Review: Vermont's Wicked Nov. 1 Windstorm, And A Very Warm October

Now that Vermont's late autumn, November weather has reverted back to its dismal normal (overcast, damp, cold, blah),  let's wrap up yesterday's pretty wild windstorm and take a look back at what was a beautiful October.

Trees, lit up by a golden setting sun, bend in wind
gusts that reached about 50 mph in my
St. Albans, Vermont yard on Friday.  

First the storm. As windstorms go, this wasn't exactly the worst nature can throw at Vermont, but it was still pretty intense. We had gusts of up to 73 mph in Stowe, and 52 mph in Johnson. Many places gusted close to 50 mph.

At my house, I don't have a good wind gauge, but I'm on an exposed hill facing southwest, the direction from which the wind was coming.

I'd say the highest gusts were in the 50 to 55 mph range.  Most places in Vermont are a bit more protected from southwest winds, so the 45-50 mph gusts elsewhere make sense.

The storm caused a fair amount of minor damage in Vermont, mostly in the form of downed branches, a few toppled trees and some occasional power outages.

The storm brought a quick shot of warm air. Burlington on Friday tied the record high for the date of 71 degrees, first set in 1950.

Of course, anyone who has stepped outside this Saturday knows it's already back to reality. And this note: Many areas of northern Vermont will probably get a slight dusting of snow tonight. Nothing that odd for early November, but I'm just sayin'

That potential snow tonight is probably a bit shocking because it comes after one of the most pleasant Octobers I can remember in the 51 years I've lived in Vermont.

The average temperature in Burlington, Vermont during October was 51.7 degrees, or 3.6 degrees warmer than normal.

For the first three weeks of the month, we had been on pace to see an October that was among the five warmest on record. But the final week of the month was colder than normal, so we only managed a warm October, not one that reaches the Top 10 list of warmest.

Precipitation came to 2.59 inches in Burlington, about an inch below normal. That's OK, because we certainly weren't suffering from a drought, we did manage to get some rain, and the lack of storminess meant quite a few sunny, pleasant days to enjoy the foliage.

Yeah, the foliage that you might have been trying to rake up today, while getting colder and colder, wetter and wetter in the process.

I offer no promises or threats as to what the weather in November, or the upcoming winter will be like. Most of the those long range predictions are wrong anyway.