Every Summer Is Hot Now in Vermont, Pretty Much

A refreshing, cool summer day on Lake Champlain in
Shelburne a few years ago. Such nice weather
is geting rare in our increasingly hot
Vermont summers

It looks like we're experiencing another hot summer here in Vermont.

After a big heat wave in late June, followed by not as hot, but still muggy weather in the past week, foreasts call for another long hot spell in the upcoming week. We're in for more 90 degree weather, folks.

I guess we should be used to it now.   I checked records from the National Weather Service office in South Burlington this morning. Turns out, the last cooler than average summer in Burlington was way back in 2009 - eleven years ago. That summer wasn't all that cool, either: It was just 0.9 degrees south of the average

In those eleven years since 2009, some summers were only a little warmer than average while others were much  hotter. Four of the top ten hottest summers in Burlington have happened since 2005.

Two years ago, 2018, we had our second hottest summer with a mean temperature of 72.1 degrees. That's just 0.1 degrees off the all time record set in 1949.

We're talking climatological summer, by the way. That's the period from June 1 through August 31.

The last time we had a cooler than average summer month was in June, 2015, which was close to one degree cooler than average. The rest of that summer was definitely on the warm side, so that kept the hot summer streak going.

There is a caveat here.  I didn't get a chance to take a look at some other towns and cities in Vermont. Burlington seems to run  hotter than other towns.  Summers that were only slightly warm in Burlington, like 2017, might actually have been marginally cooler than average in places like Montpelier and St. Johnsbury.  I'll have to check.

The number of 90-degree days in Burlington seems to be on the upswing, too. So far this year, we've had ten such days, double the average for an entire year.

There were eight such days in 2019; sixteen of them in 2018;  eight in 2017 and twelve of them in 2016, for instance.

For those of you wondering if this increased Vermont heat is caused by climate change, I would say global warming has a hand in it.  It's possible natural cycles were involved too, but in all likelihood climate change gave this increased tendency toward heat an extra boost.

The bottom line here is that Vermont's reputation as a nice cool summertime retreat has taken a bit of a hit.  It's still a lot more refreshing here, than say, Miami. However, the Green Mountain State is not quite as naturally air conditioned as it once was.