Beneficial Rains In A Corner Of Vermont, But Dry Conditions Carry On Elsewhere In State

The swirl in the clouds in this satellite photo 
clearly indicates an upper level low centered
just about over Montreal Saturday afternoon.
This arrangement sent bands of welcome
showers into northern Vermont, but
breaks of sun kept southern areas dry. 

Well, some of us got some badly needed rain, anyway.

We had a nice, rainy couple days in far northern Vermont, and I think that actually must have dented the building drought in that part of the state. 

The cold upper low that was parked near Montreal Saturday gave northern Vermont an extra dose of decent rains.  We were only expecting a few hundredths of an inch of rain. We got a quarter inch up north. A small bonus for once!   

That upper low kept us cold, but it was worth the price because of the rain. 

The high temperature Saturday in Burlington was just  64 degrees - which is normal for about October 4, and about 15 degrees chillier than normal for the end of August. Southern areas like Springfield, which got some sun, made it to a reasonable 73 degrees

Over the past week, the northern Champlain Valley did the best of anybody with rain.   Burlington had only 0.4 inches of rain during the month through August 23. But then, in the past week, another 1.26 inches of rain poured down on Burlington. 

That's not a huge amount, but for a change it was more or less normal for a week. Here in St. Albans, we've had 1.4 inches in the past week. So my garden plants have definitely perked up.  

Elsewhere, in Vermont, the latest chance at drought relief over the past couple of days was a bit of a whiff, especially in southern Vermont. Very little rain fell down in that neck of the woods. The area around Springfield has had only a trace of rain in the past week  

Burlington will not have one of its driest Augusts on record due to rain in the past week, but other Vermont communities definitely will.   Montpelier has had only 0.62 inches of rain so far this month. St. Johnsbury just 0.94 inches.

FORECAST

It was chilly this morning, but now that skies have cleared up statewide, the sun will go right to work today. Everybody will be well into the 70s by mid afternoon. A nice day to do anything outdoors, for sure. 

Labor Day looks nice, too. We might have some extra clouds in the afternoon, but it will still be warm and partly sunny after another chilly early morning. Continued low humidity should keep things quite comfortable. 

We do have another shot at some decent rain - maybe - at the end of the week.

Before we get there, we have a slight change to what had been a wall to wall sunshine forecast that would have lasted until Wednesday evening

A weak disturbance on Tuesday might kick off a few showers. Not many, and probably most places will stay dry. But those scattered showers might dampen a few places, especially over the mountains. 

Even though it will be seasonably warm all week, the overall weather pattern still features odd early cold blasts coming into the eastern half of the U.S.

The next such chilly outbreak is nippier than the last, and promises frost in northern Minnesota and maybe even snowflakes up near Lake Superior.

Since the core of the cold blast is coming down into the western Great Lakes, that opens up the possibility of a nice flow of humid air coming up from the south ahead of a cold front that will be approaching us Thursday and Friday. 

If things work out right, that could give us a decent dump of rain here in Vermont. 

A lot of things might still go wrong. Perhaps the core of the heaviest rain might pass just to our west. Or the cold front could speed up, and whisk its way through here without having a chance to dump much rain. 

We'll need to wait  until we get closer to the event to see what's really going on. 

But if we get lucky, that end of week cold front just might wet the entire state down, not just a few places. We'll keep an eye on it. 

That Was A Sudden Introduction To Autumn! But The Building Vermont Drought Continues

This view of the Green Mountains  in Shrewsbury, Vermont
at around 12:30 p.m.Sunday shows a slightly hazy
and very warm Sunday under way...... 

Boy, what an abrupt change in the weather across Vermont Sunday! 

As expected, that cold front really meant business. Once it came through your neck of the woods, you went from summer heat to autumn chill in a snap. 

If you didn't know the cold front was coming, it seemed Burlington was headed for another 90 degree day. It was up to 85 degrees by 11 a.m. Then things went the other way. It was down to 60 degrees by 4 p.m., the time of day when the temperature usually peaks. 

Similar temperature crashes occurred across pretty much all of Vermont, though they came late in the day in southern parts of the state. Rutland went from 85 degrees at 2 p.m to 67 at 5 p.m. and 59 at 7 p.m. 

A temperature drop that big and that quick is unusual with any cold front.  You get something like this in the winter sometimes, but in the summer it's almost unheard of. It's been a really weird temperature month.

First, a heat wave with desert dry air instead of the usual humidity and now this weird temperature drop.   

Then, to make things just a little extra bizarre, in the evening,  it started to warm up ever so slightly again in northern Vermont, as the paltry rain with the front departed and clouds thinned a little.  

Rainfall was paltry, especially considering how strong the cold front was. A very few places got lucky with isolated downpours ahead of the front, like in Shrewsbury, Vermont, where I spend Sunday. 

Rutland, just a little northwest of Shrewsbury, got just 0.02 inches of rain. Burlington reported a scant 0.08 inches and Montpelier a barely noticeable 0.05 inches 

That was not the soaker we needed, that's for sure. 

OUTLOOK

.....By 5 p.m, it was chilly and overcast in Shrewsbury
and low clouds were beginning to obscure the mountains.
Temperatures by then had fallen into the low 60s

Unfortunately, there's not much rain in the forecast. Today will be sunny and cool, so that won't help with our building drought.  

Temperatures this afternoon will only make it to within a few degrees either side of 70, much cooler than average for this time of year.  

Clouds will increase during the day Tuesday, but no rain. Highs should make it into the 70s.  

A weak system does look like it wants to come through on Wednesday with some light rain. At this point, this one looks pretty lame, too.

 If current forecasts hold -  and that's a big if -  there could be as much as a third of an inch of rain near the Canadian border. That would taper down to just a trace or a few hundreds of an inch in southern Vermont. 

There's a chance Wednesday's rain might stay further north, which would leave Vermont with very little rain. Let's hope not!

Then it back to dry weather and a warming trend at the end of the week. 

