Not 100 Degrees, Here's Why (But Still Plenty Hot!)

It's still hot, so I'll try again to cool you off with a winter
photo of my St. Albans, Vermont driveway. 

Burlington, Vermont fell well short of the speculated 100 degree reading many of us were contemplating on Sunday.

Things have to line up just perfectly to reach the triple digits during Burlington heat waves and they assuredly did NOT line up correctly on Sunday.

It's only gotten to 100 degrees four times in the past 150 years or so in Burlington, so it's a pretty high bar to cross.

If the atmosphere is hot enough for 100 degrees, you're not actually going to get there in  Vermont unless you have full sunshine.  We didn't have that on Sunday

The writing almost seemed on the wall by early to mid morning Sunday.   A dying complex of shower and storms up in Quebec sent some clouds across the northern half of Vermont that didn't clear out unti mid-mid morning.

That delayed the days warming and put us behind schedule to reach that magic triple digit figure.

We had a few hours of full sunshine that brought temperatures up above 90 by shortly after noon.  However, a powerful line of thunderstorms in southern Ontario had blossomed and blew a veil of high, thin clouds our way, starting in the early afternoon.

The clouds dimmed the sun, preventing it from fully heating us.  Burlington "only" reached 95 degrees. It wasn't even quite the hottest day this summer, but it was pretty damn hot by anyone's standard

Burlington fell short of the record high for the date, which was 98 degrees. However, St. Johnsbury broke their record high, reaching 95 degrees besting the town's old record for the date of 93.  Montpelier tied its record high of 91, and Springfield in Vermont's southeast tied its record high of 92.

RAIN MOSTLY MISSES, AGAIN

It was interesting to see the Champlain Valley's 2020 anti-rain force field in action yesterday. That powerful line of storms in Ontario basically went "poof" on its way here.  In the tragic remnants of that line of storms, a new batch of storms formed in northwestern New York, prompting severe thunderstorm warnings in the Adirondacks.

That line fell apart on the way to the Champlain Valley so we only got light showers. More storms then redeveloped east of the Champlain Valley.

A small local downpour did go over my house early this morning.  I guess the anti-rain force field was taking a pre-dawn nap. Between light showers last evening and a 4 a.m. - ish  downpour, I collected a respectable 0.7 inches of rain in St. Albans.  Burlington could only muster 0.07 inches.

STILL A HOT SUMMER

We've got one more hot one to go today.  A cold front has gone through, but you wouldn't know it.  It's still hot and muggy.  There's a slight chance Burlington could reach 90 degrees again today, but it most likely will be well into the 80s instead.

Somewhat cooler, but still warmish weather will continue the rest of the week.

So far this summer in Burlington, it's gotten to at least 95 degrees six times.  The record for the most such days is nine, in 1944 followed by eight in 2018.

Burlington has had 14 days in which it got to 90 or better so far this year, The most in a single year is 26.

Sunday was the 24th consecutive day in which the temperature failed to drop below 60 degrees in Burlington. The record is 30 such days in 1988.  I don't think we'll break that record because I suspect we might have a couple days this week in which it'll go into the upper 50s at night.

For what they're worth, the long range forecasts don't really promise us any strong Canadian cold fronts anytime soon. The 8 to 14 day outlook calls for continued generally warmer than average weather for us into the first days of August.