Not Just East Coast, Nation Having Super Dry October, Drought Expanding

October has been remarkably dry in the United States
and it's showing. Every area in yellow is abnormally
dry, and all areas in various shades of orange 
are currently in drought.

 According to the latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, released Thursday, half of the Lower 48 is now in drought, up from just 20 percent three months ago.  

 Eighty percent of the nation is at least abnormally dry, if not in drought. That's up from a little less than half the Lower 48 three months ago.

All this might seem strange, given how there's also been plenty of catastrophic floods lately.  

 With the exception of the Roswell, New Mexico area, virtually all those floods occurred before October arrived.  It seems like the water has been shut off.

The dry weather is certainly widespread this month. New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Little Rock and Houston are among the many places that had no rain in October, at least through Wednesday.  

Climatologist Brian Brettschneider said at two thirds of the way through October, the Lower 48 was on pace to have its second driest month on record. Only October, 1952 was drier. That is, of course, if it stays dry. 

At least part of every state in the Lower 48 is regarded as abnormally dry, if not in drought. 

For the final week of the month, forecasts hint at somewhat wetter times for some areas of the United States, but certainly not all of them. The Pacific Northwest looks like it will be wet for the rest of the month, and some areas of the Midwest and near the Great Lakes could see some decent, but not overwhelming rains by Halloween. 

But other areas will stay dry. That includes much of the eastern United States

DRY NORTHEAST

Drought and abnormally dryness indeed expanded in the Northeast this week compared to last, but not as much as I would have guessed, given the continued lack of rain, the U.S. Drought Monitor said Thursday. (They regard the Northeast as everything from West Virginia and Maryland up through Maine).  

Despite as dry autumn, northern Vermont is still
OK in terms of groundwater and such. Southern
Vermont is regarded as abnormally dry
with a small area of drought in the far
southern part of the state.

Nearly two-thirds of the region was in drought or at least abnormally dry as of Thursday, up about three percentage points since last week. 

Here in Vermont, things remained virtually unchanged since last week, with the southern third of the state regarded as abnormally dry and a small area straddling Bennington and Windham  counties in far southern parts of the state in drought.

Ground moisture and such remained adequate in the northern two thirds of the Green Mountain State, despite the lack of huge amounts of rain. 

 Repeated light rainfalls in northern Vermont in September and October, following a very wet summer has kept us in fairly good shape for now. 

The rainfall outlook through Halloween is unimpressive. Most of the Mid-Atlantic states and southern half of New England are forecast to remain rain-free through October 31, while northern New England is in for a trace to a quarter inch of rain as we go through the remainder of the month. 

There are hints of a pattern change that could make things somewhat wetter in the Northeast as we head into November, but that remains to be seen. 

At least we're not getting flooded out here in Vermont for a change, right? 

Vermont Weather Week: Gorgeous! But Flash Drought Worries Increase

My gardens in St. Albans, Vermont are thirsty and getting
thirstier in this remarkably intense dry stretch,
but at least my cactus looks happy. 

Exactly as forecast, this Memorial Day weekend in Vermont  has brought us gorgeous weather. 

I don't think I've seen a single cloud since Thursday.  (A narrow band of broken clouds came through last night, but I slept through that).  

Sunday brought us the warmest temperatures of the year so far. Burlington got to 89 degrees, just three degrees off the record high set in 1978. A few spot 90 degree readings showed up in the lower Connecticut River Valley. 

When the air is super dry, it can warm up fast in the strong late May sun, so that's why temperatures over-performed Sunday.  The relative humidity was in the low teens in many areas, which is as low as it can possibly get in this neck of the woods, really.  . 

The hot sun and dry air are really drying things out fast.  I'm spending lots of time irrigating my gardens, and it's still a bit of a dust bowl. At least the cactus I have is happy. 

THE WEATHER SET-UP

For sun lovers, if you liked Sunday, you'll pretty much love the rest of the week. For those of you worried about it getting too dry, this won't be your week. 

We've been stuck in a pattern since mid-May at least of a series of dry high pressure systems propelled southward from northeastern Canada. We've had a series of so-called "back door" cold  fronts come through. 

Back door cold fronts are called that because they come in from the north and northeast, rather than from the west or northwest like they usually do.

These back door cold fronts are moisture-starved, so we get little or no rain with them. One of the high pressure systems gave us that destructive freeze mid-month. Another cold one brought more frost last Thursday. 

The back door cold fronts keep coming, but now, the bulk of the cold air is passing by well to our east and northeast, so it's not getting chilly. But staying dry. 

 THE DETAILS

That narrow band of broken clouds I mentioned that came through overnight was yet another "back door" cold front. 

Visible satellite photo from Sunday afternoon shows
clear skies throughout New England except northern
Maine. That narrow band of clouds from the tip
of Maine into southern Quebec is the dry back door
cold front that eventually came through last night. 

It will much colder today than Sunday, but that's not saying much.  Instead of being in the 85 to 90 degree range, most of us will hold in the 70s. A few hot spots might break 80.

The air will remain bone dry.  Dry air allows temperatures to rise rapidly during the day, but also allows those reading to crash at night. Tomorrow morning. the coldest hollows will probably be down to about 35 degrees, a lot of us will be in the 40s and the banana belt towns will hold near 50.

Warm and dry weather returns Tuesday afternoon with highs in the low 80s. 

Wednesday and Thursday, and possibly Friday is when the heat will really turn on.  Places like Burlington, which have come this close to reaching 90 without getting there this spring, have a very good shot of finally getting that hot. 

Unlike the typical 90 degree weather in Vermont, which tends to be humid, the air will remain quite dry during this hot spell. 

Another back door cold front will come through later Friday, but again it will be starving for moisture. It might generate a few hit and miss showers and thunderstorms, but no real drenching. 

At this point, next weekend is looking generally sunny, very dry, and a bit cooler, but by no means chilly

DRY WORRIES

The U.S. Drought Monitor doesn't yet have any part of Vermont in a too-dry or drought category, mostly because ground water is still in pretty good shape after a fairly wet start to the year. 

But the top several inches of soil has dried out big time, so we might be headed toward a drought, given the lack of rain we've had and the dry forecast. Burlington, for instance, has had only 0.64 inches of rain since May 4. We should have had roughly three inches of rain during the time.   With no rain this week, the dust will keep collecting. 

If this keeps up, the hay crop for feed in Vermont might end up being not great. So far, so good, but it had better rain after this week. (Long range forecasts are iffy on that prospect).

Another issue is forest fire danger. Trees have leafed out, so the risk isn't as bad as it was in April, when all the dead stuff from last year was drying out. Still, the fire danger in Vermont is moderate to high today, and that state of affairs should continue all week.

This fire danger is a regional problem in New England and southeastern Quebec. On Sunday, large wildfires broke out in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 

These are big-time, western-style fires. Thousands of homes were evacuated Sunday northwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia and some of those homes were destroyed by the flames. As on this morning, that fire is still raging.

We don't expect anything like that here in Vermont, but still, please be extra careful with your camp fires, cigarettes and burn piles.