Another cold front might bring a little more rain  next weekend.  But from this distant view, early indications are the rainfall then might also not amount to all that much. 

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. 

Stats Confirm: This July Is Yet Another Hot One, Third One In A Row

A severe thunderstorm over Lamoille County on 
July 10, as seen from a distance from Williston
Vermont. Other than that date, severe 
weather was pretty infrequent in our hot,
humid Vermont July, 2025

 I'm sure you felt and melted in Vermont's tropical July, 2025, and I have the receipts to prove it.

This July was another summer month that didn't really feel like Vermont.   

In Burlington, the mean temperature was 74.6, tying with 1975 and 1995 as the sixth warmest on record. 

This was the third July in a row that was among the top ten warmest on record.  Six of the top 10 warmest Julys have happened since 2018. 

Montpelier had its fifth warmest July on record. 

Unlike June, there was never any super extreme heat. No record highs. The heat was fairly persistent, but not as relentless as last year. We managed to see a substantial break in the tropical conditions on July 20-23 and the 31st. 

Still,  Burlington had eight days that got to 90 degrees or more. Only ten other Julys in the past 125 years had as many or more such days. 

It's telling how much climate change has altered our perception of a "normal" summer.    Under the "new normal" which is the average of temperatures between 1990 and 2020,  July in Burlington was a mere 2.2 degrees above this warmer "average".

Average temperature were much lower in most of the 20th century, of course. In July, 1975. the month Burlington just  tied with for sixth warmest, was at the time more than five degrees warmer than average. 

Rainfall

July in Vermont was dry, except in the Northeast Kingdom, parts of which had a destructive flash flood on July 10.  The month was also a little on the wet side in the extreme northwest. Burlington was close to normal, while my unofficial rain gauge in St. Albans collected a pretty soggy 6.5 inches of July rain. 

Extreme southwest Vermont was also a little on the wet side, but overall, most of the state was dry. A lot of places missed out on many of the typical midsummer shower and thunderstorms.

So far, drought hasn't developed, thanks to the wet spring and early summer.   Given the current forecast, though, I think some parts of Vermont will soon be declared "abnormally dry" though not in drought unless the rain falters for weeks on end. 

St. Johnsbury, having endured by far its wettest month on record last July with an incredible 17 inches of rain, was one of the driest spots in Vermont this year. They only had about 2.4 inches of rain, or about half the usual installment for July. Rutland came up about two inches short for July rainfall 

St Johnsbury is just south of the area hit be the July 10 flash floods in the Northeast Kingdom, which really was the only real extreme weather event of the month, other than the heat and humidity. The July 10 event severely damaged at least a couple homes, and washed away sections of road in Sutton, West Burke and East Haven. 

Thick wildfire smoke from Canada obscures the view for
these fishing enthusiasts at St. Albans Bay,
Vermont on July 26

That same day, severe thunderstorms in Addison County caused some flooding, and tore part of the roof off of Middlebury Union High School.  

Other than that, there were only widely scattered instances of severe thunderstorm damage in Vermont during July, which is usually the peak of what passes for the Green Mountain States severe storm season. 

The other hazard we dealt with was wildfire smoke from Canada. That's been happening most summers lately, in part another negative consequence of climate change. 

 Unlike in the upper Midwest, the smoke in Vermont usually wasn't that bad this July, 

Except on July 26, when the air quality in Vermont was some of the worst ever seen. 

LOOKING AHEAD

In June, NOAA released its outlook for July, indicating it would be a hot month around here. They were right. That forecast also leaned hesitantly toward July being a wee bit wetter than normal.  I give that a win, too, since a few places in Vermont had some extra precipitation, while others were dry.  

As we know, August is opening with cool weather. That won't last. Forecasts have us shifting to warmer than normal temperatures by Sunday afternoon, 

We lose about an hour and a half of daylight, so normal temperatures will start to cool, especially during the second half of the month.  That's only if we have some semblance of a typical pattern.

We do know that after we get through today and tomorrow, odds lean really heavily toward above normal temperatures through mid-month, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.

Precipitation chances during the first half of the month in this forecast seem to be near normal, maybe ever so slightly leaning toward heavier than normal toward mid month. 

Beyond mid month, forecasts get even more tenuous. The deeper into the future you go, the higher the odds forecasts will be off. Still, NOAA's three to four week outlook released today still leans pretty strongly toward above normal temperatures here. Rainfall is a tossup between above or below normal, so take your guess. 

Weird Vermont Rain And Humidity Moments On Saturday; Slow Clearing Today, Hot Monday, Maybe Nice Fourth?

A small shower that formed east of St Albans, Vermont
in the humid Saturday evening air created this
pretty sky after a very rainy morning and muggy afternoon.

Meteorological weirdness of a sort continued through the day Saturday, after early morning weather hijinks created some wind, rain and humidity oddness, as noted in yesterday's post.  

At least the weather didn't cause trouble or anything particularly noticeably bad for everyone.   Still it was an odd day.

As Saturday continued, I saw one of the steepest single-day increases in humidity I've ever seen. 

A little before dawn in Burlington, dry air had been pulled down from aloft. The gave the city a dew point of 40 degrees, which is very, very low for June. By 5 p.m. the dew point was 65 degrees, which is pretty muggy.

This led to a typical summer evening with a humid mix of clouds and sun and some pop up showers and storms here ad there. 

Earlier, in the morning, there was quite a maldistribution of rainfall, too. Showers and thunderstorms kept flowing across Vermont, north of Route 2. But they largely missed most other places. 

Here in St. Albans, my unofficial rain gauge caught a storm total of 1.1 inches Friday night and Saturday morning, a really solid rainfall. Meanwhile, Burlington, just south of the rain band, captured a paltry 0.05 inches.  Impressively low, considering some forecast several days ahead of Saturday's system were forecasting more than two inches of rain for Burlington. 

Still, Burlington did have measurable rain Saturday.  There have been 100 days with measurable precipitation so far this year in Burlington, which is the most to date of any year in records dating back to 1884.

