A Welcome Rinse, And Then A Hot Repeat ThIs Afternoon

I awoke to the delicious sound this morning of rain drumming on the roof of my St. Albans, Vermont house.

The weather deck of our place in St. Albans, Vermont was tropical
humid and wet this morning after some welcome showers.
More heat, humidity the rest of the day, into tomorrow, I'm afraid. 

I've been constantly whining about too-dry weather in Vermont since May, so this nice round of downpours will shut me up for a little while.

I'll still cry about the hot weather - more on that in a minute - but this was one of the better rains of the summer.  

That's not saying much, but I'll take it.

The showers were mostly focused along and north of Route 2, so the southern half to two thirds of Vermont missed out.  But the showers this morning were widespread, and many areas got a few hours of rain, sometimes heavy.

As of 8 a.m., Burlington had received just over a half inch of rain. That's not exactly an incredible amount, but still manages to make this the wettest day of the month.

The showers were clearing out by mid-morning, setting me up for my hot weather whine.

We all felt the humidity, even during those showers. The weather disturbance that caused them is zipping off to our east.  The air mass hasn't changed since yesterday, except for the fact that it's even more humid than it was on Sunday.

Today will be the 32nd consecutive day in Burlington in which the temperature has not fallen below 60 degrees. Only one other year, back in 1898, had a longer streak, with 37 such days.   Also, Burlington got above 90 degrees yesterday for the 16th time this year.

Hot summer, anyone?

Before the next weather disturbance in the pipeline comes through, it looks like we will get at least some sunshine, so once again, the warmer valleys will probably hit 90 degrees.

Heat advisories are up for the valleys of western Vermont from north of Burlington to Massachusetts, and for the Connecticut River Valley from Brattleboro to north of White River Jumction. Between the hot air and the humidity, the heat index will be between 95 and 100 degrees.

The rest of Vermont won't quite meet the criteria for a heat advisory, but it will still be damn uncomfortable.

Another one of those pesky weather disturbances will approach us this afternoon.  Combined with the hot, humid air, scattered thunderstorms will erupt very nicely.  Of course, the word "scattered" should tell you 1. Your weather reporter here has a scattered brain and 2. Only some of us will get a storm.

A small minority of these storms could contain strong gusty winds and torrential downpours. Northern Vermont, along with northern New Hampshire, northern and western New York and most of Maine, are in a marginal risk zone for severe storms today. 

That means there will probably some isolated, rather short-lived episodes of severe storms here and there today.   It's possible some of the area might be bumped up to the next level of risk, called "slight" but that just means a slightly greater coverage of severe storms. This potential upgrade is just speculation on my part. to be honest.

An alleged cold front is coming through tomorrow, but don't break out those ski parkas.  Just like a cold front exactly a week earlier, any cooler air will lag far behind the front, so Tuesday will be another very warm, humid day. Some 90s might pop up again in southeastern Vermont. Southern New England will flirt with 100 degrees in spots.

On the bright side, you'll start to notice the humidity come down late in the day, especially north and west.

Then we get another round of average summer weather, just like we did during the second half of last week.  Another rinse and repeat.

Except after today, there won't be much rinsing in Vermont.  Scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible daily Tuesday through Thursday, but don't hold your breath.  It will trend drier and warm by next weekend.

As we head into early August, it looks like we might go back into an above normal temperature/below normal rainfall regime again.  Time will tell.

Unlike some chilly seasons in the rather distant past, this will be another year in which we Vermonters won't feel cheated out of a summer.

We're now just past the meteorological midpoint of summer, and temperatures will start falling soon enough.  In just five or six months, on some dark and frigid winter day, we will be looking back on this month's high heat and humidity with some real fondness.