoming cold weather Monday and Tuesday. 

OK, Saturday was just perfect in Vermont. Deep blue skies, crisp air, gorgeous foliage. Probably the best autumn weather day of the year. 

As expected, we had a clear, cold night in Vermont, typical for early October. Most places saw a dawn with temperatures in the 30s. A few spots in western Vermont were in the 40s. In those places, the first stirrings of some south winds flushed some of the cool air out. 

TODAY

Today, the south winds will pick up. High clouds will increase, too, but it will still be a nice day. Highs will get into the 60s. So if you missed yesterday, you still have a decent day today. 

Then we get into hard core autumn tomorrow with a slight hint of winter. 

MONDAY

Our cold, blustery cold front is still on schedule for Monday morning. It might have some light showers near and along it, but that's not the story. It'll come through in the morning, and by afternoon, we'll know that autumn is getting serious. 

Temperatures during the day will stay steady or fall through the 50s. Winds will pick up from the northwest, gusting to 30 or 35 mph in spots. Leaves will fly through the air, the temperature will drop. There could even be a snowflake or two at the mountain summits.

 It won't exactly be wintry, but close enough. The weather will have a bite to it. Or, depending on your attitude toward winter, it will just bite. 

Do your emergency frost harvests in the gardens, and take in your sensitive plants for the upcoming winter. 

I'm getting all dramatic here, but in the grand scheme of things, this isn't all that unusual. We do get these early October cold snaps from time to time. We're not used to it, given our recent warm Octobers. 

It's been far worse this time of year. A large, damaging snowstorm hit large parts of Vermont and New York on this date in 1987. In 1965, Burlington's high temperatures on October 4 and 5 were in the 30s. So yes, it could be much tougher than what we're predicting for Monday and Tuesday. 

TUESDAY

The day will start cold, but not the typical calm, frosty start we often see this time of year. The wind will have kept blowing all night. Some areas will wake up to a freeze, one that is virtually frost-freeze but most certainly still a garden killer. 

The rest of the day will be quite cool, but calmer than Monday. And sunnier. Highs should only be within a few degrees either side of 50. 

Tuesday night will feature calm winds, clear skies and cold temperatures. Most places in Vermont should get to near or below freezing. Some areas right near Lake Champlain will probably escape the frost. But, for the most part, those of us who haven't had our first frost of the season.

REST OF WEEK

It'll be a quiet period with generally partly to mostly sunny daytimes, with seasonable highs in the low to mid 60s.  The only chance of rain might come at the end of the week, with light, isolated showers as a lame little disturbances comes through. 

That's great news for the leaf peepers vacationing in Vermont. Or for those of us who like to drive the back roads this time of year to look at the foliage. In some years, big storms strip the foliage from the trees, cutting short the best of the season. Not this year. 

Foliage season will eventually end, but not this week. 

The Annual Vermont Foliage Season Guessing Game Has Begun

A farm, autumn colors and Indian Summer last October
in northwestern Vermont. 

 Well, honestly, we've gotten ourselves into autumn, despite the warm and vaguely humid weather we've had until yesterday.  

There's small splashes of color already on the hillsides. In the afternoon breezes on Tuesday, flurries of falling autumn leaves drifted through the air.  

Things will go quickly as they always do, and before you know it, it will be peak foliage season. 

Right now, in mid-September, while the landscape is still mostly green, we are in peak foliage guessing season.

You know what that drill is.  Will it be a spectacular season, or one that's just ho-hum.  I suppose I'll try and weigh in with my speculation in this post, but take my prediction, and everybody else's with an enormous grain of salt. 

The fact is, foliage season in Vermont and everywhere else is uneven, and in the eyes of all the beholders out there.  Even during the most brilliant of foliage seasons, you'll be driving along, turn a corner and look at an autumn hillside and say, 'Meh."

Keep driving another half mile, turn another corner, the suddenly the fantabulous colors blow your socks off. 

On top of that, I really don't think anybody has a great handle on pre-autumn weather constitutes a great foliage season and which conditions make the season a bit disappointing. 

I've seen some reports that this summer's droughts, especially in southern Vermont, might dull the colors. As VTDigger reports, if the drought worsens, leaves might simply turn brown and fall off, or go from green to orange to brown in an instant, which is pretty depressing. 

I honestly don't think the drought has been serious enough to create that scenario. Plus, some heavy rains fell on Vermont last week, and some parts of Vermont were deluged with as much as four inches of rain on Monday.  

A large sugar maple shows its autumn 
colors in Charlotte, Vermont a 
few years ago. 

Besides, I've seen how very wet years can damage a foliage season. Way back in the day - 1998 to exact - we had the wettest summer on record in Vermont. The foliage that year was rather disappointing. I think all the wetness encouraged fungus on leaves, which prevented great colors from popping out. 

On the other hand, last year was kind of droughty in northern Vermont. I know my opinion is subjective, but autumn, 2021 was easily among the most brilliant and long lasting I can remember. 

That might be because the not so serious drought stressed the trees a little, making more brilliant reds pop out in the fall. The drought wasn't serious enough to create that brown scenario.

I've also heard that a series of quite cool, clear nights in September, some with very light frosts but no hard freezes is a recipe for great foliage. The forecast for the next couple of nights fits this idea, which is great. 

But then, I turn back to last fall. September, 2021 featured a large number of warmer than normal nights, but the foliage was great.  

The areas of Vermont that I do expect a lackluster season is in those areas hit hard by those spongy caterpillars, the ones formerly known by the word for an ethnic slur. 

In those spots, luckily not the majority of the state, those horrible insects ate all the leaves off many trees. The caterpillars life cycle ended in June, so the leaves grew back. But those leaves are smaller and more raggedy than normal leaves, and the affected trees are pretty stressed. So I think colors in the caterpillar zones will be muted.

So far, I've noticed some ash and poplar leaves are dropping prematurely without showing much color. But the hillsides are still mostly green across the majority of Vermont, so there' remains plenty of opportunity for great color. 

The bottom line: You'll find gorgeous foliage in Vermont this autumn, just like every autumn. You'll just have to get on out there and find it.