Rainfall so far this year in Burlington is actually running close to normal. It's just the precipitation has been oddly frequent. 

 This all leaves us with a far northern Vermont, and southern Vermont with decent soil moisture, and some dry conditions across central Vermont.  Odd "winner and loser" type rain situations often happen in a Vermont summer. Hopefully that will even out soon. 

TODAY

Skies have been slow to clear this morning, so it might be awhile for some of us to actually enjoy some sunshine. It'll get there, eventually. The atmosphere is playing with us again, just as it did yesterday. This time, an inversion has formed, with a layer of warm air above cool air.

That trapped some moisture in the lower atmosphere, hence the cloud. The strong late June sunshine is at work mixing the air up, which should disperse the clouds this afternoon. It should still get sunny this afternoon in most places, with highs near 80, a decent amount sun (we hope!) and comfortable humidity. 

LOOKING AHEAD TO THE FOURTH

Monday still looks hot, but at least the humidity will only be moderately high. Warmer valleys could easily make it to 90 degrees again, but the dew point should be in the 60s. That's kinda muggy, but not terrible. Not like last week's heat. 

A cold front of sorts Tuesday will probably spread some showers and thunderstorms across Vermont. There's a low chance some of them will be strong. Since Tuesday will become terribly humid,  some storms might dump some torrential downpours.  We'll keep an eye on that.  I doubt Tuesday will bring us widespread scariness, but the situation is still worth keeping an eye on.

I call Tuesday's system a cold front of sorts because the air behind it won't be any cooler, really, Just drier. Wednesday could be quite a warm day with readings well into the 80s.

It does look like another front with cooler air and even colder air aloft should come through Thursday with its own packet of non-severe showers and storms.

If this all plays out as expected, the Fourth of July could end up being pretty nice. It'll probably be cool for the season, with highs only in the 70s. I imagine we'd see a fair amount of sun, but that chilly air aloft might clutter the afternoon sky with  some so-called fair weather clouds.

I never understood how they can be called fair weather clouds on days when they make the sky mostly cloudy but what do I know? That said, I think we might end up with a good amount of sun on the Fourth.

Saturday Morning Vermont Weather Update: Flood Threat Disappears Amid Odd Weather Pattern

Unexpected wind gusts of over 40 mph overnight sent
some of our deck furniture askew, and, not shown
here, knocked over a few plants. We're still expecting
showers today, but rainfall will be much 
less than originally expected. 

Aside from some unexpected winds in the Champlain Valley of Vermont and New York and rains mostly limited to near the Canadian border overnight, the weather might not have seemed all that weird to you overnight and early this morning. 

But from a meteorological standpoint, it got strange. 

The unexpected overnight gusts were a symptom of the odd conditions overhead.  Before you get nervous, our "weird weather" does not mean anything scary for everybody just living their lives today. 

Most of us are still expected some showers today. But trends on rainfall amounts keep dropping. 

 A few days ago we were worried about flash flooding in northern Vermont today.  Now, the chances of such an event are pretty much nil.  So that's good news.

THE WEIRDNESS

It was supposed to grow increasingly humid overnight as south winds drew wetter air northward.  But a funny thing happened to that on the way moment.   Something called a low level jet got cranking a few thousand feet overhead last night. A low level jet is a ribbon of higher speed air, in this case created by a storm system over Ontario.

As the National Weather Service explains it, that high level wind was able to mix downward, especially into the Champlain Valley, which created overnight gusts as high as 45 mph. That's pretty unusual for late June. Even weirder, that gusty air that was pulled down from aloft is quite dry.

So instead of increasing humidity, the air got super dry for this time of year, especially in the Champlain Valley. The dew point, a rough measure of the humidity in the air, dropped from the mid-50s yesterday afternoon to around 40 degrees before dawn today.   That's super low for summer.

The dry air evaporated showers coming in from the west, so there was little or no rain in Vermont, except for those of us near the Canadian border.  

The expected conveyer belt of showers and some storms did move west to east across southern Quebec and far northern Vermont overnight.  The heaviest stuff was in Quebec, but places right near the border in Vermont probably got a half inch to three quarters of an inch of rain, based on radar estimates.

Here in St. Albans, I have been on the southern edge of the activity and had picked up 0.31 inches of rain through 6:30 a.m today. 

REST OF TODAY

The showers that have been trying to come out of New York and drying up before reaching Vermont will probably finally overcome the dry air and drop a little rain on places like Burlington, ensuring that we do officially end up with the 28th weekend in a row with at least a trace of precipitation 

However, the showers will not amount to much. There might be a local downpour here or there in Vermont today especially in southern Vermont where the more humid air will reach. But this system, which we originally thought would have some real oomph, is turning out to be very, very, well, "meh."

So, it'll be a mixed sort of day. We'll have an ever-present risk of showers, but there will be dry periods in between.

After such a wet May and what had  looked like was going to be a wet June, it's actually getting sort of dry in northern Vermont.  For instance, through yesterday, Burlington has had only about two inches of rain so far this month, which is roughly half of normal. 

We're still far from any drought worries, but I kinda want the rain to get a little more consistent for the rest of the summer.  

Without overdoing it, of course. We don't need any more flooding, which is why I'm relieved today's weather system turned out so blah. 

It's been much wetter this month in southern parts of the state than in the north, so no dryness worries there!  

LOOKING AHEAD

Sunday still looks like we'll have a lovely summer day in Vermont. Chamber of Commerce weather, really, with highs within a few degrees of 80 with blue skies dotted by a few clouds here and there for the pictures. Humidity looks like it will be fairly reasonable, too.

We're still looking at a quick squirt of hot, humid air Monday, which will take afternoon temperatures into the mid 80s in the "cool" spots and low 90s in the Champlain and lower Connecticut River valleys, and lowlands of southwest Vermont.

It still looks like some showers and storms will come through Tuesday, but at this point rainfall doesn't look like it will be all that impressive. We might have to be on the lookout for some strong storms that day, so we'll watch that.

