A Vermont Summer Weekend In October

Some color showing in the trees near Richmond,
Vermont amid strangely hot, dusty weather 

All those leaf peepers from out of state who crammed themselves into Vermont this weekend probably brought their fleece jackets, knit hats, and maybe long underwear to endure the October chill while watching tree leaves die. 

The jokes on them.

They should have brought shorts, swimsuits and such since we're having a summer weekend, and early part of the week, too. 

The weather today, tomorrow and possibly Tuesday in Vermont will be normal - for July. Since it's October, the expected temperatures will almost certainly break some record highs. 

Summer redux started yesterday, with highs in the 70s to around 80. Burlington reached 81 degrees. Not quite a record high, but damn close.

The heat should peak today. The National Weather Service is going for a high of 85 today in Burlington. That would have tied the all-time record for the month of October, if not for the 86 degrees just two years ago. 

As mentioned here on Friday, this will be the third Vermont October in a row with unprecedented heat for this time of year. 

It won't be just Burlington. Record highs will envelop much of the rest of northern New England, and southern Quebec and Ontario.  Over the past couple of days, record October heat has covered a huge area around the Great Lakes, Midwest and Upper Plains in the United States and parts of Canada, including Manitoba, and the other two provinces I already mentioned. 

Climatologist Maximiliano Herrera is calling the widespread October heat "one of the most extreme events in all North American history."

Some examples, just to cherry pick: 99 degrees in Ellsworth, South Dakota (in October!); 96 in Rapid City, South Dakota and 92 degrees in Appleton, Minnesota. 

Those same areas sweltered overnight as temperatures failed to drop below 70 degrees in most of that Midwest heat zone. 

Back here in Vermont, some of that warm night air will make its way here, but it won't be quite as bad as out in the Midwest. Lows in the Champlain Valley might not get below 60 degrees tonight and Monday night. This time of year, lows should be in the mid-40s.

Monday afternoon should be almost as hot as today, with highs once again reaching record territory. Many towns will reach 80s degrees.  Depending on how fast Tuesday clouds up, there's a slight chance a couple places could reach 80. 

If Burlington has four days in a row of 80 degree weather, that'll be the most consecutive days on record of such warmth. The record is three days in that blast of heat in October, 2023. 

DROUGHT/RAIN CHANCES

Since we're in a drought, you don't want it to be hot and dry, which is precisely what's happening here. In dry times, the warmer it gets, the more efficient evaporation is. So droughts get worse than they would otherwise be when you have bouts of record heat.  

We're already seeing that this weekend. A forest fire broke out Saturday in a hard to reach place on Brownell Mountain in Williston. We had the rare, rather scary experience of seeing helicopters dropping water on the fire, like they do in those big western fires. 

A helicopter prepares to drop water on a forest fire
Saturday on Brownell Mountain in Williston,
Vermont. Photo via Facebook from
Williston Fire Department. 

At last report, the fire on Brownell Mountain had not yet covered a lot of territory, and no evacuations have been ordered. 

Firefighting efforts were suspended last night after they at least partly tamped down the blaze. They'll be back at it today with the firefighting effort. 

There's obviously the risk of more fires, at least until it rains, 

 Rain will come with a cold front Tuesday and Tuesday night. As has been the case for months, this rain will by no means become a drought buster. It will be welcomed, for sure, but it will be brief Band-Aid to a drought that really needs major surgery to solve.

Early guesses are the cold front will perhaps a half inch of rain, give or take. We need much more than that to dent this drought. 

Like the rains on September 23-25, the wet weather Tuesday and Tuesday night will temporarily tamp down the fires and fire risk, but that problem will come back within a few days. 

We're stuck in the same drought weather pattern of big, huge, dry high pressure systems parking themselves over us for days on end. The next one will come in Wednesday, give us clear skies.  It will get even colder than it was this past Wednesday night, so frost and freezes are even more likely.

That's about the only normal part of the weather we're seeing here in early October. 

