Believe It Or Not, Vermont's September Was Really Wet, And A Bit Cool

Given how many gorgeous days we had in September, (and now continuing into October!) I was surprised when I looked at the climate data for Burlington, Vermont and found the months was quite wet, and a wee bit on the cool side.

A sunflower enjoyed a very pleasant day in
St. Albans, Vermont in early September.  

For the record, we had 4.74 inches of rain in September, which is about 1.1 inches above normal. That's nowhere near the record wet September of just over 10 inches in 1999, but still, a bit soggy.

The mean temperature came in at 60.2 degrees, just a fraction of a degree cooler than normal

So how does a month that seemed so incredibly pleasant when you stepped outside the door turn out to be mediocre at best on paper?

A few brief extremes did it to us. At midmonth, we had a series of torrential showers and thunderstorms, which really upped the rainfall total. You might remember on September 11 there were severe thunderstorms, too, which knocked down a bunch of trees and pelted a few of us with golf ball sized hailstones.

Much of the rain during September seemed to fall late at night, so we didn't notice it as much.

Downed trees and power lines after a severe, torrential
 thunderstorm in Bristol, Vermont on September 11  

Right before those September 11 thunderstorms, the temperature in Burlington got up to 91 degrees,  which is the latest 90 degree reading I can remember in recent decades.

However, there were some fairly impressive cool spells, including the morning of the 17th, when Burlington's low temperature of 35 degrees missed the record low for the date by just one degree.

And on September 23, the high temperature made it up to only 51 degrees, a type of day you'd see around Halloween, not near the first day of autumn.

 But the sun was out on many days, even the cool ones, so that made things seem warmer and drier. And that's OK.

Let's hope October at least feels just as pleasant, even if the numbers tell us otherwise.