As we head through the rest of next week,  we should have some pretty uneventful weather, and it might be slightly on the cool side by the time we hit the Fourth of July.  

No Surprise, July Was A Tough Weather Month In Vermont

 The weather of July, 2024 was easily one of the roughest summer months on record in Vermont. 

A destroyed section of road in Richmond, Vermont after
the devastating July 11 floods. Hundreds of roads in
Vernon have been damaged by big flash floods on
July 11 and 30.

What isn't there to hate? Two major flood disasters, lots of other storms, one of the hottest Julys on record, relentless humidity, only a few refreshing days and even a little wildfire smoke thrown in at the end. 

RAIN/STORMS

The wildest record of the month comes from St. Johnsbury. They had a whopping total of 17.15 rain during July, 2024. That exceeded the amount in the previous record month by a full six inches. 

That includes what was by far their wettest day on record, 8.08 inches during their big flood on Tuesday. During Vermont's other big flood on July 11, St. Johnsbury had its fourth wettest day on record with 4.93

That rain came in incredibly short bursts. St. Johnsbury had about a foot of rain in a total of about 12 hours during July. 

Rainfall in Vermont was incredibly maldistributed. Plainfield, completely hammered by the July 10-11 flood, reported an impressive 10 inches of rain for July.  They were so much less than St. Johnsbury because the July 30 storm that trashed St. Johnsbury and Lyndonville didn't affect Plainfield at all. On July 30, Plainfield reported a boring 0.26 inches of rain. 

A small picturesque storm over Lake Champlain on July 6
Unlike so many Vermont storms in July, this
particular one was harmless. 

Montpelier was very wet with a month's total of 8.08 inches, which was 3.77 inches above normal. Burlington was sort of wet, with a total of 5.35 inches. That's about an inch and a quarter on the wet side. 

But Lebanon, New Hampshire, which is a good proxy for White River Junction, Vermont, had just 3.11 inches of rain, which is nearly an inch on the light side.  Woodstock, Vermont reported just 2.56 inches of rain, nearly 1.5 inches below normal.

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor regards southeastern Vermont as "abnormally dry."

HEAT

Once again, we had another top 10 hottest July. The mean temperature in Burlington came to 75.7good enough to be the third hottest July on record, just behind 2020 and 2018.  
 

With July, 2024 in the books, we now have four of the top five hottest Julys all having occurred since 2018.

This July was in a four- way tie for second most days reaching 80 or more. In 2020, there were 30 such days. This July, 1975, 2018 and 2019 were the ones with 29 such days. .

Nights were particularly tough, as you might have noticed. In Burlington, only four nights got under 60 degrees. Seven nights stayed at or above 70 degrees. 

Storms that can't quit. Hours after a catastrophic flood in
Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, a microburst felled
numerous trees in Colchester, Vermont, just kind of
one last slap in the face in a difficult weather month. 

Down in Lebanon, New Hampshire, they had 12 consecutive days between July 6 and 17 that reached at least 90 degrees. That's easily their longest heat wave on record. 

Also with July on the books, Burlington is still on track to have its hottest year on record. Incredibly, five of the seven months so far this year have been among the top ten warmest in Burlington. Of course, if the rest of the year is cool, that won't happen. But the pace is sure there for now. 

As if the flood disasters and heat weren't enough, the blue skies (when it would stop raining!) of early summer have largely been replaced by a hazy blue-gray tone of wildfire smoke aloft. That state of affairs will probably continue for the rest of summer and early autumn, since there are so many fires burning out west. 

Some days will have that deep blue sky we love, but many more will be hazy. So far, the air quality down here on the ground where we breathe hasn't been too bad. 

I guess one good thing to come out of this July is that severe thunderstorms with major wind damage weren't really more frequent than usual, despite the torrential downpours. We did see wind damage from some storms scattered around the state on July 10, 17, 23 and 30. We still have no confirmed tornadoes in Vermont so far this year, despite them occurring in surrounding states and Quebec. 

Despite the hot, oppressive opening of August, there are some signs that we could have a cooler month. Long range forecasts from August 6 to 14 have odds favoring somewhat cooler than normal temperatures during that period. 

Those same long range outlooks tilt our chances toward seeing above normal rainfall. Good for southeastern Vermont, bad for the rest of us. 

Long range forecasts are iffy, so take that extended outlook with a grain of salt. 

 

Thursday Evening Vermont Flood Update: One, Possibly Two Deaths, Massive Rain, Massive Destruction, Oppressive Weather Outlook

Dishearteningly digging out.

A washed out driveway this morning in Richmond, Vermont.

That's what Vermonters started up again as flooding began to recede in most - but not all - parts of the state. 

The lower sections of the Winooski River, the Lamoille River from Johnson on west to Lake Champlain and the Passumpsic River in the Northeast Kingdom were continuing to cause new and/or worsening problems as of late this afternoon. 

The Latest Stats

The death toll is at least one, and possibly two. State Public safety officials said a man was swept away last night in Peacham. 

The stats are sadly impressive. At least 54 state roads and 6 bridges were closed this morning. That doesn't include the likely hundreds of town roads closed or partly shut down by flooding and washouts. 

Rainfall totals were incredible to say the least, especially since all of it came down in fewer than 24 hours, with the vast majority coming in 12 hours or less

Walden reported 7.25 inches. The Mechanicsville section of Hinesburg saw 6.91 inches. St. Johnsbury and Monkton reported 6.4 inches. 

Numerous towns had between four and six inches of rainfall. 

It's clear the damage doesn't cover as much of the state as the flooding on July 10, 2023. Some towns in Windsor County had a quarter inch of rain or less.  But in many areas, the flooding and damage are even more intense than what we saw last year. 

That's because in some of the hardest hit areas, rainfall was heavier and happened over a shorter period of time than during the flooding last year. 

Jay Shafer posting on X, formerly Twitter, had examples. Duxbury saw 5.85 inches of rain this time and 4.40 inches in last year's event. In this storm, one weather station in Hinesburg reported 5.82 inches, while the same rain gauge last year piled up just 2.82 inches. 