The big, dry high pressure will actually get reinforced around this coming Friday, so the rainless weather will once again last a long time.  After Tuesday, I don't really see any chances of rain until around October 17 or so.   

Believe It Or Not, Vermont Is Drying Out, With Not All That Much Rain In The Forecast

A little rain fell this morning here in St. Albans, Vermont
but it wasn't much. It's actually getting a little dry, and
not much rain is in the forecast. 

 We've been talking about persistent rains, and occasional flood threats really since early spring here in Vermont. 

But while we keep seeing bouts of showers and thunderstorms, a funny thing happened on the way to a wet summer. It's becoming not so soggy. 

We're miles away from any drought worries at the moment. But as we've gotten into the second half of July, the rains have gotten more sporadic, more scattered, more inconsistent 

That trend is continuing and may even actually intensify. The cold front coming through today is turning into a bit of a nothingburger.  What was looking like a potential soaking on Sunday is looking much less so.

And a major change in the weather pattern coming up will eventually prevent the type of warmth and humidity needed to bring us heavy rain.

The summer of floods continues elsewhere in the United States. Ruidoso, New Mexico was hit again yesterday, with more debris flows. Another house was washed away there, and people had to be rescued. A swath of central and western Missouri was under flash flood warnings this morning.  Kansas and Illinois will probably be added to the list of flood zones later today.

But here in Vermont, sure, we're seeing a little rain. But it's not impressive.

The past few days has brought breezy weather with low humidity, followed by more humid weather yesterday. But the humidity came with 90 degree heat, lots of sun and persistent breezes that acted to dry things out.  

It's dry enough in parts of Vermont so that we actually have a fairly large forest fire by Vermont standards burning in Fair Haven.   Officials aren't sure when the fire will be out. So far it has burned through about 11 acres. That part of the state has been missed by thunderstorms more often than elsewhere. 

Meanwhile, Burlington on Thursday had its seventh 90 degree day of the month, and 11th this year.  Only 15 Julys in the past 125 years or so have had as many or more such days in July. 

TODAY

Now, this morning, a cold front is pressing into Vermont, and it's not an impressive one. The timing of it, and some conditions ahead of it, mean there won't be all that much rain. The threat of severe storms has greatly diminished, too.

It did start raining on my fairly dusty gardens here in St. Albans, Vermont shortly before 7 a.m., but it certainly has not been raining hard. 

The lame cold front, and its showers will continue moving southeastward through Vermont during the morning and early afternoon.  As it heads south,  the sun will  help increase instability enough in southern Vermont to power up some thunderstorms along this. 

A few lucky devils might see a decent downpour out of these. There might be an isolated one or two storms in southern Vermont that could get a little rambunctious with strong gusty winds, but it definitely won't be anything widespread.

 WEEKEND

It's still looking like a nice one Saturday, with warm temperatures and moderate humidity. For Sunday, the forecasts for a weather disturbance have been flip-flopping. At first, the indication was it would go south of Vermont. Then it would hit us square as a stronger version with a bunch of rain. Now, we're back to a weak thing passing to our south with little rain for the Green Mountain State.  

BEYOND THE WEEKEND

As we close out July and begin August, much
of the nation still looks wetter than normal
(green shading) with continued risks of
local fooding. Meanwhile the Great Lakes
and interior Northeast, including 
Vermont look to be on the dry side. 

It looks like we might have one more hot day on Monday before things start to change midweek. We are  quite confident a cool spell is coming in. 

But long range models are unreliable, and they're really, especially all over the place right now. 

We don't know whether this cooler pattern will be a brief interruption to summer or something that will last a good portion of August

My guess - it's only an educated guess - is we get maybe three or four days of cool weather starting next Wednesday or Thursday and then we get into sort of average August weather.  

The long range forecast doesn't really have prospects for any soaking rains,.

So for now, we'll take the little bits we get, and continue to water the gardens as needed.