Very Warm, Increasingly Wet September Gives Way To Welcome October Rain

A fallen autumn leaf rests in a rain puddle in St. Albans, Vermont this morning
Although it has stayed generally warm, the weather pattern has gone
from dry to wet, chipping away at a northern Vermont drought.

I awoke this morning to the sound of a drenching rain pattering on my standing seam roof in St. Albans, Vermont. It was another welcome installment to a weather pattern I'd hoped for much of the summer: One that involves a wet autumn.  

This rain is putting a real dent in the drought that has been in place in northern Vermont for months.

I don't know if the rainy pattern will last the rest of the autumn, but this week looks wet, which is nice. Those of you in southern Vermont have had a wetter summer and early fall, so the rain probably doesn't make that much of a difference to you.

We're coming off a September that, like the previous two months, was incredibly warm. September, 2018 in Burlington came out at the second warmest on record, with a mean temperature of 65.8 degrees.  July and August were both the hottest on record in Burlington.

As far as Burlington's Septembers go, only 2015 was hotter, with a mean temperature of 65.7.  All this means that the past four consecutive Septembers were the top 3 hottest on record in Burlington. (The years 2016 and 2017 were tied for third place). This is an incredible streak of hot Septembers. Very weird.

After a coolish first couple of days, October looks to temporarily become warm again, as a strong ridge of warm high pressure is likely to press northward in about a week, giving us a chance at some near record high temperatures then.

September, 2018 was just a little on the wet side, thanks mostly to repeated rainstorms in the closing ten days of the month. More than half of the 4.2 inches of rain that fell in Burlington came in those final ten days.

As I said, October is opening wet. A solid west -to-east band of rain that was giving northern Vermont a nice drenching this morning will slip south, largely ending the rain this afternoon and keeping us on the cool side of a wavering weather front to our south.

That front will make a run at us as a warm front tomorrow, which means we're in for another soaking.  Between today and tomorrow, most of us should see about an inch of rain. Normal amounts of rain for the entire month of October is a little over three inches, so we're off to quite a start.

It looks like we'll get more rain Thursday and Thursday night, and possibly some over the weekend. Other than the potential warm temperatures in about a week, I have no idea if we'll keep getting rain as October moves forward.