Other places in the flood zone had less rain this time than a year ago. Middlesex got an impressive 4.5 inches this time, but 7.21 inches last year.  

A small tractor along a collapsed section of road
near Hinesburg, Vermont Thursday. 

I guess that's why the damage pattern was so variable. 

Some towns were notably hard hit and will unfortunately become the iconic symbols of Vermont's latest weather/climate disaster.

 Plainfield

There were also close misses: Rescuers broke a window in one inundated building, and pulled a woman out of the window. Moments later, the part of the building the woman had been in was swept away, Vermont Public reported. 

Vermont Public also had more information on that apartment building in Plainfield. It was known locally as the Heartbreak Hotel, and now that more than half the building is gone, that name seems more apt than ever.

VTDigger reports that seven bridges in Plainfield were swept away, along with some crucial culverts. Structures are gone, too, in addition to the Heartbreak Hotel. Two dozen people were evacuated, and the town's water service is gone, at least for now. 

Lyndon

The parts of Routes 122 and 5 in Lyndon regularly flood when the Passumpsic River gets high. But residents said they've never seen anything like this. 

This is where the possible second flood death might have happened. As WPTZ reports, a man in a pickup truck drove around a barrier on a closed and flooded road, apparently believing he could make it through.

A house in Bolton, Vermont surrounded by mud and
debris after the floodwater receded Thursday. 

The town's police chief said bystanders tried to wave the man down to stop him, but the belief is the driver thought the people waving at him might have been just trying to be friendly.

The man's truck has since been found downstream, but the man was still missing as of late Thursday afternoon. 

Meanwhile, about 50 people were rescued from flooded homes in and around Lyndon and Lyndonville Thursday. 

Drone footage showed several homes and businesses along Route 5, including the iconic Miss Lyndonville Diner, inundated. 

Weather Outlook:

As expected, some showers have been lingering around Vermont today. I noticed late this afternoon, the remains of Beryl were still keeping northern New York cloudy. Meanwhile partial sunshine broke out in most of Vermont.

That created a kind of weather front across northwestern Vermont, caused by the difference between the relatively cooler temperatures under the clouds and the hotter readings in the sunshine.

As of 5 p.m. that "front" if you will created a broken line of showers, a couple with brief downpours in northwestern and north central Vermont. 

So far, there hasn't been nearly enough rain with these to renew problems, but I'm watching. At the very least, these showers will probably briefly hinder recovery efforts.

What will really get in the way of the cleanup is the warmth and humidity the next few days. The  dew point, a rough measure of how humid it feels out there, should stay stubbornly between the mid 60s and low 70s daily through at least Monday. That's considered pretty oppressive. '

For the third time in a year, mud and flood restoration
service trucks on Elm Street in Waterbury Thursday. 

Friday will be the "coolest" day if you can call it that, with highs ranging from 77 to 84. Then, Saturday through 

Daytime highs will Saturday through at least Tuesday will get well into the 80s to possibly near 90 in the warm spots. 

There's yet another bullet in the weather chamber in the next couple of days, but we here in Vermont look like we'll dodge it. 

The Bermuda High off the East Coast is really strong and getting stronger. In fact, we should be glad it's not closer, as it's so strong it would cause record high temperatures in our neck of the woods. 

Instead, it's well offshore, and expanding. That has stalled a weather front along the Mid-Atlantic Coast and is gradually pushing it northwestward. That will cause potentially torrential downpours and flooding from the Carolinas to southeastern New England. 

It doesn't look like that rain will push northwestward enough over the next few days to cause real problems in Vermont. Far southern parts of the state might see a few downpours from this system. But they escaped this week's flooding and can handle it. 

We'll have to watch for thunderstorms early next week. It's hard to say whether they'll be enough to cause new problems. Early guesses are they won't be too dangerous, but we'll keep an eye on 'em. 

If you want some glimmers of hope, here's this: We could have at least a brief break in the heat toward next Thursday. 

I know long range forecasts are not always reliable, but those long range forecasts have backed off quite a bit on what had been quite a lot of expected hot weather around the third week of the month.  More importantly, the forecast for that time period between roughly July 15 and 25 has trended toward somewhat below normal rainfall.

We can only hope. 

June Was Another Very Warm Month In Vermont. Definitely A Trend Here

An intense thunderstorm in Hinesburg, Vermont on 
June 23. The storm carried a tornado warning, but
none touched down in this case. Frequent bouts
of heat and humidity encouraged storms
in the Green Mountain state during June. 

 In another month that showed that this isn't your grandfather's Vermont climate, June turned out to be among the warmest on record in much of of the state.  

Burlington had its seventh warmest June with a mean temperature of 70.3.  Montpelier scored its ninth warmest June with an average of 65.1 degrees.

June is the third month this year that scored in the top 10 warmest on record in Burlington.  

Months in any given locality usually yo-yo between being on the cool or warm side. In Burlington, at least, the last time we had a somewhat cooler than average month was November,

Note that by average, I mean the "new normal." A normal month is the average for all of them between 1990 and 2020,  That period was warmer than the long term average from the 20th century, due to the effects of climate change. 

While most days were on the warm side in June, the event that really helped push the month into the top ten warm list was a heat wave from June 18-20.  Temperatures got well into the 90s through most of the state. Burlington tied its all time record for highest minimum temperature for any date on June 19, when the "low" temperature only reached 80 degrees. 

Overall, though, the warmth was pretty consistent. Eighteen days made it to at least 80 degrees in Burlington. I could only find nine Junes in Burlington in the past 130 years that had as many or more days that reached 80 degrees.

As is typical of summer months, rainfall was pretty variable around Vermont. Along and north of Route 2 it was on the wet side. Central and parts of southern Vermont were dry, but areas near the Massachusetts border were wetter again. 

A picturesque thunderstorm near Sheldon, Vermont
on June 9. This storm produced a brief, harmless
"cold air funnel" over nearby St. Albans. It 
was caused by the interaction of warm humid
air at the surface and cold air aloft. This was
not something that would actually produce a tornado.

