Now, Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Autumn

A map of temperatures yesterday showing
readings that you don't ever see in
late September, until now. 

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

Early this morning in St. Albans, Vermont, I took the dogs outside and was hit by a cool, refreshing  northwest breeze.

It felt like autumn, which makes sense, because it is.

But that epic heat wave we had was beginning to make me think that normal weather had been revoked.

Now we can sum up the unprecedented heat wave that hit Vermont and the rest of the Northeast and Great Lakes region, along with southeastern Canada, and just marvel.

In Burlington, Vermont, there were four consecutive days in the 90s. These past few days were the latest, second latest, third latest and fourth latest 90 degree readings on record.

This is only the second September in Burlington records that go back to 1884 in which there were four days in the 90s. The other one was in 1945, but those 90 degree readings were near the beginning of the month.

It was also 90 degrees Tuesday in St. Johnsbury, the latest 90 degree reading there on record.

By the way, it was hotter in Vermont the past few days than it was in Phoenix, Arizona.

Elsewhere, it was more of the same. Grand Rapids, Michigan had six days in a row in the 90s. That city has had only two other stretches of 90 degree weather that lasted six days - in July, 2012 and July, 1936. Notice that those spells of Grand Rapids heat were in July and not the end of September.

Chicago has seven straight days of 90 degree heat, the longest stretch since July, 1988. Again note that the 1988 streak was in the middle of summer, not autumn.

Other cities that  had their latest 90s on record were Buffalo, New York (90 degrees); Milwaukee, (95 degrees) and Ottawa, Canada (91 degrees).

Atop normally frigid Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, there were four days in a row in the 60s, and 11 days in September got to 60 or more. That's the most on record for Mount Washington.

I have to say that this is the kind of extremes we can expect more frequently as global warming continues apace.

Back here in Vermont, temperatures might actually be a bit below normal over the next couple of days as cold north winds, and variably cloudy skies keep temperatures down. There could even be a bit of frost in the cold hollows, but most of us have nothing to worry about in the frost and freeze department.

There might be a couple light showers around toward Friday and Friday night,  but don't count on it. Even if it does rain, it will hardly amount to anything.

Which is too bad. We really do need the rain. Burlington, for instance, hasn't had a drop of precipitation since September 9.

Next week looks dry, too and we're going to warm up again as the big heat ridge re-establishes itself. It won't be nearly as hot as it's been in the past few days, but we could get up to 80 degrees by the middle of next week.

The heat ridge might focus on the Great Lakes and upper Plains next week, where more record high temperatures are likely next week.