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. 

Vermont Drought Expanded Over The Past Week, To Nobody's Surprise

Drought (orange shading) covers mostly central
and eastern Vermont as of this week. The
rest of Vermont in yellow is regarded
as abnormally dry.

The latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, issued this morning, shows drought expanding here in Vermont, with those drought conditions more or less holding steady in the rest of the Northeast. 

Last week, 35 percent of Vermont was categorized as being under moderate drought, covering mostly the Connecticut River Valley and central Vermont.  

This week, 54 percent of the Green Mountain State is in drought. It has expanded into the central and southern Champlain Valley and a greater portion of the Northeast Kingdom than last week.

As of this morning, about 324,000 of Vermont's 648,000 or so residents are living in drought conditions.

All areas of Vermont not officially in drought are listed as "abnormally dry" which means they are on the verge of drought.

There's plenty of other evidence of drought in Vermont.  The top one meter layer of soil in much of Vermont is among the driest on record for this time of year. 

Lake Champlain is at its lowest level in decades for this time of year. The low level can increase algae blooms. But on the plus side, the low water can expose invasive aquatic plants and kill them, which would help the overall ecosystem. 

River levels across the state are remarkably, low, too. 

ELSEWHERE

Rivers in Vermont are quiet low due to drought, like
in the Missisquoi River shown here in Enosburg
Falls, Vermont this past Sunday. 

In New Hampshire, moderate drought conditions were about the same as last week, says the U.S. Drought Monitor,  covering all of that state except the extreme south.

 In New York, a new drought area appeared this week in parts of the eastern Adirondacks and St. Lawrence Valley. 

The moderate drought grew more extensive in Maine, now extending much further inland from the coast. 

It now covers all of central and southern Maine, or just under two thirds of the state. Severe drought continues along much of the seacoast. 

FORECAST

As I mentioned this morning, the best rains for the next couple of days should hit northwest New York and sections of Maine. Both areas should receive at least three quarters of an inch of rain.

Here in Vermont, total rainfall for the next week should only be about 0.1 south to 0.3 inches north, with locally slightly higher amounts northwest and in the northern Green Mountains. That's well short of the inch of rain per week we'd like in normal times, and 1 to 2 inches per week we'd need to start getting out of the drought 

Almost all of the meager rain we're expecting in Vermont will come Friday and Friday night, with maybe a tiny bit more on Saturday.

Long range forecasts into the middle of September lean slightly toward a bit higher than normal rainfall around Vermont, but I'll believe it when I see it.  

Drought Worsens In Vermont/Northeast As Expected

We're keeping tabs on the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, and the latest one came out this morning. 

As expected, abnormally dryness and drought
expanded in Vermont in the past week due to
a continuing lack of precipitation. A small
area of southern Vermont was upgraded
from moderate to severe drought. 

As expected, drought in the Northeast, including here in Vermont worsened a little more as the rain continues to fail us. 

The nation as a whole improved slightly from last week, thanks mostly to rain and snow in the middle of the nation and in the southeastern Rockies. 

Last week about 88 percent of the nation was abnormally dry. Now it's 83 percent, which is still ridiculously high. 

The Northeast once again got little rain in the past week, and it's showing. 

Almost the entire Northeast, a region extending from West Virginia to Maine, is at least abnormally dry if not in drought, with only five percent of the region still being deemed not excessively dry. 

The area under actual drought ticked up a little, from a little more than 56 percent of the region last week 58 percent this week.

New Jersey and Massachusetts seem to be doing the worst at the moment. In New Jersey, more than a quarter of the state is in extreme drought. The entire state is in severe drought, the first time in this dry episode New Jersey has gotten that designation. 

Last week, only about a third of Massachusetts was in severe drought. Now it's two thirds of the state.  

VERMONT WORSE, TOO

Virtually the entire Northeast is abnormally
dry or in drought with little rain in the forecast.

Here in Vermont, more than 77 percent of the state is now regarding as at least abnormally dry, up sharply from 64 percent last week. The only area barely hanging on to adequate soil moisture is most of the Champlain Valley. 

The drought area in southern Vermont has remained about the same size since last week.  However, the U.S. Drought Monitor upgraded a small area of the state near the Massachusetts border from moderate drought to severe drought. 

The upgrade means that area is now even more susceptible to problems with ground water shortages and dry irrigation ponds. Trees would be drier and more brittle, too, making them more susceptible to burning up in a wildfire. 

FORECAST

We still seem to have an anti-rain force field over the Northeast that shows no signs of going away. A fairly narrow zone across the Northeast between western New York and Pennsylvania and eastern Maine looks like they'll have very little rain over the next seven days. 

Any place that gets a quarter inch in that time period will be lucky. Most places will see less. 

I guess we're going to keep seeing news of wildfires, even as winter rapidly closes in. 

Anti-Rain Force Field Over Northern New England Getting Ridiculous

A map from the National Weather Service in South
Burlington show that many of us are four to six 
inches behind on precipitation over the last 180 days.
Prospects for rain this week are discouraging. 

 It almost seems as if it will never rain again in Vermont. Especially northern areas of the state.

The drought seems to be spiraling out of control.  

Every time rain makes a run at us, something in the weather pattern blocks it. 

On Sunday, a wet weather front to the southwest wanted to make a go at us, but stalled out in New York and far southwestern New England.

Part of the cause?  A dry, backdoor cold front from the northeast pushed back at the rain, preventing it from reaching us. 

Yet another disturbance from the west is going to getting shunted to our south Wednesday, just as several storms have this month.

Finally, at the end of the week, it looks like a nor'easter might take shape.  But, instead of a nice northward movement that would wet down all of New England, early indications are it might take a sharp turn eastward, which would keep northern New England dry. 

The National Weather Service in South Burlington said at present, that nor'easter will create a sharp line between wet and possibly snowy weather in southeastern Vermont and continued dry conditions north and west.

It's getting disturbing working in the gardens, prepping them for the season and stirring up so much dust. Usually, garden work this time of year is a rather muddy affair. 

NWS South Burlington put out a map today, pictured in this post, that shows many of us are four to seven inches behind in precipitation over the past 180 days.  That's a lot of ground to make up, and the dry, dry forecast doesn't make things better.

It doesn't help that it's generally been much sunnier and warmer than average since mid-March.  This kind of weather makes evaporation quicker and more efficient. 

In a month or so, we'll start getting into the season when rain starts becoming more hit and miss, rather than those steady spring storms that create a steady rain over the whole area.

Plus, those late spring and summer hit and miss rains tend to come in quick downpours rather than hours-long steady drenchings. Those quick downpours largely run off before they have a chance to fully soak into the ground. 

Unless the weather pattern changes dramatically and soon, we're in for a long, dry summer in Vermont.