Burlington and St. Johnsbury each had well over five inches of rain for the month, which is more than an inch on the wet side. Rutland, meanwhile, was an inch on the dry side with only 3.15 inches of rain. 

Because of the frequent availability of heat and humidity, severe weather made occasional visits to the Green Mountain State.

 The National Weather Service in South Burlington said there were six days in June in the region with reports of damage from severe thunderstorms 

The worst of it came on June 23, when flash flooding caused a lot of damage in the north-central Green Mountains, especially around Stowe, Worcester and Elmore.  The cleanup is still ongoing in many of these areas.

There was also a tornado watch and three tornado warnings that day. But the rotating storms managed to produce wall clouds and a couple reports of funnels, but no actual tornadoes in the Green Mountain State. There was a tornado in southwestern New Hampshire, not that far from the Vermont border.

That swath with the heaviest rain had a months total of between six and nine inches, which is a lot. Meanwhile, the U.S. Drought Monitor is rating much of south central and southeastern Vermont as abnormally dry.

Looking ahead to July, the early read on it suggests more warmth. Today will actually be a little on the cool side for the season, but that should change to a slightly toastier string of days starting Wednesday. Long range forecasts, though not always accurate, do fairly strongly suggest mostly warmer than average days through mid-month. 

Long, Slow Vermont Flood Recovery Begins; Waters Also Slow To Recede, But Glimmers Of Good News

The raging Winooski River drew a crowd in Winooski,
Vermont Tuesday morning. 

 It's time to start bouncing back. 

Yeah, I know, it's going to be a slow trip back from the devastation of the Great Vermont Flood of '23. 

At least along the Winooski River, flood waters were slow to recede today but by late afternoon, the water levels were inching down, except in the Burlington Intervale, where flooding was worsening.

The slow pace of the Winooski River's ebbing has to be frustrating for everybody affected by it. 

Elsewhere in Vermont, the first tiny steps toward disaster recovery had begun this afternoon. 

Those were aided by a return to our regularly scheduled weather for the uncomfortable summer of 2023. The sun came out, which definitely helped, although it was very warm and humid, and of course there was wildfire smoke in the air. As usual. Sigh. 

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS

At least we had flashes of good news today here in Vermont. 

As far as I can tell, the unconfirmed report of a death in Londonderry, Vermont was false.  So far, knock on wood, there have been no fatalities in Vermont from this calamity.  Which is amazing, considering how extensive it was. 

This week's flood is arguably a little worse than Irene in 2011. Irene's Vermont death toll was seven. Do remember, though, the aftermath and cleanup of a disaster can be just as dangerous as the actual event. Let's be careful out there. 

Some other bits of good news. Tentatively, at least, it looks like they won't need to do any major releases from the Wrightsville Dam above Montpelier. That would mean the Capitol City would avoid an even worse inundation.  

The dam on the Winooski River in Essex Junction,
Vermont on Tuesday.

This morning, officials had also announced they would release water from two dams in southern Vermont, which would exponentially worsen flooding. It turns out, the will only release a little water, and additional flooding will be minimal. 

THIS AND THAT

I'm so impressed by how heavy and widespread the rain was. All but one county in Vermont had at least one town with a minimum of four inches of rain. 

Highest totals included 9.2 inches in Calais and 9.05 in Plymouth. Widespread 4 to 8 inch totals were reported along the whole length of the Green Mountains, from Massachusetts to Canada. Valleys on either side had a little less. 

For the record, my place in St. Albans, Vermont had a comparatively modest 3.75 inches of rain from Sunday night to this morning.  That's still about the amount that should fall in an entire July. 

There's a huge pent up demand now from Vermonters wanting to help.  Which is both expected and awesome. It was really too soon on Tuesday to figure out where to put people and what they should do.  Expect to see more information on that starting tomorrow and increasing through the week. 

We are Vermont Strong, so I know we'll all help out as best we can. Watch this space for volunteer opportunities. 

It's best if you avoid Vermont's hardest hit areas for now, unless you are there with a specific job to help with recovery, or media trying to inform the public.   Gawkers are like the rest of the disaster debris: They're in the way and have to be moved. 

LOOKING AHEAD

The only couple of good things I see in the weather forecast is the chances of showers, thunderstorms and downpours are low through Wednesday. The chances are not zero, and a handful of places might get unlucky, but most of us will be fine. 

Except for the heat and humidity. It's relentless. one sign of this is in Burlington's low temperatures. If it stays in the 60s, it's probably humid.  It has not been below 65 in Burlington since June 30. Daytime highs will remain stubbornly in the low to mid 80s. 

A very, very weak cold front might briefly knock the humidity down a peg Wednesday night, and we might actually get down to the low 60s. But that's about it for relief. 

Flooding in Richmond, Vermont Tuesday. 

The humidity will surge back in Thursday and stay with us for an extended period. Probably through much of next week. 

Humidity means the risk of more heavy downpours. Which we need about as much as a submarine needs a screen door.

The best chances of heavy downpours are Thursday afternoon into Friday. 

I know emergency officials and people from Governor Phil Scott on down have been emphasizing the danger from renewed downpours. And they're right.

A hint of optimism is these downpours won't be as horrible as what we just went through. They also won't be as widespread as they were Sunday night through Tuesday morning. 

But even in the best of times, without us being completely waterlogged like we are now, these expected downpours would be capable of generating local flash floods. 

With the ground saturated and roads, river beds and landscape left unstable by the floods early this week, the effects of any local downpours late this week would be magnified. 

Shower chances last into next week, but it's too soon to figure out how light or heavy those might be. 

A slight change in the weather pattern might -  and I emphasize might - make us slightly cooler and slightly drier during the third week of July. 

I don't know for sure that will come to pass. But a man can dream, right?

 

No Surprise, Vermont January, 2023 Was Among Hottest On Record

Early in the month, it was so warm in St. Albans, Vermont
that daffodil shoots were coming up. Photo taken on Jan. 5

 The numbers are in for the weather in January, 2023 are in and it was, indeed the hottest first month of the year in parts of Vermont. 

