My Idea Of A Perfect Storm Seriously Dents Drought, At Least You'd Think

It's hard to see here, but a small brook running past my St. Albans, Vermont
house now has a tiny trickle of water running in it for the first
time since June. We had a bunch of welcome rain this week.

In late October, 1991, the Northeast and southeastern Canada were battered by the "The Perfect Storm." That was the one made famous in the book by Sebastian Junger and the subsequent movie about the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat that sank in the storm, taking six lives.

The Perfect Storm was so named because a variety of atmospheric conditions aligned just perfectly to create a worst-case scenario storm. Those conditions came together just right to make the storm as powerful as could be. 

I certainly don't mean to trivialize the destruction from that 1991 storm. But I want to contrast that with what we got this week here in northern Vermont. It was a perfect storm, but quite the opposite of the 1991 disaster.

Things came together just perfectly to give us the type of rain that was wonderfully designed to partly erase a persistent drought over the North Country.

The drought isn't over, not by a long shot, but the storm helped, at least I think. People who monitor these dry conditions are still waiting to see how much of the recent rains percolate into the earth.

Still, I'm calling Tuesday's wet weather a perfect drought busting storm because the rain fell mostly lightly to moderately over the course of more than a day. Sure, there were a few quick downpours, but most of the time it was steady as she goes. This allowed rain to soak into the soil rather than running off.

Rainfall amounts were in the one to two inch range, with as much as 2.68 inches reported in Johnson. This was probably the most widespread and generous rain we've gotten since early spring. It was also  arguably the first one since spring in which rain fell consistently and over many hours, instead of short, sharp bursts.

Meanwhile, trees are heading toward winter dormancy, so they are taking up dramatically less water than in the summer. That will help retain what moisture there is in the ground.

There's no way a single storm can erase a dry spell. True, a brook by my house in St. Albans, Vermont is running just a bit for the first time since May. But the flow in this brook is barely a trickle. Digging a few inches into the soil yielded some very dry earth. We still need a bunch of rain.

The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources is keeping tabs on the drought. Says the agency in a release:

"The state is asking Vermonters to report low or dry well using a newly-created crowd sourced drought map. The map collects data on where water supply shortages are occurring, serving as an early warning system. This information helps the State to recommend conservation practices early in a drought event, potentially avoiding widespread water outages for others in the same area. The data also helps identify areas of concern or areas with repeated outages. This can lead to improved planning and development of future sustainable water supplies for both private and public systems."

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor came out today as it does every Thursday. It shows no improvement in the drought conditions in northern Vermont, but also shows no worsening. It's pretty much a steady state since last week at least.

Today's Drought Monitor won't fully take into account the rain that fell Tuesday, so next week's report could show some improvement.

Moving forward, there's unfortunately not a lot of rain in the forecast, but we'll get some. A band of showers along a cold front today will dump a tenth to a quarter inch of rain on us. We'll take what we can get.

A few scattered showers are in the offing over the weekend, but they won't amount to much.

There is still time to get more drenching rains before winter, and that would be great. Forecasting beyond a week is tough, so I won't speculate on that. But if we get a few more soaking rains like we had on Tuesday before the ground freezes, we'll be in great shape heading into the winter.