In the rest of the state, it was close to the warmest.  

Montpelier had its hottest January on record, with a mean temperature of 29.1 degrees. 

That shattered the old record of 27.3 degrees in 1990. Usually, in the rare instances when a weather station breaks a record for warmest month, it's by no more than a few tenths of a degree. That Montpelier broke the record by 1.8 degrees is really impressive.

It looks like St. Johnsbury also broke its record for warmest January. The mean temperature for 2023 came in at 28.8 degrees, higher than any other year in January. 

Montpelier and St. Johnsbury were among numerous cities in the Northeast, including Portland, Maine and New York City, that had their warmest Januaries on record. 

Burlington only came in at fourth in the list of warmest January, with an average temperature of 29.2 degrees. That's two degrees shy of the all time warmest January of 1906. 

I'm not sure on this, but I think several areas of Vermont had their highest minimum temperature on record for January. The coldest night in Burlington was 7 degrees. Montpelier's lowest reading was 8 degrees. Rutland's lowest temperature was 9 above.

January, 2023 was an especially gloomy month in Vermont,
with frequent bouts of low clouds, fog, drizzle and 
light, wet snow. Photo taken in St. Albans, Jan. 6.

Nights were especially warm in Burlington and elsewhere during January. The average low temperature was 23.6, which is the second highest mean temperature for low minimums. 

There was not much of a range in temperature between low and high temperatures most days. 

The difference between the high and low averages was 11.2 degrees. Usually this time of year that range between daily highs and lows is about 16 or 17 degrees.  

That lack of range between low and high temperatures reflects something you surely noticed.

It was incredibly cloudy in January. I would rate 26 days in Burlington and vicinity during January as overcast, or overcast with a very limited number of breaks. 

When it's cloudy, high temperatures are usually a little lower than you'd expect and low temperatures are a little warmer than they would be if was clear. 

All those clouds provided plenty of precipitation. Rain and melted snow amounted to 3.40 inches in Burlington. This fell just outside the top 10 list of wettest Januaries in Burlington. Number 10 on the list had 3.46 inches. 

By the end of the January, it was at least looking a lot
more wintry.  True winter weather didn't really hit, though,
until January 30, too late to prevent January, 2023
from becoming one of the warmest on record in Vermont.

Other areas of Vermont were pretty wet, too. St. Johnsbury had 4.07 inches of precipitation, against a normal of 2.68 inches for the month.

 Rutland, with 3.63 inches of precipitation, about an inch above normal. Montpelier was closer to normal with 2.49 inches, less than a quarter inch above normal.

After a nearly snow-free beginning, snowfall picked up, and most places ended up within the range of normal snowfall for the year. St. Johnsbury ended up with 20 inches of snow, which was actually 0.1 inches above normal.

Looking out to February, we know we're starting the month with intense Arctic cold, at least on Friday and Saturday. 

But overall, the outlook for the month is for above normal temperatures again. Do note that long range forecasts are iffy. So take the forecast for the entire month with a bit of a grain of salt. 

Wet Vermont September Eased Drought, But Was Gloomy

The sun briefly breaks through dark rain clouds over St.
Albans, Vermont on September 22.  This September
was among the wettest on record.

 If you had the feeling that Vermont's September this year was sodden as hell, you're right. 

Everyone in the state had a decidedly wetter than normal September. Burlington logged 6.46 inches of rain, making it the fourth wettest September on record.  

Interestingly, this September was the wettest on record in Burlington that did not have a tropical storm contribute to the total. The top three wettest Septembers were wet in part due to torrential tropical storms.

The wettest September, with a whopping 10.26 inches of rain, was in 1999. That was the year Tropical Storm Floyd swept across Vermont. The second wettest September, 1945, (8.18 inches) featured a hurricane that hit Florida, as a Category 4 storm, the roared up the East Coast and through New England as a dying tropical storm.  

The third wettest September, 1938, (6.87) featured the Great New England Hurricane, which was the worst hurricane in New England (and Vermont!) history.  

No tropical storms for us this year. Even as we begin October, the remnants of Hurricane Ian will only cause high cloudiness and perhaps a sprinkle near the Massachusetts border.

September was consistently wet across Vermont. Most reporting stations  had about six inches of rain, except in pockets of southern Vermont, where only four or five inches fell. That's still above normal.

Vermont entered September with widespread dryness and large areas in the state in drought. September rains definitely helped.   

A very wet September, 2022 in Vermont made it a 
hospitable month for mushrooms, like this one that
popped up on my St. Albans, Vermont lawn in 
mid-September.

Only two percent of Vermont - the southeast corner -  is now in drought. Half the state, believe it or not, is still "abnormally dry" according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.  

The reason is ground water has not fully recovered in parts of central and southern Vermont. At the start of the month, virtually all of the state was abnormally dry or in drought.   

Though rainfall was definitely out of the ordinary, temperatures in September weren't.

 Pretty much everyone came in within about a  half a degree of what is regarded as normal these days.  Burlington was the most out of whack, but even there, the average for the month came in at only 0.7 degrees below normal.  That's not much of a departure from normal at all. 

Remember, this is the "new normal" brought on by climate change.  Several decades ago, this September would have been regarded as definitely on the warm side. Back in the 1970s, the mean temperature for this September in Burlington would have been about four degrees above what was then the average.

Still, this September was a break from recent ones. Four of the top five hottest Septembers in Burlington have all happened since 2015. Not this year, though. 

Looking ahead to October, long range forecasts seem to be leaning toward generally colder and drier than normal weather at least through mid-month. Do note that long range forecasts can be unreliable. For instance, long range forecasts issued in August suggested this September would be quite warm and on the dry side. Ooops. 

Vermont Rainfall Disappointing; Humidity IS Going Down Though

Clouds from one of many little downpours that just 
missed my location in St. Albans, Vermont in this
humid weather in the past three days. The afternoon shower
in this pic produced a brief heavy downpour just two
or three miles to my south and east 

We kind of find ourselves in the same boat this morning as we did yesterday morning:

The humidity has eased in the northwest corner of Vermont but lives on elsewhere. 

As of 8 a.m.today, for instance, the actual temperature and dew point in Burlington were  63 degrees and 61 degrees. Not bad!

Montpelier, just down the road, was still stuck with a temperature of 76 degrees and a horrible dew point of 70 degrees.  Those terrible, muggy conditions continued elsewhere in central and southern Vermont. 

The good news is the heat and much of the humidity is finally going to get flushed out of the rest of Vermont during the day today. The bad news is that during this transition, rainfall was disappointing. 

The rainfall situation isn't great because we're about to launch into a pretty dry period that will probably last a week or more.

First, this morning's situation. That weather front that was stalled up north well into last night, and almost all the expected rain stayed up in Quebec.  The forecasts had actually called for a slight chance of local flooding in far northern Vermont, but that sure didn't happen! 

Rainfall totals that I've seen so far include less than 0.2 inches in Burlington and Plattsburgh, for instance. Montpelier managed to get bullseyed by an afternoon downpour Monday, so they managed to receive half an inch. Here in St. Albans, I managed to collect a somewhat respectable 0.6 inches of rain, which is OK. 

A small handful of places won the downpour sweepstakes, managing to get decent rains. Waitsfield reported 1.57 inches. 

In general, rainfall across Vermont was between 0.1 and 0.6 inches. 

Overall, I'm not impressed. 

After  kind of bouncing back and forth near the Canadian border through yesterday and most of last night, the cold front is finally getting a shove southward. It's still not moving very fast, so most of far southern Vermont is going to endure another nasty humid day. Though even there, you should begin to notice some change in the air late in the day.

Areas to the north can expect a cloudy day, maybe some sprinkles and patchy drizzle and fog. It'll still clammy, with dew points in the meh low 60s. Not exactly refreshing, but much better than it's been.

In the much more humid air to the south, the slow cold front looks like it will kick off some showers and thunderstorms. Some might have pretty good downpours, so you still have a shot of receiving some needed rain in some spots mostly south of Route 4. 

The humidity will stay moderate into Thursday, when a reinforcing cold front arrives. That will produce some hit and miss showers and storms, but again, nothing impressive.

But the air behind that Thursday front will be delightful.  Dew points will crash into the 50s, which for most of us is quite comfortable Friday through Sunday. Over the weekend, we'll have some chilly air aloft, which will help cumulus clouds bubble up.

So we'll call it partly cloudy. Probably mostly cloudy over the mountains and mostly sunny over Lake Champlain. The lake tends to squelch those bubbly cumulus clouds in this weather regime.

Beyond Sunday, the weather models seem to be all over the place, so I'm just not going to deal with it for now. 

VIDEO: Recent humidity gave the atmosphere in Vermont a South Florida vibe. Click on this link if you don't see the image below, or if you see the image click on it to view. 

Will An Increase In Rainy Days Hurt The Economy?

An increase in rainy days caused by climate change can
harm economies worldwide, especially in industrialized 
nations, new research indicates. Photos is of a sudden
summer downpour disrupting lunchtime in 
Burlington, Vermont several years ago. 

 We know that an increase in weather disasters brought on by climate change is bad for a huge number of reasons. One of them is that they are a drag on the global economy.  

But what about just an increase in rainy days. 

Climate scientists tell us that overall, a warmer climate means more and heavier rain.  (Yes, climate change increases droughts in some areas, too, but rain is still a big issue here).

As ABC News reports, researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have concluded that extreme rainfall, combined with just more generally rainy days are likely to hurt global economies.  

Extreme rainfall has long been established as a climate change hazard. Such new, torrential rains can cause a lot of damage to buildings, roads and such,  never mind the direct effects it has on businesses and people's livelihoods. 

However, more rains, even if they don't cause all that much damage, can disrupt business, manufacturing and transportation, among other aspects of the economy, said Leonie Wenz a lead scientist in the research.  

Reports ABC News: 

"'We know from previous work that flooding associated with extreme rainfall can damage infrastructure, which is critical to economic productivity, ad also cause local disruptions to production,'" said Wenz, adding that the new findings also suggest everyday disruptions caused by more rain will have 'a disruptive effect on businesses, manufacturing, transportation.'"

Industrialized nations are likely to fare worse than more agrarian economies. After all, you need rain to grow crops, right?  In industrialized nations, rain slows travel, disrupts outdoor work and puts consumers in less of a mood to go out and shop. 

As NPR reports: 

"Just a few extra inches of rain throughout the year could diminish a country's annual growth by half a percentage point - a significant decline, the study points out, given that most developed nations grow by 2 to 3 percentage points annually."  

The bottom line: It's not just the high end disasters or the temperature extremes that will get you with climate change. It's the weirder much more uneven distribution of precipitation that will screw things up, too. 

 

Update On Those Weekend Rains: Areas That Needed It Most Got The Most

Weekend rainfall totaled more than 1.5 inches in much
of Vermont

That really was a widespread and soaking rain Vermont got over the weekend. 

Pretty much all of Vermont received at least 1.5 inches of rain, except in the southwest corner of the state and a teeny, tiny sliver of the Connecticut River Valley.  

More than two inches fell in pretty good swaths of mostly northern Vermont, with a few spot three inch totals popping up.  

The heaviest rain seemed to line up nicely in parts of the Green Mountain State that the U.S. Drought Monitor deemed abnormally dry before this storm. 

You can click on the map from the National Weather Service in South Burlington in this post to make it bigger and easier to see.

Very little precipitation is in the forecast for the next week or more. Luckily, at this time of year, moisture doesn't leave the ground very quickly.  The trees are dormant, so they don't draw any water to speak of.  Days are short, the sun angle is low and the skies tend to be cloudy this time of year, so evaporation isn't nearly as big a factor as it would be in the summer.